Medium-High end laptops have almost the same performance as desktops. Trading with them is no problem at all. You can add up to 3 monitors (in addition to the laptop's display) with Matrox TripleHead2Go. See Matrox site.
Dell has sales all the time for about $750-$800, including either a 19" or 20" LCD. You might want to add a bit more RAM and pick up a used dualhead card on eBay.... High horsepower machine for <$1K. Just make sure the mobo has enough slots... they're not all the same.
I'm with you on this... Dell 8300, P4, 2.8Ghz, 1G RAM, 120G HD, XP Pro, video cards for 4 monitors.... about $500 on eBay.
It is interesting to see that most people who have been trading for a while and are successful at it, run "regular" computers. No $10.000 monsters hooked up to dozen monitors trailing 100s of markets. Interesting
I put my own together also. Chrome plated steel case, M/B panel removes, Enermax power supply 550watts, P4 3.2 Ghz cpu, throw away the ECS M/B that came with the chip and got nice Asus. 2G Corsair ram, 2 sata WD caviar HD's, 2 dual video cards. Extra case fans, airflow cables etc, XP pro. All bought on sale at Fry's or newegg. I probably have about $800 in it, I wouldn't spend over 1k on a trading set up. Agree with Gnome et al, Dell/ ebay is plenty for trading rig. It's interesting how many think they need a Ferrari to go to the grocery store.
After researching the whole day for a new pc and internet provider, I find this thread. Hmmph! Wish I seen this thread first. Thanks. Also quite surprised to see people use Dell. I thought Dell was inferior to HP. Have always used HP but every 2 years I seem to change PC/laptop whether I use it or use it not. (usually the monitor's fault). Maybe my new one should be a Dell after all I seem to be able to get them cheaper.
There are lots of Dell haters. Some don't like the inability to overclock, but anyone with such intentions already knows this and buys something else. Lots don't like their often ragged technical support.... and that is a legitimate gripe. Nevertheless, all of their parts are "off the shelf" except mobo and case.... those are proprietary (and you can't easily find replacement PSUs without a power switch like Dell uses, but otherwise they are ATX standard). Years ago I thought, "I'll never own a Dell". Then once when I was in the market for an upgrade, Dell had "an offer I couldn't refuse". Bought it. Liked it. Have bought 5 others since.... still have 3 of them, all running perfectly. (Sold the other 2 while they were running perfectly.) In the 6 years I've owned Dells, the only failure was of a CD-ROM. It was still under warranty and Dell replaced it in a timely fashion. Those who complain about Dell's computers from a hardware perspective are basically all wet!
Of the 30 machines I had the pleasure of buying over the lpast 10 years, Dell was the ONLY one that never gave me any problems. That speaks for itself.
Hmmmm..Technical support lacking for Dell---yes. That's a big concern of mine as I'm not technical savy. But on the other hand, I'm getting rather fed up of having to spend thousands every 2 years for a new laptop. Not to say, at times having to change the printer as well. I initially thought that it was because I use it very seldom and that's why my monitor spoiled (ie black/blank screen) when I on the PC. But now, my monitor seems to be spoiling also although I am basically using it every day. Anybody knows whether this is a more common problem with HP rather than Dell or this problem is more common with laptops rather than desktops? Thanks. (After all, I have used much older versions of desktops at work and I've never encountered these problems with desktops) but with my own laptops, I keep encountering these problems even when they are way newer versions.
You might want to consider a back up power supply too. As a trader, it's always good to expect the unexpected.