Looking for the cheapest laptop/netbook that can play dvds and that I can hook to a digital projector for movie nights. Are the cheep $300-$400 netbooks good enough to do this?
Cheapest Laptop to use for projecting images and movies
Lbenjamin on 16/11/2009 - 13:44
Comments
I would definately look at this deal. its below $400 and with teh cashback a really good offer.
http://www.mln.com.au/product/?itemID=750&typeID=
Good deal for a netbook but I still think a straight DVD player is a much better fit for ben's scenario. That netbook will need it's own external dvd anyway.
why not just buy a multi-zone dvd player? for $60?
Most netbooks 10" and smaller will not have a DVD so you will need an external USB one, but once you have that it should work fine, as my 10" Atom N280 model does. Also, if you're only going to use it for the odd DVD then even most 2nd hand laptops should work fine.
Are you sure however that it's not easier and chepaer to just get a $40 DVD player to hook up to the projector? Most projectors are bound to have composite video or S-Video… both of which will go with any old DVD player. If your projector has S-Video but not composite then just get a cable such as these:
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.4723
http://www.focalprice.com/CA052B/4_Pin_SVideo_TV_to_RCA_AV_C…
If your projector doesn't have composite video or s-video then you could also look at a more expensive dvd player with VGA or HDMI.
The only concern with using a standard DVD player however is the sound. Does the projector have speakers, or were you going to use the laptop's speakers? There are of course many other options as far as speakers, so I assume you had something in place to take care of the audio?