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$500 Laptop?
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Professional Poster
Join Date: Jul 2003
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A friend is going to get a laptop tomorrow but she doesn't know anything about computers. She says that she'll either get a dell or a compaq. She doesn't know the specs off hand so I can't tell her what to get. I am hoping that some of you that do use PCs can recommend something decent. Her limit is $500 so that leaves out macs.
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Admin Emeritus  Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Zurich, Switzerland
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There aren't exactly a whole lot of options at that price, and they're not gonna be too different from each other: low-res screen, loud, heavy, small HD, 256MB RAM.
tooki
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Addicted to MacNN  Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: Cooperstown '09
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Originally Posted by demograph68
Yes, unless she is a graphic designer or something.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: South of the Mason-Dixon line
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Originally Posted by demograph68
not too shabby.
comes with a free printer.
I couldn't find the price of the 53WH extended battery pack. So figure on 2hrs of life from the standard battery pack (29WattHour). The extended battery would get you close to four hours. The Celeron M, single SODIMM of RAM, & the weak GPU are easy on batteries. If you wanted to carry the extra battery pack, you'd be good for 5 or 6 hours.
For $50 more you can get a 15" screen by stepping up to the next model.
the biggest downside is the graphics processing chip. although it won't be a problem unless you intend to play games. The Celeron M is very useable and relatively snappy for websurfing, email, and most office apps. Even the standard 256MB RAM should be sufficient for WinXP (allowing 120MB for the OS, 32MB for shared video, and the remainder for applications).
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Last edited by Spliffdaddy; Dec 3, 2005 at 12:49 AM.
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Posting Junkie
Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: Houston, TX
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Originally Posted by demograph68
The good: The screen is good (can display 720p HD content, almost as many pixels as the old 15" PowerBook), Combo drive and 40GB are included.
The bad: Standard battery will probably only last about 90-120 minutes and its 6.4lb (but it's only as thick as an iBook).
Sometimes Dell offers seemingly stupid deals like $750 off laptops $1250 and higher, but they're rare and if she's buying tomorrow she's unlikely to see one. Two days ago they had the laptop you linked to for $385 + $49 shipping. Sometimes the Small biz store has better deals than the home store, and they don't really care if you're a small biz (a sale is a sale).
Try the Dell holiday gift thing... you can usually get $35 or $50 off, so she could get a $549 laptop.
Also take a look at the Outlet Store for refurbs and "previously ordered new" (which is something other than a refurb, but I can't figure out what it means).
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Last edited by mduell; Dec 3, 2005 at 12:52 AM.
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