Cheapass laptop?

cletus

cletus

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My mom asked me to get her a laptop for her birthday later this month. She was the type of person that didn't even know how to use the scroll bar until I explained it to her. Needless to say, I don't need anything top of the line or expensive. It does need to come with wireless built in though. Oh, and it can't be a complete piece of crap but I guess that goes without saying. You can probably tell how much(little) I'm looking to spend on this.

Anyone know of any good deals? I've never bought a laptop so I'm not sure where to look or what to look for. Is 512mb memory the standard or to low? What's the average size for laptop screens nowadays?

I'm also thought of buying a used one off Craigslist. I'm not really comfortable with that though since I don't know what to watch out for in a used laptop. If this would be the cheaper route then can you give me some advice? I prefer to know what I'm doing before I buy something online from a complete stranger.
 
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This is probably the cheapest you will find and not a Piece of crap.

http://shop2.outpost.com/product/5379158?site=sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

499.


Toshiba
Microprocessor : AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Processor TK-55 1.8Ghz
Microprocessor Cache : 512KB L2 Cache, HyperTransport Technology @ up to 800MHz
Memory : 1024MB PC5300 DDR2 SDRAM (both memory slots may be occupied).
Video Graphics : ATI Radeon™ Xpress X1200 128MB-319MB dynamically allocated shared graphics memory
Video Memory : 128MB-319MB
Hard Drive : 80GB (5400 RPM); Serial ATA hard disk drive
Multimedia Drive : DVD SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) drive
Display : 15.4" diagonal widescreen TruBrite® TFT LCD display at 1280x800 native resolution (WXGA)
Wireless Connectivity : Realtek 802.11b/g wireless-LAN
Operating System: Windows Vista® Home Premium
 
I got my Dell Inspiron from the Dell Outlet (refurbished) for a little over $500 after tax and shipping. Thing works great for me for what I need it for, and I'm a pretty savvy computer user. (i.e. I never planned on playing games on it, but for a college laptop it does what I need just fine) It was labeled as a "Scratch and Dent", but when I got it, the only blemish I could see was a tiny little glue-like drop on one of the number keys, hardly noticible. I've beat it up plenty since then.

They may be cheaper now too--I got mine before the 1520 Inspirons started becoming mass-marketed. Mine is a 1501--if those are still available you're in good shape. My only beef was it came with Vista Basic, but I upgraded that to Business through my college, and seeing that Vista didn't work with their Wifi network at the time, dual-booted with XP and have been using XP ever since, even though Vista now works with the Wi-fi.

...only issue there is the smallish HDD, but for your mother it should be fine.
 
Thanks for the advice guys. I showed this thread to my mom and told her we can wait until Black Friday to get one. Of course then I had to explain what Black Friday was but that's another story.

Ivanhoe, I'll keep checking that link for that laptop. Right now it's sold out but if they ever get more I just might buy it.
 
yeah i'm gonna be picking up the Asus Eee around christmas i hope
specs aren't spectactualar, but the size of it has me convinced it's worthy of a purchase :p
 
The Wal-Mart sale has come and gone.

I don't know what model ASUS you're looking at but I'll recommend the brand. My dad bought a somewhat expensive ASUS laptop about a year ago only to have it completely ruined when our basement flooded about a month later. He sent it back to ASUS and they quoted him almost $1000 to fix it. He basically told them that he couldn't afford that and asked if they could sell him a refurb at their cost or something like that. Out of the blue they told him they were going to repair it free of charge. Amazing.
 
[quote name='cletus']Thanks for the advice guys. I showed this thread to my mom and told her we can wait until Black Friday to get one. Of course then I had to explain what Black Friday was but that's another story.

Ivanhoe, I'll keep checking that link for that laptop. Right now it's sold out but if they ever get more I just might buy it.[/QUOTE]


Wow that was fast.
It was instock when i posted.
I was thinking of buying it for a replacement laptop for myself...


damn.
 
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