[ire]

The wife and I both need new laptops so we figured we would spend our stimulus check on two new laptops (ya know, the patriotic thing to do and all). I’ve been looking around on the net, and we went into Best Buy, and it seems like Best Buy had some good deals on Dell and HP laptops. We don’t need anything super powerful, it just needs to be capable of cruising the net and running Office. I’ve heard that Vista is a hog, how much RAM would we need? Is 2gig enough? A lot of cheap laptops have 5400rpm hard drives, will it be noticeably slower than a 7200 rpm? Wireless 802.11b is a must, along with Ethernet port

 

[$tinkle]

http://bensbargains.net/merchants/91/Lenovo-Coupons/

expiry today. you no like, keep checking bensbargains until something pops up.

i'm a strong believer in getting 95% on target very quickly. remember the narlus thread that dragged on for a month or two when he was building his pc? painful to watch, but i guess understandable b/c he had very specific needs.

oh, i think you mean 802.11g, not b (you could wait for 'n')

 

[sperkins]

dells are great and very dependable. avoid vista! but i am not sure how cheap that you can get one without vista...

 

[valve bouncer]

dells are great and very dependable. avoid vista! but i am not sure how cheap that you can get one without vista...

As far as I knbow Dell is still offering XP on some models. Had a bit of a look at the US site as there were some things I couldn't read on the Japanese site and it seemed like XP wouldn't be a prob. The discounts for various small business people and education professionals were impressive.

 

[ire]

oh, i think you mean 802.11g, not b (you could wait for 'n')

nah, I just need b my router is old. I'll keep checking that link

<edit> Those laptops aren't bad deals and I can get XP Pro with em

 

[berkshire_rider]

I've been running Vista Home Premium on a Compaq laptop from BB for over a year now with zero issues - on 1gig of ram. I am going to upgrade it to 2gb solely to reduce the boot times. If you go with Vista, just turn of Aero and any other crap you don't need and you'll be fine.

The UAC can be annoying when installing/upgrading programs, but you can disable it if don't want to use it.

Vista is fine for home, everyday use.
$.02

 

[2xplosive]

if you want the trusted service then get a dell. Overnight shipping, $100 replacement warranty, Sexy looks. Just dont get a custom colored one or you will be waiting for a few weeks

 

[ire]

Thanks for all of the help; I've been shopping around for a while and the wife and I ended up buying two laptops last night. We bought a Gateway and HP tablet PC. I've been skeptical about the tablets, but after I played with it I was sold; the tablet is small, and fun to use.

Gateway:
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/125525/Widescreen-Notebook-Computer-With-Processor-T2370/

HP:
http://www.officedepot.com/a/products/405395/HP-Pavilion-tx1499us-Widescreen-Notebook-Computer/

We paid $550 for the Gateway and $699 for the HP (after mail in rebates). The Gateway was a smoking deal