Best laptop deals, a February '08 refresher

[rudinreader]

A few days ago I ordered a vostro 1000 with 1GB of memory, 120GB hard disk, with XP Home

It seems they just changed the page: http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/vostronb_1000?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&~tab=bundlestab .

At first it looked like you can't get XP Home anymore at $399, as if they will charge $449 now for that, but when I clicked "customize it" on the $399 model, it still allows you to choose XP Home.

Starting at $399, you can upgrade the memory from 512MB to 1GB for $25, and it's well worth it. By default you get 80GB hard drive. If you add another $25, you can upgrade to 120GB hard drive, and then you are basically getting the $449 model, but that's not an essential upgrade like the memory unless you really need an extra 40GB and you don't have an external drive or other usb storage device.

This seems to be a very linux friendly machine (although I haven't tried it ..yet). If you want dual boot (perhaps for linux) when you reinstall windows you will find that the driver disk that comes with the machine is worthless, even for the wifi/ethernet. So you will need another machine to download the vostro 1000 drivers (can call technical support for help finding the specific drivers), and you will be pretty much set.

I don't know how Vista runs on the machine, but that was the point, I wanted XP. So I can only gauge that XP runs very fast/efficient on the AMD sempron. You can also customize with other processors, AMD athlon dual core $70, and others that are $170+. But for a non gamer like me, that's kind of expensive and nonessential, taking away from the great price at $425 (since you would be unwise not to double your memory just to save $25).

\\P.S. a 1-year mail in hardward warranty comes with the price. Other (such as 3-year, or accident/drop and break) warranties are not included in the price.

Now that I have two of them, I am happy to point the deal out to others without fear of my order getting delayed.

Anyone else recently get a good laptop deal? I would be curious just to know what the notebook market is looking like.. even though I'm already set for near future.

 

[binzing]

Sorry, I just don't like Dells, although I've heard they're pretty good. I've heard that Gateway is absolute crap?

 

[rudinreader]

My previous laptop was a Toshiba, and when I started using dell the thing I hated most was where the "home" and "end" buttons are located on the keyboard.. But after a couple of weeks I got used to it (it doesn't bother me anymore).

I think the vostro 1000 is ideal for XP SP2 users with perhaps linux dual boot, because my impression is that computers (even the slowest models) don't differ much (side from the outside appearance) anymore on XP... it could be there is a significant difference on Vista..

One thing I don't like on XP notebooks is the japanese factory installed software (sony, toshiba) like the "hardware tuning", etc.. and also the inevitable 30 day Norton Antivirus Trial..

One of the best things about the dell is that you can choose to have NONE of that extra stuff -- even adobe acrobat reader -- installed on the machine.. Just boilerplate XP, and must download drivers if you reinstall.

 

[mgb_phys]

My previous laptop was a Toshiba, and when I started using dell the thing I hated most was where the "home" and "end" buttons are located on the keyboard..

Actually that's Toshiba - they are notorious for putting the windows key in weird places - Dell is standard

One of the best things about the dell is that you can choose to have NONE of that extra stuff -- even adobe acrobat reader -- installed on the machine.. Just boilerplate XP, and must download drivers if you reinstall.

Always wipe the machine when I get it - the nice thing about dell is that you put your service tag in the website and you get the exact correct set of drivers for your machine.

 

[rudinreader]

Just wondering... been a while already since I posted this... any ideas from anyone about any other good laptops? I would also recommend Vista on the more expensive Laptop models for those who are not the traditional "power users", who don't have an appreciation for the low level details of the operating system design of DOS. For those users, Vista helps to guide against "bad computing" that is out there. (And for those users - DEFINITELY do not use Linux!...)

Anyways, just seeing if anyone else is tired of their old laptops since there are some good laptop deals around these days...

 

[las3rjock]

Actually that's Toshiba - they are notorious for putting the windows key in weird places - Dell is standard

Keyboard layout is an important to me, and I particularly take issue with laptop manufacturers like Dell, and recently Toshiba, that put the Fn key where the Ctrl key is supposed to be. I also prefer that the Windows key be far away from the Ctrl and Alt keys, so that I'm less likely to hit it by accident.

 

[binzing]

I love HP, even my old craptop here, a Pavilion xt412. But HP needs to stick to hardware and stay way the hell away from software. All of their stuff sucks, like the CDs that come with printers, I don't use them at all unless absolutely necessary.