[lug] Cheap laptop for a neophyte

[Michael J. Hammel]

Just my 2 cents:

On Wed, 2009-04-08 at 08:26 -0600, Bear Giles wrote:
> Dell is running sales on 12" inspirons.  
> The main thing to do is to check their website daily and not panic when 
> the price jumps.  They try a different combination of base price + 
> discounts every few days and the bottom line can shift by as much as 
> 20%.  Just be patient and ready to act when the prices drop again.

Why would anyone want to do business with an outfit like that?  I
personally don't buy Dell because they treat their employees so crappy.
not to mention the Dell's at work (which I did not buy) have been more
trouble than the off-the-shelf stuff I put together from component
purchases.  But ignoring that, why would you buy something from a vendor
who changes the price by the minute?

> Elyse M. Grasso wrote:
> > A computer user at work wants to buy an inexpensive laptop for home 
> > use 
> > She would like something under $600. She doesn't want a netbook: she 
> > wants a larger screen and keyboard.

NewEgg has some good options.  The Samsung Via Nano (a netbook) has a
12.1" monitor and runs $549.  The lowest price laptop they list is a
Toshiba Satellite pro dual core Pentium with a 15.4" XGA screen for
$529.99.

I can vouch for excellent service from NewEgg.  They even catch my posts
about problems on a particular item and notify me when the *vendor*
responds to my negative posts (in order to address my concerns).  For
now at least, I wouldn't buy hardware from any place but NewEgg.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834131031
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&N=2034940032%
204021&name=%24500%20-%20%24750
-- 
Michael J. Hammel                                    Principal Software Engineer
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org                           http://graphics-muse.org
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When his IQ reaches 50, he should sell.
-- From a real employee performance evaluation.