Looking for new Laptop for my wife

[Donas64]

I'm calling upon the collective braintrust of the forum community to help me find a great deal.

We sold my wifes desktop computer yesterday and are looking to purchase a good laptop for her. It will be mostly used for word processing, music, internet access and light gaming. Here are our criteria:

1. Must be new
2. Must be under $700
3. Must have good battery life
4. Integrated graphics are a no-no (so some sort of mobile gaming card at least able to play something on the level of the sims 2)
5. No Windows vista
6. Relatively light weight.


Right now I'm looking at the Dell Vostro 1500 with nvidia 8600M GT videocard,
2 gigs ram, Core 2 duo 1.4 ghz, and 120gig HD. It's coming in at just a pinch under $700 from Dell.com

I like what I've seen in the reviews concerning the Vostro but am open to other suggestions. This will be our first laptop so is there anything I should look out for or be concerned about? Thanks.

 

[evilmonkeyMSP]

looks like that Vostro you're looking at is on special for $564.

http://www.dell.com/content/product...&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd&dgc=BF&cid=20243&lid=507237

it was posted on dealnews.com

edit: nevermind, i think you might have added a better videocard which boosted the price some...lol

 

[habeansha]

can u still find xp laptops anywhere? i was looking at tons of sites and couldnt find any that were customizable, just prebuilt kinds

 

[Rush]

I think that there's still some customizable available from Dell .. though I can't be positive.

I bought my Dell Inspiron E1505 two years ago (got so many free upgrades cause stuff was on sale that it's essentially the next version up), and it has been GREAT. My family actually liked my laptop so much that my mom ditched her IBM and Toshiba laptops (yes, my family is computer-insane) to buy an E1505 about six months ago. She ordered hers right off Dell's website, and she got it built how she wanted WITH Windows XP. However .. I don't remember the price (but I can always ask if you want), and I'm not sure if customizable is still an option.

 

[Donas64]

Yeah, you can still get XP put on laptops from Dell.com. Thats a big reason I want the Vostro. I'm not diggin Vista.

 

[TreFlip999]

www.tigerdirect.com
Teh bet website ever...I got a refurb HP from them for 549.00$ and its awesome...Like i ordered straight from HP, they always have deals and they shipped it to me oversea on 5 days, check it out

 

[speed5hornet]

+1 for tigerdirect, also try newegg.com

 

[~JoJo~]

newegg still have some xp laptops

 

[katsmp3]

did anyone else think donas was a girl?

 

[Donas64]

did anyone else think donas was a girl?

wha?

okay so I've slacked off on my pec workouts but this is disastrous!

What would have made you think that?

 

[Donas64]

Ended up ordering a Vostro 1500 with XP. I think we'll be happy with it.