Laptop for my mother

[tphss]

Going to buy my mother a laptop for xmas. She needs it for office word work and browsing internet, digital photos and music.

I have these options:

1) Gateway MX6959 with Centrino Core Solo T1350 1.8ghz, 512ram, 80GB, DVDRW, wireless, 15.4" 1280x800 screen WXGA, intel 950 graphics, Windows media center, 6.3lbs.

2) Dell Inspiron 6400 with Core Duo T2050 1.6ghz, 1GB ram, 120GB, DVDRW, wireless, 15.4" WXGA as well, 128MB Radeon X1300 graphics, XP Home, 6.2lbs.

1) 700$ shipped
2) 900$ shipped

I never used either a Dell laptop nor a Gateway laptop, are these laptops built well and are good quality? This Dell or Gateway will be in higher quality? Which has a better more comfortable keyboard? The fact that the Dell has a Core Duo CPU will really matter for these needs?

I would get the Gateway, but I never used one and I don't want to get something low quality, I even considered an IBM T43 centrino for around a grand.

So basically, how is the Gateway laptops? This model anyone?

Thanks!

 

[DaveSimmons]

Gateway is supposed to be OK now. What you get extra with the Dell:

Core Duo: this can make music playback smoother when doing something else at the same time.
1 GB RAM: much better than 512 if running 2+ programs at once
120 GB: probably more space than she needs, but great if she has a large collection of music.
X1300: a huge increase in 3D power if she ever wants to run a game or application that uses 3D. It also has its own memory, while the intel "shared memory" graphics on the Gateway steal 32MB from its 512MB RAM.


Think about getting her an external hard drive with "one touch backup" (deals often for under $100 at GottaDeal.com) for her birthday

 

[tphss]

Thanks Dave

I'm almost certain she will never need to run a heavy 3D game, so I don't assume the X1300 is needed, and if the 512ram on the Gateway won't do i'll buy another 512dimm..

Actually from close up pictures I looked at the Gateway looks to be the higher quality one, but you can never judge actually by the pictures, too bad I can't go here to use one before I purchase.

But I don't think I can go wrong for 700$ shipped, when it's Brand new and not Refurb...

 

[DaveSimmons]

Sounds good, the gateway looks very nice if she doesn't need 3D.

www.Crucial.com is one safe place to buy more laptop memory, if you use the website memory selector (I prefer it to the version that downloads to the laptop).

 

[tphss]

I ordered the Gateway 4 days ago, i'll update on the laptop quality and the choice I made!

Thank you