• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Please Help me Pick a $900 laptop

D

DanDrop

Senior member
I'm buying my sister a laptop for her birthday (next week). She has an infant so anything big or heavy is out of the list. Here are her needs:

-Small and light (I am leaning towards the 14 inch widescreen)
-Wireless Internet
-CDR/RW Burner
-gotta be less than $900

It will be used for surfing, light photoediting, burning music/pictures and playing DVD movies. Battery life is not a big issue because she will be using it plugged most of the time. I would like to buy it very soon because of her birthday.

I have tried to do a search but the results were lacking. Please help. Thanks!
 
Avertec has the best bang for the buck in the Windows market. Dell has some good prices too, but I haven't been impressed by their 1000 or 1100 series.

iBook is also an option, especially if she will mostly be doing web surfing (Safari, Firefox, Camino), email ("mail"), photos (iPhoto), watching DVDs ("DVD Player"), home videos (iMovie), word processing (AppleWorks, TextEdit, OpenOffice). It also comes with World Book Encyclopedia 2004 and Quicken 2005 plus some games and a trial version of MS Office 2004. Has a real GPU (Radeon 9200) so no integrated graphics to kill the CPU and RAM performance. iBook is also small, light, and tough.... but it's over your budget at $1016 with 512 MB..... *sigh*
 
The averatec 3200 series is probably the only "lightweight" laptop you can find for under $1000.
You might be able to catch a nice coupon deal from dell (yesterday they had a $500 off $1399 or more inspiron purchase, and before christmas they had a $750 off $1500 inspiron purchase). If you're near a microcenter you could probably get the averatec for around $800 on sale with dvd burner, 60 gig hd, built in wireless g, and a weight around 4.5 lbs.
 
Thanks for the responses. I might have to go to a microcenter, which is about an hour away from me (i'm in san fran).

Blurred, thanks for the link. You did get a good deal on yours, but i am leery of buying a laptop on ebay at the moment.

I am considering a Winbook C220 for $699 (899-200 rebate) at microcenter. Is this a good deal?


WinBook C220 Notebook
 

If you know anyone working at IBM through the EPP you can get Thinkpad R51's (PCWORLD #1 for it's category) starting at $681.



 
Thanks trickster, is there some sort of link that you could post? I know someone who works for IBM so this is definitely an option. I just dont know where to start or what to tell that person if i go that route. Thanks!
 

www.ibm.com/shop/epp

Is the link. Your friend is allowed 25 purchases a year (I think)

You need your friends serial number and last name to enter the site

Cheapest with CDRW is $779. At that price you are talking celeron M, cheapest pentium M is $961.


He gives you that and you can go shopping
 
jr.com has has the 12in ibook for 800 bucks. at pricegrabber.com, their seller rating is 4.5/5 based on 560 reviews. you could use the left over cash to have some extra ram installed.

link
 
The iBook and averatec are good suggestions. You should also keep an eye out for dell 600m's in Hot Deals. I got a refurbished one for $820 a few months back. One knock on the iBook at jr.com, though, is that it doesn't have wireless installed, you have to buy an airport extreme card for 80 bucks.
 
Originally posted by: preslove
The iBook and averatec are good suggestions. You should also keep an eye out for dell 600m's in Hot Deals. I got a refurbished one for $820 a few months back. One knock on the iBook at jr.com, though, is that it doesn't have wireless installed, you have to buy an airport extreme card for 80 bucks.
Click to expand...

hmm, slight oversight. regardless, it's still within his $900 budget.
 
HP DV1000 I think they are very slick. Seem like a good value and HP service was great on my last laptop. I'm actually probably going to buy a Compaq R3000z from Office Depot with the $280 in rebates they have going.

edit: just want to add the dv1000 is nice and small, whereas the R3000z is a quite a bit larger, but i don't mind the weight 😉
 
like the others, i believe averatec 3200 series are your best bet. they go on sale a lot so you can definitely get it for less than 900.

just a few weeks ago i remember see one of them on sale at staples or office max for 800....so you dont HAVE to go to microcenter.

just pay attention to the sunday ad's 😀
 
Originally posted by: DanDrop
Thanks for the responses. I might have to go to a microcenter, which is about an hour away from me (i'm in san fran).

Blurred, thanks for the link. You did get a good deal on yours, but i am leery of buying a laptop on ebay at the moment.

I am considering a Winbook C220 for $699 (899-200 rebate) at microcenter. Is this a good deal?


WinBook C220 Notebook
Click to expand...

Yes, yes, yes..........

 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top