who sells the best "value" laptops

[GasX]

I am looking to spend around $500 for a laptop with Vista and Office 2007. any idea where to start looking for a good deal?

 

[nickbits]

i dont think you're going to find one with office for <500

 

[GasX]

what should I expect to shell out?

 

[Eureka]

Do you really need Office? You can get Open/Sun Office for free, or get a student/employer discount from wherever you work.

As for a laptop, microcenter has some pretty cheap budget laptops, usually Acers. Or if you need some more power you could look into getting a whitebook (nonbranded laptop).

http://microcenter.com/search/...paign=hmpg_ntbks061509

 

[brblx]

best buy or similar is probably going to be your best bet. if it's not urgent, look through the sales ad for a few weeks until something nice with the screen size you want is on sale. you should be able to get a decent dual core with 2-4gb or ram and a big hard drive. brand generally matters little in the budget laptop market.

 

[mmntech]

What are you using it for? If it's just office and web browsing, a netbook should suffice. If you're willing to spend a little more, you can pick up a Dell Inspiron 15 with a decent configuration for $589. That's with a Pentium Dual Core 2.0ghz, Vista Home Premium 64-bit, 2gb DDR2, 160gb HDD, Radeon HD 4330, and a 6-cell battery. The Dell Inspiron 13 has a similar configuration but uses GMA X3100 graphics and Vista Home Basic for $499 with a 4-cell battery, $539 for the 6-cell, or $569 for the beefy 9-cell.

Just use OpenOffice seeing as how it's compatible with MS office for most stuff. You won't get a laptop with Office preinstalled for $500 unless it's used.

 

[Hacp]

If you're a student, you can sign up for the ultimate steal.

 

[JackMDS]

This is probably one of the best deals in laptops.

Loaded and Not expensive, http://www.staples.com/office/...usiness_Supplies_10051

A very interesting Keyboard that has a layout like a real desktop keyboard in contrast to the lame layout of most laptops' keyboards.

 

[GasX]

Originally posted by: Hacp
If you're a student, you can sign up for the ultimate steal.

which is?

 

[JackMDS]

http://www.microsoft.com/stude...esteal-us/default.aspx

 

[brblx]

if i were a student i would definately buy that. openoffice is nice, though, for most purposes.

 

[Svnla]

If you are not a student, you can get a Dell refurbish laptop around $400 (with coupons and such) and a copy of Office 2007 Home/Student version from Buy or Newegg for around $90.

So yes, you can get a decent laptop with Office 2007 for around $500.

 

[krnmastersgt]

Acer laptops tend to be the cheapest around, I've had no problems with mine and it only cost me $400 roughly, with the saved money you could go and buy Office 2007 if you really felt you needed it over some of the free software out there. Just an fyi, most of the cheaper laptops around can be had for the same price online or in the stores (netbooks excluded, they like overpricing those).