Any Good Laptops Under $500?

[Gary Brown]

Hi,

Weekly ads offer laptops for under $500. Most are
$600-$700 units selling at discount. Are any of these
a good deal?

I'm looking for one for occasional light use to let me
get away from my desktop.

Gary

 

[kony]

Hi,

Weekly ads offer laptops for under $500. Most are
$600-$700 units selling at discount. Are any of these
a good deal?

I'm looking for one for occasional light use to let me
get away from my desktop.

Gary

Yes, a low-end laptop is great for occasional light use.

As for "good deal" it depends entirely on the laptop and
price. In general, anything under $500 is a good deal, if
it meets you needs. Sometimes that may require upgrades,
like increasing memory, particularly if it runs the bloated
mess AKA Windows Vista.

 

[paulmd]

Hi,

Weekly ads offer laptops for under $500. Most are
$600-$700 units selling at discount. Are any of these
a good deal?

I'm looking for one for occasional light use to let me
get away from my desktop.

Gary

To know for sure, could you list or link to an example ad?

No deal if emachines brand (emachines anything is to be avoided like
the plague). Might be a decent deal for a dell or hp, depending on the
specs.

 

[Mike Walsh]

The typical under $500 laptop PC has a Celeron M processor and 512 MB memory; quite adequate for most people if it is running WinXP. You will need more memory with Vista for all but the simplest tasks.

 

[CBFalconer]

Mike Walsh wrote: *** and top-posted - fixed ***

The typical under $500 laptop PC has a Celeron M processor and
512 MB memory; quite adequate for most people if it is running
WinXP. You will need more memory with Vista for all but the
simplest tasks.

You have two fundamental posting faults, both fixed. Please do not
top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed with) the
quoted material, after snipping anything not germane. In addition
you should limit your lines to 72 (67 is better) chars.

If considering installing Vista, read the following links:

 

[Plato]

Weekly ads offer laptops for under $500. Most are
$600-$700 units selling at discount. Are any of these
a good deal?

I use a Dell I got for $499 from their website to use when on the road
just for email and paypal.

 

[paulmd]

Mike Walsh wrote: *** and top-posted - fixed ***

You have two fundamental posting faults, both fixed. Please do not
top-post. Your answer belongs after (or intermixed with) the
quoted material, after snipping anything not germane. In addition
you should limit your lines to 72 (67 is better) chars.

CB, if you can't contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way,
would you please not? I know you want to rid the world of bad
nettiquite, and all that, but... badgering everybody about it is rude
in its own way. You have no business being Usenet's self appointed
editor. Just let the little stuff go.

The line length stuff is mostly obsolete. Text-only readers are
becoming very rare indeed. They are a legacy from the days when a
typical display was only 80 characters wide. They started dying out a
decade or more ago. Most newsreaders have no control over line lengths
anymore. Last time I used one was in '97, and it was a relic even
then (it was PINE, accessed through hyperterminal).

 

[kony]

CB, if you can't contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way,
would you please not? I know you want to rid the world of bad
nettiquite, and all that, but... badgering everybody about it is rude
in its own way. You have no business being Usenet's self appointed
editor. Just let the little stuff go.

The line length stuff is mostly obsolete. Text-only readers are
becoming very rare indeed. They are a legacy from the days when a
typical display was only 80 characters wide. They started dying out a
decade or more ago. Most newsreaders have no control over line lengths
anymore. Last time I used one was in '97, and it was a relic even
then (it was PINE, accessed through hyperterminal).

I'd have to disagree, usenet works because it maintains a
common, per group, format without need for some special
reader.

The line length issue is still relevant today. Newsreaders
after '97 did still have problems with Mike Walsh's posts
and he has plenty of examples of others who manage to post
appropriately formatted messages.

Taken one at a time, anything could be seen as "the little
stuff", but the contributory effect if left unchecked would
make usenet undesirable to use. We all benefit from this
standardized posting format, there are other ways to
converse on the internet for those that don't like it.