Eisboch wrote:
"BAR" wrote in message
...

I am pimping my daughter out to Bill Gates. Bought her a new laptop with
Vista on it, we'll see what happens. The system is a dell with a 2GHz
processor with 3GB RAM and a 160 GB disk. I figured for $450 I couldn't go
wrong even if it dies in two years it is still a bargain.


I was in Best Buy yesterday getting some blank CD and DVD disks and happened
to browse through the computers on display. This one caught my eye and I
was going to buy the package, but they only had the version with less RAM
(and minus a few other features) in stock. Thinking of ordering it
direct from HP on-line.
I liked it's small size .... sorta a hybrid between a conventional tower
computer and a laptop. I can't imagine needing a 500GB hard drive. The HP
Laptop I use now has an 80 GB hard drive and, after several years of use and
adding many applications, music, videos, etc. it still has about 70 GB of
unused capacity.

http://tinyurl.com/7dyre2

I've had very good luck with the HP Pavilion Laptop that I use now, as has
my wife with her similar version.
Mine's quite a few years old now and I expect it to blow up someday soon so
I am already thinking of it's replacement. Going to Vista doesn't get me
all excited, but I really haven't tried it much and am only going by the
industry reaction to it. Switching to a Mac just isn't in the cards. I
don't have the level of interest in computers to get into running software
emulators and/or stocking up on new applications to do stuff.

That looks like a pretty good deal. Nowadays you don't need to worry
about the ability to add stuff internally to a system. The important
items are USB ports and Firewire (1394). For backups you can buy and
external USB disk or go with an on-line backup service (I've started to
use one to backup digital photographs and some encrypted documents).

The only consideration is if you are a serious gamer or musicer. Then
you are going to want a high dollar video card or a high dollar
MIDI/Sound card. But, if you are looking for a general purpose computer
the price is reasonable.