Thoughts on the Dell 1525 laptop?

[IAMX 3,055]

What is your intention with this laptop?

(i.e. just basic browsing, or gaming, or video editing, etc.)

Internet surfing. Our 7 year old Dell Inspiron 2650 finally crapped out.

Well, you'll be just fine with yet another Dell. Or most other brands at that.

For just browsing you shouldn't be paying more than, say, $700.

If you go to Dell's website, look at their basic laptops, and you should be fine. Just make sure, for Vista, to look for a recent amount of RAM, as if you get an Intel IGP, you'll need to subtract the video RAM from the total system RAM to get your actual RAM usage during heavy use, as IGP allocates itself some of your system RAM and shares it with the rest of your computer (unlike dedicated video RAM).

I was lucky when I ordered my Vostro, and told them I want XP, and got it just before they said they were going to stop offering XP OEM. I hate Vista like the plague. In fact, here, we had a saying, while XP was still going retail and OEM, that people who have Vista should "upgrade to XP".

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

http://www.dell.com/content/products/produ...;l=en&s=dhs

The one for 599 doesn't look bad. I'd stay away from the 499 celeron model