Is anybody knowledgeable and has a recommendation on a current budget laptop that sells for about $500, or even just what to look for. My niece is in high school and will primarily use it for web surfing, MS Office, light photo editing, and burning data and MP3 CDs. It would be nice if it had Skype capabilities and if it had a decent data storage capacity for a budget laptop. The battery life should be at least 4-5 hours.

If you're near a CompUSA, check them out. I got a Samsung Blue netbook for under 230 dollars in Delaware. Runs Windows 7, has 200 GB hard drive, 1GB RAM, and a 1.6 GhZ Processor.

 

Did some searching for you:

 

ACER Aspire: 379.99

ASUS: 399.99

HP 625: 399.99

 

These are just some sampling's.

 

EDIT: Just noticed your battery caveat. Some laptops will come with battery life extender programs. Don't know if they come preinstalled on the larger ones, but you might be able to find them on the 'net. If they don't come with preinstalled life extenders you're looking at maybe 2-3 hours battery time at maximum charge running all the programs and background programs.

best buy last week had 3 laptops at 400.00

 

walmart also had toshiba 340 and 400

i just won a computer from my work but the sell it at walmart for $530 its hp pavilion g series its fast as lightning has web cam and problem free for the 6 months i've had it. i went from a 2 year old toshiba laptop to this and wow what a difference

For what she needs to do buy a $100 laptop with no OS on fleabay and install ubuntu on it. In my opinion it's the best deal to be had.

For what she needs to do buy a $100 laptop with no OS on fleabay and install ubuntu on it. In my opinion it's the best deal to be had.

The problem with Ubuntu and Linux in general, if you don't know what you're doing you're going to mess up pretty bad. Not to mention that it'll have problems with connecting to networks, and will require light programming to get it to work.

shoot a PM to Mark (screen name= Malsua)

The problem with Ubuntu and Linux in general, if you don't know what you're doing you're going to mess up pretty bad. Not to mention that it'll have problems with connecting to networks, and will require light programming to get it to work.

Maybe back in the days when an install consisted of about thirteen floppies. It is a vastly different world today. I've had more network problems with my xbox 360 than my netbook running ubuntu. It prompts me as to which wireless network I want to use and I enter a username and password (if required).

 

The only recent distro I had to hack was Puppylinux but that was because I really wanted to keep it. It is amazing how fast a lean OS can run on modern hardware.

 

Anyway the OP asked about a budget laptop. You can get really good hardware for a hundred bucks. The OS is free, comes with openoffice, and runs skype. If you can burn an iso image then you can install ubuntu. That's about the level of technical knowledge required these days, especially if you stick with brand names like Dell, HP, or IBM. The hardware they use are already supported by most linux variants.

Stay away from netbooks - they're generaly used just for surfing the net. My GF does office apps on hers but with the small screen and keyboard it's kinda tough. They also do NOT have CD/DVD drives.

 

Laptops generally are a trade-off between Weight, Performance, and Price. Pick 2 and the 3rd goes up

 

I generally keep my eye out for deals. Dealzon.com has some sub-$500 laptops listed. Lenovos are a good brand.

 

Best Buy has a Toshiba 14" with an Intel Core I3 processor, 4GB RAM, DVD-RW and a 640GB Hard drive for $450 this week. Battery life is approximately 5 hours. They're an OK brand. 14" is still very portable.

 

There's a larger Samsung 15.6" with a Core I3, 4GB Ram, DVD-RW, and 500GB Hard drive for $399. No indication of battery life either.

 

Keep in mind - these do NOT come with Microsoft Office. The Office Home & Student 2010 version costs about $125.

 

Shop around - there's plenty of deals out there. Feel free to toss me a PM if you want some more info/recommendations.

Keep in mind - these do NOT come with Microsoft Office. The Office Home & Student 2010 version costs about $125.

Thats why I use Open Office.org. Its free, easy to use, has tons of downloadable templates for the writer, and can do a ton of extras. The learning curve between the two is just slight, not much difference between them. The only thing is you have to save them as .doc files, otherwise the default is .odf, and nothing besides open office runs .odf.

Is anybody knowledgeable and has a recommendation on a current budget laptop that sells for about $500, or even just what to look for. My niece is in high school and will primarily use it for web surfing, MS Office, light photo editing, and burning data and MP3 CDs. It would be nice if it had Skype capabilities and if it had a decent data storage capacity for a budget laptop. The battery life should be at least 4-5 hours.

 

 

If you can hold off a month, laptops are one on the items that take MAJOR cuts on Black Friday. Many expensive full featured laptops will drop into that $500 dollar range on BF.

If you can hold off a month, laptops are one on the items that take MAJOR cuts on Black Friday. Many expensive full featured laptops will drop into that $500 dollar range on BF.

 

 

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Fall-into-Savings-Laptop-Bundle-with-Your-Choice-Laptop-Case-Flash-Drive-Printer/10966053