now I waste my time here on the forum and rely on you guys to make a wise purchasing decision

[space-time]

I need a laptop for my inlaws. email, browsing, slideshows. They have a 600 MHz Pentium 2 I think, which is looong past it's useful life

I just got this email from office depot, and I saw one Compag for $400.

What do you think? I have no idea what to look for when it comes to laptops, I have not looked into which CPUs/Graphic cards are good and what to avoid. I used to read tech sites long time ago, now I waste my time here on the forum and rely on you guys to make a wise purchasing decision.

Any thoughts? Thanks a lot!

http://officedepot.shoplocal.com/officed...pagedetail&storeid=2465581&rapid=686141&pagenumber=1&listingid=-2089901113

Compaq Presario Notebook with AMD Athlon™ X2 QL-62 Dual-Core Processor
Office Depot® Exclusive, SAVE $130



$399.99
After $100 Instant & $30 Mail-In Savings
( In Store Price $429.99)
This offer is not yet available
Apr 12 - 18

15.6" SCREEN
2GB MEMORY
160GB HARD DRIVE
- nVidia® GeForce™ Graphics Card, CD/DVD Recorder with disc labeling technology, Integrated number pad
SMART FEATURE: Burn labels onto CDs/DVDs using Lightscribe Technology™
Advance performance for true multi-tasking
Model CQ60-206US
#817-575

[AlphaDog]

The only thing I'll say is that my son bought a refurbished Compac laptop from Costco in May of 2004. He had it over here the other day, and it's still going strong. I asked him how it was holding up, and he said he's never had any trouble with it, not oven with Win XP. Go figure. No, I'm sorry I don't know which model, but that would be useless information now anyway.

[Paul F.]

What do I think?
I think it's a PC...
Nay, I am certain of it!

[C(-)ris]

It is a PC, who cares? Just buy the cheapest POS you can find.

[Jack D.]

I guess they're just not cool enough to be mac owners? :devil:

[DaviDC.]

It ain't bad.
The question is, what do YOU think about it, since you'll be the tech guy?

[volcs0]

Yeah, that will be fine for them. I bought my sister a $400 Toshiba 2 years ago, and she beat the crap out of it, dragging it to class every day - it is still going strong.

If Vista comes on there, will you wipe it and install XP?

[space-time]

Jack D. wrote:
I guess they're just not cool enough to be mac owners? :devil:

They're probably not cool enough to be Mac owners, but they are certainly not evil!

[space-time]

volcs0 wrote:
Yeah, that will be fine for them. I bought my sister a $400 Toshiba 2 years ago, and she beat the crap out of it, dragging it to class every day - it is still going strong.

If Vista comes on there, will you wipe it and install XP?

oh crap, I forgot about this. I noticed they don't even list the OS, could be Linux, maybe that's why it's cheapish.

[space-time]

C(-)ris wrote:
It is a PC, who cares? Just buy the cheapest POS you can find.

Well, let me put it this way (car analogy): I want to make sure it's not a "Yugo", they'll do just fine with a "Hyunday". They don't need a Mercedes, not even a Honda.

Is this the Yugo of laptops? if not, then it's probably good enough for them.