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Dell laptop for $499. Is it worth it?

bczoom

Super Moderator
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
I've been looking for laptops for the kids (ages 7 & 11).

I found Acer's for $479 and a couple others for about the same price.

I just found some Dell's for $499, delivered.

I'll try to post details below but the formatting gets messed up.

Anyway, is it a decent computer? Any thoughts/pros/cons?

My plan is to get MS Office from newegg, AVG, Firefox... afterwards.

Primary usage will be general kids stuff. Some school work, internet browsing, maybe some gaming (although most of their games are for older PC's so I doubt they'll work). They can use their Wii or Nintendo systems for gaming...


Details

Inspiron 1525
Intel® Celeron® 550 (2.0GHz, 533Mhz, 1M L2 Cache), Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic Edition SP1

Memory 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 (2 Dimms)

LCD Panel Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800)

Video Card Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100

Hard Drive Size: 120GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)

Network Integrated 10/100 Network Card

Modem Integrated Modem

Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 9.0

Combo or DVD+RW Drive CD / DVD Writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)

Sound Card High Definition Audio 2.0

Wireless Networking Cards Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini-Card

Camera Integrated 2.0M Pixel Webcam

Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) Microsoft Works

Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 30-Days

Battery Options 6 cell battery

Warranty & Service 1Yr Ltd Hardware Warranty, InHome Service after

Remote Diagnosis

Datasafe Dell Online Backup 2GB for 1 year

Dial-Up Internet Access

Entertainment and Editing Software WildTangent Games

Processor Branding Intel#174; CELERON#174

Labels Windows Vista™ Basic
 

Erik

SelfBane
Site Supporter
I've been pretty happy with my Toshiba Satellite with its dual core athlon processor - and they've been running in the same price range recently.
I would trust a dell further than I would an HP or Compaq, but not by much. I'm also not a fan of the celeron processors, but that's my basic snobbery at work, since the average kid (or adult for that matter) does not need a dedicated math coprocessor in their machine.

If it sounds like a good deal to you, go for it.
 

ddrane2115

Charter Member
SUPER Site Supporter
Look at TigerDirect.com first. If price has anything to do with it, you might find the same or better there for less.

I just got a Lenovo (ibm), 1 gig, 250 hd, intel pentium for 599.00. really a nice machine.

Bought a toshiba sat pro with 2 gigs, 250 gig, duo2, and xp/vista business for 849.

check them out
 

Big Dog

Large Member
Staff member
GOLD Site Supporter
HP .......... I have some pictures of one that fell off a roof of a car going across a bridge ........... :hide: .............:biggrin:
 

Durwood RIP

Gone But Not Forgotten
I've been looking for laptops for the kids (ages 7 & 11).

I found Acer's for $479 and a couple others for about the same price.

I just found some Dell's for $499, delivered.

I'll try to post details below but the formatting gets messed up.

Anyway, is it a decent computer? Any thoughts/pros/cons?

My plan is to get MS Office from newegg, AVG, Firefox... afterwards.

Primary usage will be general kids stuff. Some school work, internet browsing, maybe some gaming (although most of their games are for older PC's so I doubt they'll work). They can use their Wii or Nintendo systems for gaming...


Details

Inspiron 1525
Intel® Celeron® 550 (2.0GHz, 533Mhz, 1M L2 Cache), Genuine Windows Vista® Home Basic Edition SP1


Processor Branding Intel#174; CELERON#174

Labels Windows Vista™ Basic

I would stay away from a celeron processor and windows vista basic. There are better deals out there. I think wal mart has a better toshiba for a $100.00 more that has vista pemium plus a much better processor.

here ya go...
http://shopping.yahoo.com/articles/yshoppingarticles/170/10-best-bets-for-black-friday/
 

jwstewar

Active member
We were either fortunate or unfortunate enough to pick up one of the Compaqs that Wal-mart had a couple of weeks ago for $298 for our kids (7 & 8). It pretty much specs the same as the Dell you are looking at. I wouldn't hesitate to hop on that Dell for $499. Don't know if you have a MicroCenter around, but they usually have a decent Black Friday deal. We picked the kids up a Winbook a couple of years back for the kids for $399 and that is when everyone else was around $500 - 600 for low end stuff. Incidentally, when we were going through looking for what caused our house fire, I ran across the chassis to this laptop - wasn't much left of it.

Side note, everyone always talks about TigerDirect. I used to order from them years ago. Service was always poor back then and prices were and still are way higher than anywhere else. Heck the prices Danny even posted in this thread were high. He was posting prices almost double of what you are looking at that don't really spec that much better.
 
check out the Dell outlet...I got the same system (1525) with a few more upgrades than your list (Intel Dual Core, dual layer DVD burner) for $450 back in July...a friend just got one about a month ago, again slightly better specs for $400.

They often have coupons so you can get some great deals...here's a coupon for 15% off the 1525 in the outlet, good thru today... NXHM$9RWT5CBLK

As for the outlet, I have 5 systems purchased from the Dell Outlet, and they've all been great.
 
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