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Recommendations for a <$500 laptop

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Shelnutt2

Shelnutt2

Overclockers Team Content Editor
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Joined
Jun 17, 2005
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I have a buddy who has a Dell 1505, and the battery has died, it's missing a key and it's having some aesthetic issues (some screw mounts are starting to pull out, only dell glues plastic mounts to metal...), he's decided that he will sell the Dell and buy a new one. He asked me what a good sub $500 laptop would be. I'm looking for something that is equivalent or better to what he has now, and frankly I'm just not quite sure what's the best deal.

His current specs:
Merom T5600 1.86ghz Core 2 duo
1 gig of DDR2 ram
80 gig 7200rpm hdd
15" screen
1600x1050 resolution


Also if it comes with windows great, if not, that's fine. Ubuntu is good, so if there is a laptop that is cheaper w/o OS then that is good.
 
The hard part will be matching that horizontal resolution. Most you will find will be either 1280 or 1366 these days. Higher res screens = $$, won't be easy to find in sub $500 laptops.

That said, the G530 is a decent unit. Glossy screen however, if that means anything. Easy access to pretty much everything so swapping out something like CPU or wlan or adding memory is easy.

Plenty of options in the 15" range. You could look at the Dell Inspiron 15/Vostro 1015/Latitude E5500. I like the Dell Studio 15 that has the option for the higher res screen and decent spec's for $549.
 
Thanks for the recommendations, but I forgot the most important thing! It needs to have a video card capable of playing The Sim's 3/Spore. Also a 14" is acceptable/perfered I've been told.

I'm willing to sacrifice on things to get the gfx, but looking at everything there doesn't seem to be much without the basic intel or ati/nvidia equivalent. It doesn't need to be a GTX 460 or 5850 but something better than a GT110 etc is needed. I mean don't they make laptops with good gfx and gimp cpu/ram/hdd?

Lets have a GS 230/130 or 9600M with 1/2Gigs ram and a low end basic dual core machine. Skips the 3 gigs ram, skip the mid-low cpu and lets get a good gpu.

Also for resolution, I realize that for some reason people seem to like these lesser res monitors, but that is something that for the price range you have to sacrifice.
 
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