[Recovering_Democrat]

thanks for any help. RD

[RightWhale]

Don’t get Vista basic. Get an upgrade, any upgrade.

[1rudeboy]

Toshiba sold high-speed milling technology to the Soviets in contravention of U.S. law. I vote, nyet.

[TommyDale]

Offered to you? Of course it is a good price.

[TommyDale]

Spend $89 extra and get a legitimate copy of Windows XP Pro SP2. Then install it instead of the Vista crap.

[OK]

Don’t skimp on the extra memory. Vista needs it regardless of what Microsoft says, IMHO.

[Asclepius]

You need a linux box. Or a Macintosh. Or a ball point and a graph pad.

[what's up]

Sounds like a good buy.

[Billthedrill]

Check this one out.

That's a lower-end laptop that might be about right for your purposes. You might investigate extended warranties (especially for the display) if it's for a kid. 512 MB is a little light for Vista, IMHO, but it'll run.

[Cicero]

I haven’t tried Vista yet, but Dell recommends a minimum of 1 gig of memory, and I’ve heard that 2 gig does better.

[goldstategop]

I have the same Toshiba. Did in place upgrade to Windows Premium. Added more memory. Bought it at Wal-mart. Not a top of the line laptop with a Celeron M chip, but adequate for every tasks.

[LambSlave]

Yes, that’s a very reasonable price.

[ConservativeMind]

In general, that’s a pretty good deal. However, it’s not too different than what you could get one week out of four at Best Buy or Circuit City.

You can always upgrade Vista after you’ve bought it, but I’d go with the next version up from that if possible.

What you mentioned should work with what you said you needed it for.

[tubebender]

Tech ping...

[HEY4QDEMS]

350 is a good price for a notebook but Vista Basic is less functional than XP. I would upgrade to Vista Business and up the RAM to 2 GB.

That should run you an extra 200 or so.

[randog]

I bought a Satellite Pro several months ago and am very happy with it. A few things:

1) Check to see if Toshiba has XP drivers for the laptop. The Pro I bought only had Vista drivers, so I was forced to upgrade to Vista Business (it came loaded with Vista Basic).

2) Get the extra memory. You’ll need >1GB for Vista.

[SoftballMominVA]

In a word - NO - $350 is not a good price for what you are getting. You need to spend too much $$ to upgrade the comp just to have it work on your most basic tasks.

Look in your local phone book and see if you have any computer specialists in your area and talk to them. They may have a reliable one that has been traded in or sold to them cheap. They may even be able to build you one (maybe). They should definitely be able to build you a desktop. But spending $350 on that is $350 that is wasted. You all will be so frustrated in getting it to do the simplist tasks.

[Petronski]

I bet it’s so cheap because of the meager memory. If you’re staying with Vista you’ll want/need 2GB, else price out 1GB.

But yeah, it’s a good deal.

I also don’t buy from Toshiba because of the sub tech deal.

[liberateUS]

I have an older Satellite. Mine has worked great. I paid close to $1000 after rebates.

[jdm]

Are you sure Vista will even run on “just” 512MB RAM? I thought I remember reading somewhere that the minimal is 1GB, but I could be wrong.

[mozarky2]

I’ve had an Acer Aspire 9410 with Vista and I love it. Takes about 15 seconds to boot. Bought Windows Live One Care security suite-love it, too. AND, best of all it has a 17in. screen. I’ll never settle for a smaller one. Cost $799 about 3 months ago.