Need help finding inexpensive laptop

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xX StitcH

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Jan 15, 2009
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What do you guys think about this laptop?

I guess the best way to do this would be to answer the questions in the stick, so here goes.

1_What is your budget?
No more than $500 (no I can't go a little higher, that's already higher than I want to be), would really like to be closer to $450 if possible.

2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15" range.

3_What screen resolution do you want?
The higher the better :) I suppose 1366x768 seems to be the norm from what I've seen.

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable.

5_How much battery life do you need?
Ehh, 2.5 hours should be more than enough. Although this is not one of my must haves.

6_Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
I have a $1000 desktop that I built to play games. Laptops are for internet, email, and office applications. :p

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Like I said above, internet, email, excel (ALOT of it, I'm an engineering student), word, watching decent res videos online (HD on youtube for example), play flash games (I've got to have something to do when I'm bored as hell in Soil Stabilization & Decontamination, right?).

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
Ummm, I guess anything at or above 200GB is sufficient for a laptop.

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them.
The Egg
TigerDirect
Woot (If something comes up, lol!)
I'm not really opposed to buying on any other website or in store as long as it is a legitimate website.

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?
My last laptop lasted me about 3 yrs. Bought it August '06 and it died October '09. It still worked fine, but the fan was screwy and I've already wasted $150 trying to fix it, and I'm really pissed I didn't cut my loses earlier. This one does not necessarily need to last quite that long. 2 years would probably be sufficient.

11_What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD Writer is preferable.

12_Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
Don't really care either way.

13_What country do you live in?
USA.

14_Please tell us any additional information if needed.
- I will be dual booting with Ubuntu 9.10.
- OS is not a big deal as I can get (and will if it does not come with it) Windows 7 from my university.
- I reallllly want a number pad. My last laptop had one (it was a 17" behemoth), and I don't think I could live without one with all the excel I do.
- As I'm sure you could tell by the link at the beginning, I don't have a problem buying a refurb.

I'm really considering that ASUS I linked to up top. Seems to be a pretty powerful laptop, but is cheap because it is a refurb and it has Vista and DDR2.

Let me know if there is anything else I need to answer. Thanks for any help in advance!
 
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