37. *** Acer Aspire 5040 AS5043WLMi

Acer builds nice notebooks at reasonable prices. The company has more under $700 offerings than any other. I've selected the Aspire 5040 AS5043WLMi (Acer loves long model numbers), but you can find other options using the TG Stores search box in the extreme right corner of this page. Just enter "Acer Notebook".

The Aspire 5040 comes with a 1.8 GHz AMD Turion 64 bit ML-32 CPU, 512 MB of memory, an 80 GB hard disk drive, a CD/DVD RW optical drive and an ATI Radeon Xpress 200M graphics processor.

*** And The Others?

For the record, I was unable to find an under $700 notebook from Fujitsu or Gateway. I like Fujitsu a lot, especially their small Tablet PCs. However, the company's nicely outfitted lower cost notebooks list at around $1,200; significant discounts are not available. The only under $700 Gateway notebooks available are refurbished models. Gateway offers some good deals on their website, including the NX650 for $899, with a 1.6 GHz Core Duo CPU, 512 MB of memory, an 80 GB hard disk drive and, the almost equalizer, Microsoft's Office 2003 Basic Edition. Office is extra with the other notebooks I've talked about.

Last minute update: Take a look at Lenovo's 3000 C100. You can find it using the search box at the top of this page. It's a decent notebook, that can be had for under $700 with a 1.5 GHz Celeron processor, 512 MB memory, an 80 GB hard disk drive, a DVD/CD RW optical drive, a 15" display and Windows XP.