On Wed, 2008-06-11 at 08:58 -0400, Thomas H. George wrote: > The college is offering packages starting at $1,399 (Dell Latitude D630) > and $1,499 (Lenoveo ThinkPad T61) all with 2GB memory, 10/100/1000 > Ethernet, Wireless, 1394 Port, Bluetooth, Vista 32Bit Business OS, > SmartCare/4in1 Media Card Reader and Microsoft Office 2007 Professional > pre-installed by certified technicians located on campus. Three year > warranty and 1GB Flash Drive thrown in. > > Money is tight, of course. If I were the student and there is a > modest-priced laptop with Debian and OpenOffice I'd take it in a flash. > I'm not the student, I'm his 79 year old grandfather and I don't want > him to start off at a disadvantage. There are certainly many college > students and recent grads that subscribe to this list. I would value > your insights. > > Tom Tom, There are two schools of thought on Laptops. 1. Buy an expensive model because it is built well and will last three years or more and your friends will be impressed! 2. Buy a the cheapest model that will do the job, if it breaks you can replace it three to five times for the price of the expensive one. Guess which school of thought I belong to? I own a Dell Vostro 1500. Today you can get one with a (relatively slow) dual core intell proc running at 1.4G, 2G of ram, intel video, 15.3" wide screen, (I think) 130G HD, DVD burner and it will run Linux, comes with XP or Vista, all for just about $500 USD. Like the Latitude, the Vostro is a business class machine (meaning they are built to higher specs then similar consumer models). The Latitude has a Magnesium-alloy chassis, the Vostro has an alloy backed chassis. Both of these things are good, it means the box will flex very little while it is being carried around in a backpack. See here for features: (Compare Laptops) http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/notebooks?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd What we don't know is what kind of warranty does the Latitude come with? You can get a very basic to a full, tech on site in 4 hours w/parts warranty with both. I am betting you can get full coverage direct from Dell for much less (I don't know anything about the Lenoveo). See here for a price on a Latitude 630, $829 out the door, without onsite service, one year warrenty: http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx?c=us&cs=04&id=latit_d630&l=en&s=bsd&~tab=bundlestab The Vostro 1500 with 2G right now goes for $549. Both with windows XP home, but you don't need anything more then that for school. The XP pro/Vista > home has networking features your Grandson just does not need. Both machines (and I assume the thinkpad) are perfectly adequate for school use (and most other uses) and if the kid needs more OS, have him install Linux. As for the MS office installed, who cares? You can run OO just fine on win. I have a friend (who is a son of a friend) who just went through school and he used my used laptops and ran ELive Linux on them and was able to get everything done, no windows installed at all (that took a few years of coaching my my side :) ) <y used laptops where cheap ~$500 at time of purchase, I used them for three years, got a newer ~$500 laptop and gave the used one to him. So, he was always using a 4 year old technology box and it worked for his school needs. Your grandson will resist this method, I suspect. He will want to play games, have "cool" things, etc etc. HTH -- Damon L. Chesser damon@damtek.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/dchesser
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