Buying a laptop for my son graduating from high school and need some guidance. I've never bought a laptop, and know enough about computers to be dangerous. Naturally, I want champagne on a beer budget. I'm thinking something in the $1K price range.

Guess I want to know what to look for, what to avoid, that kind of stuff. The kid's no dummy on computers, and I will be getting his input.

Dell exps I bought one for my girl freind on christmas and I rocks www.dell.com

2 months ago I bought a gateway platinum edition notebook and it rocks. It is by far the smoothest and fastest lappy I have ever used. The screen is awesome. I will urge you to stay away from Toshiba. I have had 2 that were total junk after a few months.

before i mention anything i will say this: make suer you get at least a 3yr warranty with whatever you buy. this is the most important few extra dollars you will ever spend. if you listen to anything i tell you, or anyone else tells you, listen to that.

with that said, we only use Dell Latitudes at the office after many years of using many brands of laptops and finding most of them are utter crap - especially Sony and their Vaio line.

We only use the D400 and D600 (or 610's) at the office. both are really nice.

Avoid the Inspiron 6000. i've had problems w/them and certain cellular wireless cards. i think they're a little buggy and wouldnt' trust them yet.

the XPS series is expensive. buying at the end of a product quarter will net you the best deals with Dell - that means buying at the end of every 3rd month of the year (march/june/september/december) with december around xmas time being the cheapest buy.

Sat down with him and worked up a D610 for $1400. We still have to work out a few details, but it looks like my visa will be smokin. Thanks to y'all for the help.

i might be able to give you a coupon or even a better suggestion. this is one of those times where if you time it right, you can get a laptop for half that. here's an example - i watch www.slickdeals.net and www.xpbargains.com A LOT to find stuff like this:

http://www.slickdeals.net/#p7392
http://www.xpbargains.com/xpricer.php/deal_search__pid--D610SAPP.htm

or even if you want an XPS ...
http://www.xpbargains.com/xpricer.php/deal_search__pid--IXM140S1.htm

Now - that's a couple of smokin' deals on an XPS series laptop (top one is expired). you can toss in another $200-300 and get a really killer system. just make sure you're getting a "Pentium M" processor, not a P4 (that would be a hot running desktop replacement) and especially do not get a Celeron processor. get at least 512MB of RAM and make sure you get the 3yr warranty.

buying Dell refurbs will save you about $300-400 and you get a good system. some come with built-in 3yr warranty, ask before buying. inventory is snatched up quick, if you add to your cart, it stays for 15 minutes before being returned to inventory. you can add to your cart, then call and get a sales rep to talk you through the sale. bad thing is you get a barebones system with very little software on it, dunno how much that means to you (i have a ton of software, so i don't care).

let me look and see if i have anything in my email for Dell home that might be able to help. i'll PM something over if I got it.

so many options out there!!

something else i will say - there are two Dell Divisions:

Dell Small Business
Dell Home & Home Office

Dell Small Business has a deal right now where if you spent $1699+ on a Latitude laptop, you get $500 off - they often have crap like this. So if you are up to $1400 now, you could add another $300 worth of stuff and pay $1200 in reality. i found this at xpbargains.com - scroll down to the coupons sections - http://www.xpbargains.com/dell_coupons/

sometimes they are "limited use", if you jump on them early enough you can save big bucks. the sucky part is sometimes when you have the computer in your cart, then you add the coupon, it removes any current offers they're giving you - so sometimes you pay more with the coupon. watch out for that.

Found a coupon for 750 off over 2,000 on an E1505 with a dual core processor. What's the difference between that and a Pentium M?

sent you a PM. will post the info here for others to see (and add some things I forgot):

Pentium M is a mobile processor - much less heat put off, much less battery drain, effectively it will do the work of a processor twice as fast (e.g. a 1.7GHz Pentium M chip will run "like" a 3.4GHz processor that's been neutered). EXCELLENT for mobile (laptop) use.

Dual core is basically like...having two processors in one chip. More heat, more cooling power needed, much more battery drain, expect the system to weigh more. Intel has been mimicking dual core with their HT "Hyperthreading" technology for a couple of years now on their 32-bit Pentium 4 processors. AMD is really pushing this with thier new AMD 64 X2 chips. In order to benefit from Dual core, both your software application and your copy of Windows needs to support Dual Core technology. Windows XP does support dual core, but only a handful of programs will directly support it. Anyway, dual core is probably more suited as a "desktop replacement" type laptop that you're not going to lug around everywhere and won't be without battery power for more than 60 minutes at a time.