Did I Get A Good Deal?

[J201605]

Hey, i just bought an old inspiron 8000 laptop with 700mhz pentium 3, 512mb ram, random laptop built in graphics, 1600x1200 15" screen, dvd driver, dual mouse controls (touch pad and eraser mouse), running windows xp pro. With a new battery and a wifi card the total was $130---i just sort of jumped at the chance to buy it but now im not sure if i got a good deal or not... well?

 

[Yrx]

That sounds like a VERY good deal.

Built-in graphics are powering a 1600x1200 display!? Are you sure that isn't lower? lol

 

[___]

Sounds like you actually got a nice deal there. Even if the display is only capable of 1024x768... 120$ for a nice notebook with new battery. Good for you!

 

[J201605]

That sounds like a VERY good deal.

Built-in graphics are powering a 1600x1200 display!? Are you sure that isn't lower? lol

great to hear... ya i was insanely surprised to see the screen res but it is definetly at that resolution-sadly though i have that high res the processor cant really do anything interesting with it like hd video or play games at that res---someone traded it to me for a guitar hero 3 bundle from yourfree360games and then i bought the battery and wifi card on ebay so actually money out of my pocket was only $50. The only drawback is it is insanely thick.

 

[Alex.]

That's a terrific deal, hell it costs less than a F-200!

On a similar note, I'm jealous of your RAM, mine's only 17% that :lol:

 

[Nova]

I'd tap that for $130. My laptop's just over that spec and it cost me £400($800 ish) a year ago.

 

[Vilmos]

I bought that laptop new, but the 900Mhz and nvidia graphics in it, it cost about $4500 6 years ago.

I still have it and it still runs really well. If you bought the battery alone from Dell it would have cost more than $130.

 

[J201605]

I bought that laptop new, but the 900Mhz and nvidia graphics in it, it cost about $4500 6 years ago.

I still have it and it still runs really well. If you bought the battery alone from Dell it would have cost more than $130.

130 for the battery... im a little worried about my 40 dollar ebay battery now :unsure:

 

[geo12]

Lol, I have practically the same one only it's the 8600 (only difference is screen size I think.) Add a zero to the end of your price and that's what I paid for it when I bought it about 5 yrs ago.

 

[goobers]

I spent £1300 (I guess about $2600!! on a macbook pro... although I do stress it to the max so I guess it's worth it.)

That's a nice buy though- It'd make a great net browsing machine or dev machine. Stick Ubuntu on there! I had ubuntu on a Thinkpad T20 (about that spec) and it flew!

 

[J201605]

I spent £1300 (I guess about $2600!! on a macbook pro... although I do stress it to the max so I guess it's worth it.)

That's a nice buy though- It'd make a great net browsing machine or dev machine. Stick Ubuntu on there! I had ubuntu on a Thinkpad T20 (about that spec) and it flew!

I was definetly going to put linux on it because i figured xp would run horribly but it does pretty well. Since i will mostly use it for media/browsing/n64 emulation-besides being less vulnerable to virus' what would the benefits be to using linux since speed doesnt seem to be a big issue.

 

[___]

The benefits of linux are a huge library or opensource/free software at your hands. With ubuntu 7.10 you can be sure that it will run reliable, will be easy to pick up the basics of linux and you can use the apt-get interface synaptic to download new software on the fly, search for software that fits your needs and update your operating system on a daily basis. You want emulation? Just search N64 emulation in synaptic and you will be given a number of precompiled ready to install emulators. Or you can download the packages/source for the one you want and compile it yourself.

Try it out, install it on another partition to dual boot if you are not sure. I am using linux distros for about 5 years now. I have had SuSe linux, Redhat, Slackware and now all my computers run Ubuntu. I can say that I am pleased the most with Ubuntu as I found it running very well on both my laptop and my desktop computer, also it's got a fairly straight forward set of configuration tools with it and it looks wonderful with gnome running compiz(the 3d window manager... makes everything shiny ).

I would recommend Ubuntu 7.10 to you, gnome is the default window manager (sort of like a desktop environment if you don't know what a window manager is...). There is also KDE which is a little more bloated in my opinion but some find it more useful because it looks a bit like the windows desktop. Gnome is cleaner in my opinion though, I don't like to have fancy toolbars with huge icons everywhere.

www.ubuntu.com - take a tour and see for yourself. You can download a ready made boot and install disc from one of the mirrors on their page for free. Prior to installing, you can boot ubuntu from the cd to have a look at it running.

 

[fishybawb]

If you like Ubuntu, give Debian a try. It's what Ubuntu's based on, so it feels familiar straight away, and seems to boot a lot faster on my old Thinkpad T21 (P3 800Mhz, 384MB RAM). The only difference is that I need to setup the madwifi driver manually to get my wireless card working when I do a minimal install, but that's a breeze. With Openbox installed as the window manager, it really feels like a much faster machine than it is

 

[J201605]

ill give a ubuntu dual boot a shot.

 

[lubidog]

I am happy with my eee pc.

 

[Fishbong]

Windows XP may run fine now, but in 2 months or so it will be slowed to a crawl.

Trust me, i have an IBM Thinkpad 22 (900MHz, 384MB, 16MB GFX) and it´s the same. Linux FTW, if you can find the drivers.

 

[J201605]

hmmm... would wine be capable of running games of like starcraft and diablo 1 on a machine like this running linux?

 

[___]

starcraft and diablo 1 should be a breeze to run if you use cedega! That's that gaming wine branch they released a while ago. It costs money as far as I remember, but I am sure you will find it somewhere on the net... if ye be calling yerself a real pirate that is, matey ;-)

 

[Alex.]

I'm sorry but I'll have to vouch for Windows XP Pro still running well after months and months of use on a low-end laptop (considerably lower than what's been discussed in this thread so far). SP2 slowed it down though, so right now I'm on plain version 2002. I installed Ubuntu last year and it ran slower, maybe 128MB RAM was really pushing the envelope (it's Ubuntu's minimum requirement, whereas Windows XP's is 64MB).

 

[J201605]

hmmm... xp ran faster, thats really surprising. If i do install linux it will not be standard ubuntu, probably xubuntu as its supposed to be faster though ive had driver problems with it on other pc's.