I’m thinking about getting the daughter an inexpensive 15” laptop that she could use for her on-line school work and maybe the first year or two at college. Hopefully in the $300 - $400 range.

Anyone know of a good deal?

Also would 15” be a good size for college or would a smaller one be better?

If it's really going to be portable and not just used as a desktop I would want a smaller one. Then the price goes up though.

Yea, I'm leaning on smaller. The wife has an Asus ee and it works OK.

Maybe I'll get her a small one now and when she goes off to college a bigger desktop/laptop machine.

She's not too much into computers so it doesn’t have to be super powerful.

Maybe I missed on the Black Friday deals.

I think there are still deals around I haven't been looking at laptops though. You probably wouldn't have gotten one of the too good to be true deals where they only have a couple anyway

My kids are jealous that my laptop is bigger than theirs...

They are also jealous of my new Samsung Series 7...

I work for Dell, but not in the laptop division, and so I'm just a consumer of them. It is happenstance that I've not had a non-Dell laptop, but I do gather that the IBM Thinkpad is highly regarded, and I'm sure others are as well.

Personally I don't like the Inspiron consumer line, and some of the Vostro line are rebadged Inspiron. I fine them heavy and less robust then the Latitude line. Though I did recently purchase a Vostro 13 (a rebadged Latitude 13) for $400 from the Dell Outlet, but checking now it would run you $500, for $30 more you could get a Latitude E5420. Bensbargins will knock 20% off a E6520, which start at $649.

Another option is the Dell Financial Services off lease site. You could, for example, get a E6400 for $362, down side it comes with Vista, and only a 100 Day Limited Warranty. Benbargains will knock 25% off that.

Finally, we do get a discount, 17% off Inspiron laptops & desktop, 10% off Alien, XPS, Electronics, etc, stackable on top of any you find on the internet.

AnandTech article

Well, there's netbooks, which are small, relatively cheap, but underpowered. I've got an eee PC 1001PX, which is fine for browsing and email, but the screen's too low-res for much else. Bear in mind that I've got 3 monitors on my work PC, and that my "much else" is Visual Studio, though...

Then there's "ultrabooks", which are small, relatively powerful, but quite expensive. I'm tempted, but I'm waiting until the new year.

Then there's the 13-15 inch laptops, which are a good compromise on screen size, and they're fairly powerful, but they tend to be a bit heavy. I've got a Samsung SF310 (13"), which is nice, but a bit heavy for my taste.

Of course, if one is happy to carry around a heavy laptop (maybe you're driving), then there's the desktop replacement laptops, which tend to be quite large, very powerful, and relatively expensive. Useful if you're visiting customers and you need to either work there, or demonstrate stuff.

Thanks for all the good links and advice. Seems ever time I find a deal on-line it's sold-out. So much for last minute shopping.

Since with my luck everything breaks so the limited warranty on leased stuff is probably not for me.

Re-reading my post I didn't make my willingness to share the Employee discounts we get - PM me if that is what you'd like todo. This applies to all current forum members. Someone might as well use them

Dell Business has the Dell Latitude E5520m 15.6" Notebook on sale for $379 with free shipping.
* Intel Celeron 925 2.30GHz, 2GB DDR3, 250GB HDD
* 15.6" matte LED (1366x768), 6-cell, Windows 7 HP x86
Bensbargins

$40 to upgrade to a Core™ 2 Duo T6670
Use Crucial or similar for a memory upgrade if desired.
The negitive IMO is "1 Year Basic Hardware Service with 1 Year Mail-in Service", upgrading to 3yr onsite is $219.

I need to get back to my own Christmas shopping

That looks good. Thanks for the help. I pulled the trigger (before everything was sold out) and got this

Best Buy Toshiba

•Toshiba Satellite Laptop / 2.1 GHZ Intel® Pentium® Processor / 15.6" Display / 3GB Memory / 320GB Hard Drive
•6-cell lithium-ion battery

..... Not my first choice but it will do

I think I'll start shopping earlier next year. I never accurately gauge supply and demand. Also I suck at the stock market.

Can't argue with that price.