Expert: Bobbert - 1/5/2008

Question
I emailed you a few weeks back about your opinion on a laptop.  You gave me some wonderful advice that I really appreciated.  I was wondering if I could trouble you once more.  I just need a cheap laptop with a wireless card. Could you give me your impression on this possibility.  I recieved this email earlier.

If you have not found one yet, I have a dell Katitude CPX that may fit the bill for you.  COmes loaded with XP and has a wireless card. 12 gb hard disk and 256 ram pentium 3 with 14" display.  Battery holds for over an hour call 3096963759 if interested. (looking for $175)

THANK YOU SO MUCH

Answer
First off, when the seller cannot spell the name of the device, or use proper capitalization in their post, I'm somewhat turned off, the actual name is Dell Latitude.

Secondly, that laptop is in no way worth $175, the screen likely does 800x600 max, if you're lucky 1024x768, the processor is nearly 10 years old, almost no RAM, etc, you'll feel a lot of slowdown in XP (it'd be better to just use library computers compared to this laptop, basically).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115426 How's that kind of price strike you? Consider thats roughly 2.5x what this guy is asking, for a modern system, with more than ample performance, 10x the hard-drive space, 4x the RAM, 2-4x the processing power, etc

-bob