Expert: Bobbert - 5/3/2009

Question
Plan on purchasing a notebook for my daughter.  She's 18 and will be using it for College & Fun--MS Word and some music.  Would like to spend $500 tops.  She wants 13-14" display.  What min HD RAM should I be looking at?  Any other suggestions?  Thanks

Answer
In the $500 range, there aren't many options, so you're going to be limited by the budget, more than by specification requirements. However, given your usage requirements, I would generally say that "anything" would be suitable, as nothing stands out as requiring "heavy" compute power.

I would look at Dell, HP, Acer, Asus, and Gateway, especially in the coming months, as they generally offer discounts around the end of summer, especially for college students (this will depend on the school, many schools offer a discount program through a given vendor, such as Dell, or Apple), which may allow you to purchase a bit more computer for your money.

One more point I'd like to make, as you've mentioned Microsoft Word, is making the switch towards Sun's StarOffice, or OpenOffice.org, which offers the same functionality, while costing you nothing (OpenOffice existing as free/open source software, StarOffice being offered for free to students and educators), while Microsoft Office Ultimate is available for $59.95 to students and educators (with valid university support), there is generally not a need for the more expensive solution.

-bob