What's The Perfect Balance For a Budget Laptop?

Posted by Zonk on Wednesday April 9, 2008 @08:55AM from the whatever-fits-over-your-knees dept.

cheapbob writes "Recently HP officially unveiled a budget ultraportable laptop aimed to compete with the likes of Asus Eee PC. According to Compal, one of Dell's assemblers, Dell is also going to enter the budget ultra-portable market soon. All of these devices lack many of the features associated with larger-sized laptops, such as optical drives and large amounts of storage space, yet demand for them is very high. Initial reviews of these devices unsurprisingly expose them to be underpowered and lacklustre. What's the appeal? What do you think is the perfect balance of features and price point for a budget laptop?"

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Budget vs Ultraportable by shankarunni · 2008-04-09 09:13 · Score: 5, Interesting

I think you're asking the wrong question. Budget, Ultra-portable, Powerful - you can have any 2 out of 3.

If the question is truly about Budget and "powerful enough", obviously the thing won't be ultraportable. You can get a reasonable machine (~5 lbs, 14" screen, low-end Core Duo or Turion based) for about $500, or even lower if you look for sales or rebates.

You can then add a cheap or free office suite (e.g. OpenOffice), Firefox, etc., and you're ready to go.