Laptop Help

[FoliFish]

Hi all. Wondering if anyone can help me with choosing a laptop?
My son is asking for one for Christmas, and it is the only thing he REALLY wants. I am not a bits and bytes guy at all, so a lot of the computer jargon confuses the ever loving #^&#^&#^&#^&e out of me....LOL.
He's 9, and will really only use it to word process and go on sites like Club Penguin, Webkinz, etc. I'm sure the machine will also get some use by myself and my wife for email and general web browsing, and the boy also wants to use some kind of software for uploading/editing/creating short videos of his lego guys in action.
The budget is around 500...is this feasible? Any and all thoughts and suggestions greatly appreciated.

Dennis

[Raven]

5 hundred is quite sufficient

the thing that makes any computer fast is when it has sufficient memory ....rule of thumb...the more the better

dual processors help greatly as well
just imagine if we had two brains or two heads

best time to buy it... BLACK friday the day after thanksgiving

tiger direct dot com has some outrageous deals
as does newegg.dot com

John R mentioned a discount site recently
i fergit what it was....chime in there Bossman

video processing is typically a memory hog
as is any type of graphics processing...

[vineyardblues]

IPAD 2

$499.99

it's the future

start him off in the right direction

[Striperknight]

Originally Posted by FoliFish

Hi all. Wondering if anyone can help me with choosing a laptop?
My son is asking for one for Christmas, and it is the only thing he REALLY wants. I am not a bits and bytes guy at all, so a lot of the computer jargon confuses the ever loving #^&#^&#^&#^&e out of me....LOL.
He's 9, and will really only use it to word process and go on sites like Club Penguin, Webkinz, etc. I'm sure the machine will also get some use by myself and my wife for email and general web browsing, and the boy also wants to use some kind of software for uploading/editing/creating short videos of his lego guys in action.
The budget is around 500...is this feasible? Any and all thoughts and suggestions greatly appreciated.

Dennis

Be extremely careful when giving a kid a laptop.
My Kid played a kiddy type game club penguin game and met up with a predator. Set down ground rules IE ...only use it on common areas of your house. Know what they are doing and learn about it.

[PRBuzz]

Originally Posted by Raven

best time to buy it... BLACK friday the day after thanksgiving

Isn't best day for buying online: BLACK MONDAY? Avoid standing in lines, sales tax (most cases), and free shipping.

1st Monday following Thanksgiving.

[JohnR]

Good & Cheap:

Toshiba Satellite 15.6 L755-S5306 i3 500gb 4GB DDR3 $399.99 +tax Best Buy - Slickdeals.net

Toshiba Satellite 15.6 L755-S5306 i3 500gb 4GB DDR3 $399.99 +tax @ Best Buy

[FoliFish]

Thanks for the input guys....Happy Thanksgiving!!!

[Saltheart]

I would look for an Intel i3 based one with 4 to 8 gig Ram. I think I have seen some 15 inch Dell Inspirons with i3's and 4 gig Ram for $299 this weekend but of course you need to hussle to get one on a big day like today. Monday will be another big electronics discount day but online. Hard to beat an intel machine from Dell Outlet as far as Bang for the Buck goes.

I also saw a dual core based netbook for $159 today! Small screen 10.1 inch , but fairly capable and obviously very low priced. I believe it was an Asus.