Well, I just started my second semester of college now, and one of their new requirements is that every student must own a laptop.

Well, I'm completely broke at 19 years of age, so I turn to my dad, who of course, wants something cheap...

I've never bought a laptop before in my 7 plus years of computer experience, but read a few fliers and found Dell had the best bang for the buck with their Inspiron 2500 series - And when they had a week where they offered a free CDRW upgrade, I had to bite...

For $1364 (including shipping) I received the following:

Intel PIII 800
128MB Ram
14.1in Display
10 gig hard drive
Actiontech mini-pci Modem/Network Card
Integrated Intel Sound and Video (i815 motherboard by the way)
Sony CRX700E CDRW IDE/Atapi Drive (SCSI Emulation)
Floppy of course and a battery and ac adapter

It also comes with the usual - An rgb connector for an external monitor, 2 USB ports, 2 PCMCIA slots, only ONE PS/2 port, 9 pin serial port, and a parallel port... (Hope I didn't leave anything out - Don't have it with me right now)

All in all, the machine is solid... It looks fairly nice, with a nicely designed keyboard, but it's heavier than lead. However, it is a solid workhorse and I can live with the weight...

It comes preinstalled with Windows ME (YUK!), or as an option, Windows 2000 (extra $)... They also include a certificate for Windows XP for only $20, which is nice...

I hate Windows - HATE IT! So I of course went out to install linux on this son of a gun...

My Debian CD wouldn't boot - My Mandrake 7.2 CD wouldn't install properly, Mandrake 8 CD wouldn't boot, and so on...

Finally I downloaded and burned Red Hat 7.1 from school, and it installed absolutely flawlessly...

Everything works and is configured automatically by the Red Hat installer, except for the WINMODEM! DAMN WINMODEMS!

Anyway, linux does have a Winmodem driver now and users have reportedly gotten this particular modem to work in Linux, but I gave up... I got it to communicate with the modem using AT commands, but it would never pickup a dial tone... (Base address problem, IRQ conflict, who knows)

I just got DSL though and don't need it, so for all practical purposes, EVERYTHING on this system works with linux.

It's big, but it's bad and very affordable... It's probably dropped about $100 while I wrote this, so get one before they discontinue it!

4 out of 5 stars

Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 1364.00
Operating System: Linux
Processor: Intel Pentium III
Processor speed: 701-800
Screen Size: 14
RAM: 128
Internal Storage: CD-RW
Hard Drive (GB): 13-20