Laptop Recommendations

[cmchamp]

A fellow teacher, Windows user, is wanting a sub $500 laptop, including Office. I believe through our local educational pricing, we can get Office Professional for under $100.
What do you Windows experts recommend for a sub $500 laptop. No bells and whistles, just Office use for school documents.
C.

[[Admin] osborn4]

S/he needs to find out what size screen and keyboard they are comfortable with. Going to Staples or Best Buy or similar, should be good to find that out.

I, personally, stay away from HP Compaqs and lean away from Dells. If it was me, I'd be following the TigerDirect and NewEgg email deals and watch for something with a 250 GB hard drive and 4 (maybe 3) GB of RAM with 64 bit Windows 7 Home Premium, with the screen size they are comforable with.

I am biased toward my Asus (but I have only used the one Asus) and Lenovo, but I have much more experience with the profesisonal ThinkPad line than the consumer IdeaPad line.

[Stever]

I might be a little leary on Win 7 64Bit I've run into compatability issues, 32 bit is great.
You might also consider downloading Open Office for free! I find it to do the job for 80% of my users. http://www.openoffice.org
Also try to find something with a 7200RPM hard drive

[[Admin] osborn4]

I have to disagree about the 64-bit. I haven't had any problems yet and it's more forward looking.

If she is using mostly MS Office, she won't have problems with th e 64 bit version. Although, if she's just using office, she will probalby be OK with 32 bit.

I agree about the 7200RPM drive, but I don't know how important that is in a $400 laptop to run Office.

[cmchamp]

At school, we are weaning off of Microsoft Office due to licensee costs. We are awaiting confirmation of our Google Apps Education account and will be switching staff machines over to Open Office.
She's not into photos, movies, etc.
I'll have her peruse WalMart's offerings for screen size. 5400rpm drive will be fine I'm sure.
Her main concern is compatibility. She's not techy by any means. Has Office '07 at home on a machine with Vista and Office '03 at school with XP and has continual issues with moving files between the two.
Yes, I've told her what she needs to do, but she forgets.
I do get the NewEgg daily emails. I'll start there looking at the brands recommended.
Thanks.
C.

[[Admin] osborn4]

That Lenovo G550 in today's email for $399 with free shipping looks like an interesting deal.

A 15.6" screen is about as you can reasonably expect in this price range.

[cmchamp]

I got that, forwarded it to her.
I did check to see that OpenOffice was going to work well with her Excel created grade sheets. No problem.
Since ALL of our staff use computers will be weaned off Microsoft Office Suite while we move to GoogleApps and OpenOffice, there's no reason for her to have to expend much more $$ than the cost of that laptop.
I've seen her today, but not asked if she's ready to move on that machine.