It is done.
Bought the laptop today. It's a Dell Inspiron 5100. Here are its specs:
- 15" XGA screen
- Pentium 4 2.4 GHz Processor
- 32 MB ATI Mobility Radeon 7500 video card
- 512 MB DDR RAM
- 40 GB Hard Drive
- 24x CD-RW/8x DVD-ROM Combo Drive
- 56K Modem + 10/100 Ethernet NIC
- Integrated 802.11b/g Wireless NIC
- Windows XP Home
- Bunch of superfluous software that I had forced on me (productivity package, photo album, etc.)
- 1 year of mail-in tech support
- Total Price: $1239.00 (includes tax and shipping)
So, I believe I managed to find a decent deal. I'm going to replace XP Home with 2000 or XP Pro when I get back to Tech. It'll take about 2-3 weeks to get here so I should have it before I have to move out.
This thing's going to come in very handy in the near future. It'll allow me to get out of the dorm more often. Something I missed last spring when I was busy trying to finish my final project. I'm also thinking about doing something with this at SGA meetings, if I'm picked as VTSFFC rep -- basically, in addition to whatever oral/written report I'm obliged to give, a recording of SGA meetings. I figure an hour's worth of meeting can fit into a 10 MB Speex file -- no problem for broadband users. This would allow people to hear everything I'm hearing. Lemme know what you think of this idea!