Campquake Senate

Piratica, having fullfilled her duty to graduate from high school,
has been promised a laptop to take to college, in this case,
UT Austin. I went to bestbuy.com and dell.com and saw that
only Windows Vista is available on new laptops.
This is unacceptable - for example I understand that Vista actually
disables the higher capabilities of some media devices and
diverts kernal resources in order to prevent access to licensed
content.

I have no problem with Window XP, however. Bestbuy is offering
xp home full for USD 180. I can also get it from ebay, although
I see troubling text such as:
"I accidentally broke the seal but I swear I never installed it"
"OEM version, we will ship you a piece of hardware too"
etc.
But the price is a little better, around USD 135+shipping.
So is ebay worth the risk? If so, what should I check for before ordering?
How likely is it that a new laptop will work with XP, since apparently
they are being built for Vista now?
Any other suggestions or advice?
Thanks,
Data

You can still get Windows XP Notebooks! But it's hard, and Dell's the only one I know where to look for them.

You just have to refine your search!

Here's a link for you:
Dell Notebooks with Windows XP

( get 'em while you still can!)

eBay is spooky grounds. Lots of scams run through there. I wouldn't feel safe buying anything over $50 there.

Buying a new laptops with Vista then trying to back-rev to Windows XP might be a gamble. If the manufacture doesn't have any drivers for the components to work in Windows XP you might be screwed for trying. And you won't be able to return your XP copy - best to test it with an existing license first to see if it will work. Then reformat and buy a legit OEM version it did. It's usually easier to go up than it is to go down.

I like Dell laptops. I have 3 of them at work. Only one has some video cable issues, but that may have been more related to abuse. Reliability has been good, but price is usually the downside.

And I've also ordered a factory refurbished Dell laptop for my kids for dirt cheap through their outlet. It was repaired by a monkey with the brains of a rubber plant. I had to take it apart and reinstall the wireless card, antenna, and video cable. Wasn't fun, but I didn't have any problems after that.

I'm agreeing with everything that Neo mentions.

Also, try Newegg.com for OEM software licenses, they're much more dependable than eBay! And as long as you can show proof that you bought enough hardware at the time of the license, the OEM license IS legit even though they'd technically never have a reason to question it.

Honestly though, if you do get a laptop with Vista, give it a trial run and see if it'll do what she needs before you splurge more on an XP license. Chances are it will still work just fine for all the basic stuff.
I have it on my home PC and as much as I dislike some things about it, it works just fine for 95% of the stuff that I need to do on it. That's quite a bit considering that I do use it as a home work machine as well as a gaming\graphics rig.

I agree with Neo and I add...have you thought about a Mac Book.....I know it is heresy but they are good machine and boot camp lets you run Windows....and boot camp will be built into 10.5

/concur
XPS+XP=SWEET

Most dell computers have the option to come with either XP or Vista installed. All my computers have been from dell and they've all worked great, especially my laptop, just a little video card overheating issue that's keeping me back from time to time.

I am personally an Ebayer, a MAJOR Ebayer, Power seller and buyer. Lots of great deals there, all of them worth it. Scams are almost non-existent so long as you have common sense, and even so Ebay cracks down on possibly scams HARD, even though they really aren't a threat. I suggest buying a computer from Ebay instead of an XP license,b/c a microsoft license might not be something to look for on Ebay simply b/c licenses are not allowed to be sold / distributed through Ebay, though most computers you can find already come with XP anyway, so no biggie there.

I personally have not tested Vista myself, though I would suggest giving it some time for microsoft to work out some of the kinks it has, like eating up half your memory and holding onto it for dear life when it's just sitting there doing.... nothing at all. But if you have enough memory and processing power, it's not that big of a deal and will still run just fine, just be sure to check for available drivers / software / hardware for Vista + DirectX 10.

Neophyte wrote: a monkey with the brains of a rubber plant

You rang?