My friend (who lives in Ohio) only has $675 US to spend on a laptop at the end of May.

She just needs it for surfing the web, IRC, school (post secondary), nothing intensive. It just needs to be very reliable. Although since they all seem to come with Vista now (XP would be better but I guess not really an option anymore), 2 gigs of RAM would be nice but not if it means going over 650 (MAYBE 700 max, still need to pay taxes maybe shipping).

Well, you could have her look at the Inspiron 1525, which starts at 500$ I believe. Or she could get a dell Latitude c600 ( old laptop). Its old and somewhat slow, but mine has been running for 6 years and is only starting to come apart now.

Or she could look at something like this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834114448

an eee pc would be a good choice.

;)

Just because a lot of laptops have weak CPUs, I'd insist on 2 GB ram. I hear there's nothing wrong with running Vista like that, if you turn the Aero off in favor of the 'basic experience'. And looks like the standard integrated video are decent G33-quality, so your friend can probably skip on a video card option. Maybe use some of the money saved to buy a 'home/student' version of Microsoft Office.

Newegg are good peoples. I recommend shopping through them.

Check out the Dell Vostro under small business. You can easily option one to under $675 and get a Core2 Duo, 2GB RAM, and even XP. And while a $675 laptop could run Vista, it'll run better with XP, and of the various reasons someone would "need" to use Vista, your friend doesn't seem to have any of them. I would also suggest Open Office in place of MS Office. It's completely free, saving ~$100, and can do everything you need.

I second the Vostro recommendation for a low-cost laptop. It has XP (by default no less), a very low start point (as low as $399), a regular screen size (can't imagine why anyone would want an EEE as a primary computer), and can be configured in many ways. You can get extra memory, or extra processing power, or more hard drive space, or a better video card, and still be under $675. Lenovo also has a laptop that fits within that price range I think. Can't remember the model though.

As for Microsoft Office, you can buy it (legitimately) for $60 at www.theultimatesteal.com . It may well still be within budget.

Well, you could have her look at the Inspiron 1525, which starts at 500$ I believe. Or she could get a dell Latitude c600 ( old laptop). Its old and somewhat slow, but mine has been running for 6 years and is only starting to come apart now.

Yeah, the Inspiron 1525 is pretty great for that price range, i just received
Dell Inspiron 1525 15.4 inch 3GB 250GB Laptop, it's a deal price of $574, you can give it a look, not sure if it's still available

http://www.dealstudio.com/viewtopic.php?t=38303&ru=290

Thanks for the advice :)

You could try a lenovo R61 they're on sale right now. You could even get 2 entire gigabytes of RAM and a 2.1ghz processor. The Inspiron also looks good.

Turns out my friend got another $800 as a grad present so she can get a better laptop.

Thanks though :)