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[JoshuaFH]

Hey guys, my Mom is in the market for a new laptop cause she destroyed the speakers and the audio output of her netbook. Somehow.

Anyway, I looked onto Newegg for a new one, with my only requirement that it be under 200 dollars and have a camera and speakers, and found this after a tertiary search:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1M80RX3631

Though I'm not sure, I've never heard of the company name before and apparently it uses an android operating system that I'm completely unfamiliar with. Not sure if it's good for her rather limited understanding of computers, or if the product itself will hold up.

[nenjin]

With the price point and usefulness in mind.....

You might as well check out refurbished models. At $200 basically anything you buy can be a crap shoot due to quality, so you might as well save yourself as much as possible. I think a refurbished laptop from well-known companies will run you in the $125 - $400 range.

[lue]

With the price point and usefulness in mind.....

You might as well check out refurbished models. At $200 basically anything you buy can be a crap shoot due to quality, so you might as well save yourself as much as possible. I think a refurbished laptop from well-known companies will run you in the $125 - $400 range.

Indeed, I'm typing this up on a desktop I got for $150. (I believe the monitor was a separate purchase though.)

[wierd]

New, a 200$ "notebook" is going to be an intel atom based netbook at best. Something...scary.. at worst.

I agree with the refurb conclusion. You will get a low end laptop at netbook pricing that way.

[Sensei]

If I were you I'd avoid the droid laptop. That seems like a bad idea. Refurbs are probably a safer bet.

[Lectorog]

For $250, I can vouch for the quality of the Samsung Chromebook (series 3), especially if you have a stable wireless internet connection. If you don't like the OS, you could easily overlay it with Linux. However, $250 is obviously over $200. There are some out there on eBay and the like, but not too many.

[Stargrasper]

Out of curiosity, why is the budget $200?  Even for used/refurbished, that's an extremely low value for a laptop.  In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a full blown laptop new for that price.  Netbooks and tablets maybe.  But not a laptop capable of actually doing much.

If you're willing to take a bit more of a risk in quality, ebay is showing promising results for names you're more likely to have heard of.  Craigslist sometimes has amazing deals, too.  Just don't skimp too much.  It sounds like it needs enough power to do some degree of multimedia.

[JoshuaFH]

Out of curiosity, why is the budget $200?  Even for used/refurbished, that's an extremely low value for a laptop.  In fact, I don't think I've ever seen a full blown laptop new for that price.  Netbooks and tablets maybe.  But not a laptop capable of actually doing much.

If you're willing to take a bit more of a risk in quality, ebay is showing promising results for names you're more likely to have heard of.  Craigslist sometimes has amazing deals, too.  Just don't skimp too much.  It sounds like it needs enough power to do some degree of multimedia.

Well, it's mostly just that the budget doesn't allow for another large purchase in the house, and my Mom only really wants something that would enable her to exploit my Netflix account, so not anything fancy at all.

[gimlet]

Hmm, what about something like a Kindle Fire?   The non-HD ones are under $200 and I saw that they have a netflix app, no idea if that will work with your account or not.   Oh I don't think they have a camera either.  The resolution isn't super grat for movies, but it's just the right size to fit in my pocket and I use it mostly to read ebooks, so having their screwy limited OS doesn't bother me too much.  Oh, huh I see some of the Fire HD 7" are under $200 now, looks like a new version is about to come out so there should be some sales.  I dunno if that's what you're looking for, just thought I'd mention it...

[Obsi]

November's Black Friday / Cyber Monday is only a month or so away.  It's always been the cheapest time of the year to buy computers, though the recent rules they've been coming up with stretching the deals over the entire Thanksgiving week are starting to become a pain.  You might want to wait and see what they put on sale.

[nenjin]

The problem with Kindles IMO is they suck for web browsing. Although that's just my hatred of touch-interfaces showing. Kindles are nice (I like my Kindle Fire) but to me it's not a replacement for a laptop or desktop. Anything a Kindle can do, a laptop will do better. From screen size to battery life to functionality. The size and lack of peripherals are the only perks of a tablet over a laptop.