Please look at my details for the Dell I am thinking about purchasing.....?

Question

I only need it for homework purposes and I will install my own office suite so it doesnt have to be the greatest machine but tell me if this is still a good machine.

Inspiron 1525 Intel® Pentium® Dual Core T2390 (1.86GHz/533Mhz FSB/1MB cache) PP239HN [223-8965]

Operating System Genuine Windows Vista® SP1 Home Basic Edition VHB31E [420-5769][420-6436][420-7580][420-7622]...

System Color Sunshine Yellow YEL [313-5780]

Memory 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz 2G2D [311-7806]

LCD Panel Glossy, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800) 15XGAT [320-6047]

Video Card Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X3100 INTAC [320-6059]

Hard Drive Size: 250GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) 250GB [341-5618]

Network Integrated 10/100 Network Card INTNIC [430-2651]

Modem Integrated Modem I56NM [313-5793]

Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 8.1 ADOBER [420-7468]

Combo or DVD+RW Drive CD / DVD Writer (DVD+/-RW Drive) 8XDVDRW [313-5791][420-8183]

Sound Card High Definition Audio 2.0 IS [313-4783]

Wireless Networking Cards Dell Wireless 1395 802.11g Mini-Card DW1395 [430-2652]

Camera No Webcam Option DNCAMER [313-5786]

Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) No Productivity software pre-installed MSONO [412-1397]

Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) McAfee SecurityCenter with anti-virus, anti-spyware, firewall, 30-Days MC930D [410-1160]

Battery Options 6 cell battery 6BAT [312-0617]

Warranty & Service 1Yr Ltd HW WRTY, InHome Service after Remote Diagnosis, 24x7 Phone Support S1OS [412-0360][950-3337][950-9797][960-2780]...

Datasafe Included 3 GB DataSafe Online Backup for 1Yr DATSF3G [420-7091][420-7092][987-4817][988-0099]

Dial-Up Internet Access No ISP requested NISP [412-0148]

Processor Branding Intel Pentium® Dual-Core Processor ID3CNB [310-9752]

Labels Windows Vista™ Basic

Answer 1

All well, I would suggest 2 points.

1. If you have the budget, pay extra for the 3 yrs warranty, it may save you a small fortune.

2. Do NOT go with Vista, ask them for XP, if you value your time and your sanity, then avoid Vista, it can make even a new fast laptop run like a dog.

Answer 2

It won't be great for games, but it should easily be fine for basic homework/ email / internet tasks.

Answer 3

for what you intend to use it for it's fine.  but i'd up the RAM to 3GB instead of 2...