i got a dell inspiron 6000 last week, refurbished from their outlet - Celeron M 1.3Ghz, 512MB ram, including cdrw/dvd and wireless card - $599 for the unit plus $50 shipping plus $50 tax - the processor speed has never been an issue for me, i used a P2 laptop w/Ensign and IB/Java and traded fine from that, so imo any recent chip is fine and fast enough - my last pc had 256ram and that was enough, this one uses around 250-300MB of ram with Ensign/IB/Zerolinetrader loaded (on win xp home), i unintstalled a couple of pre-installed dell and non-dell non-essentiall apps - note i am a futures trader, i do not scan/scroll through thousands of stocks/charts, i typically have only a couple of charts running - also, this one has a 15.4 widescreen but i use an external 19monitor - i tried the 17inch HP ZD7000 laptop and the fan was very noisy but this one is very quiet.. - $700 all in seemed a good price to me (i also went with a refurb because i needed it immediately, a new one takes a couple of weeks to build) - you have to check the inventory in their outlet a couple of times to get the spec you need and a good price - i have changed several dells in the last 5 years, never a problem.
