Gateway Laptop

When my husband was repairing an Acer netbook for a friend, my mother-in-law was really considering one. We really thought it would be great because the netbooks are lightweight and still easy to use. However, after thinking on it, I realized that she'd need to worry about updating a netbook in a year or so and the big downside was that there was no CD/DVD drive, which would have cost around $50-$60 more. The price of a netbook and the external drive would have brought her close to $400.

Then we went to Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Sam's Club, Target, Staples and a local computer shop. None of the other storeshad a decent price on a 15 inch laptop that we decided would be best for her. The one we initially found was this Gateway in blue/black casing and it was originally at Best Buy - so we went back for the purchase.

Here are the specs:

Model #NV5378u / MS5378u
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit operating system
AMD Athlon II X2 M300 Processor
15.6" LCD screen
4 GB memory and a 500GB Harddrive
DVD Super Multi DL drive
Gateway webcam
6 cell Li-ion battery
802.11b/g/n for Internet

This laptop cost $479.99 plus tax. Now be warned that at Best Buy they have computers and laptops that have been opened and resealed - these laptops all cost at least $100 more than the list price because they installed other software on them. We didn't want that because my husband was going to install what she needed as far as Anti-Virus, Malware Bytes, Skype, etc.

Mom is very happy with her laptop and we know that with the amount of RAM and hard drive space, she'll be enjoying this for many years and can finally get rid of her desktop computer. Well, she most likely will just let the kids play on that desktop and she can enjoy her laptop without sharing. This was a great buy at a great price and the lowest we found in all of those stores we looked in.

She also bought a mini mouse for $19.99 and this will help when she's using the computer because the touchpad just isn't user-friendly for many people - including myself.