Recommendation for mini-laptop (DVD, laptops, RAM, hard drive)

[katestar]

Hi All. I am looking to buy a mini-laptop as a gift to be used primarily for email, surfing the net (facebook, instant messenger etc) and streaming video (youtube, hulu etc). What would be considered a good one out there? I am looking to spend about $200. Also, do any of them have DVD drives? My parents bought a refurbished one for my little bro at Dell for about $200, I liked it, but the mouse/clicker was a little weird. Thanks.

[Narfcake]

Most ultra-portable laptops and netbooks will NOT have a drive built in. If you need the drive, expect to spend another $40 or so for an external one.

At the $200 price, there isn't any new netbook which I'd recommend.

If your storage needs are modest, then my suggestion would be to use the exclusive 25% off coupon from here and get an off-lease Dell Latitude D420 or D430 with a Core 2 processor. About 3 pounds, 12.1" widescreen, a keyboard with normal key spacing (very important if you touch type), and as these were target to business travelers, its construction is better than many of the "consumer" models.

Aim for a configuration with 2gb ram (or prepare to spend an extra $20 to upgrade from 1gb), and the largest hard drive you feel you can live with. There are a some that have Windows XP (if you despise Windows Vista) and some do include the external drive. These computers use a 1.8" hard drive (think the iPod Classic's hard drive) and are not as readily upgradable as those which use 2.5" hard drives. They'll have a 100-day warranty (extended warranty available from SquareTrade).

[Charles]

I have a dell mini 10 with built in 3G wireless card. I use it for surfing while in my vanpool. I like everything about it except one thing: the keyboard is sort of small (naturally) and for some reason occaisionally when I am typing I must accidentally hit the wrong combination of keys/ctrl/alt/space bar/ or tap the finger pad and that sometimes causes the cursor to move several characters elsewhere in the text I am typing. So, in a dark van at 5am i'll be typing something and the second half of my sentence will be located somewhere inserted a couple sentences earlier. Bottom line, I think it is a function of the small keyboard and my big hands.

I dont' think you can buy one fror $200 though, probably closer to $300 or $350 and I bought mine from the dell outlet.