Who can recommend a cheap, durable, quality laptop?

[JoystickMonkey]

My mom and sister are both looking for laptops of the "I just want to be able to do email and burn DVDs" type. It doesn't have to be fancy or fast, and neither of them play games.

The laptops have to be as inexpensive as possible, but they shouldn't break very easily.

Anyone have any good suggestions or good experiences with brands?


Thanks!

[cooloola]

What's your notion of cheap?
From my experience HP laptops have the best value but they aren't the cheapest.

[HortonsWho]

The ACERS (http://reviews.cnet.com/4566-3121_7-0.html?tag=dffl1_1&filter=100021_11671896_) are generally cheap and "OK". We've had a few of the HP Pavillions as beaters and they seem decent enough too.

[JoystickMonkey]

Durable is really the key here, although it's not necessary to have a computer that's anywhere near top of the line. Thanks again!

[Moot]

get a dell

[Hostile]

I have a cheap Dell. It works good. The only thing I would say make sure it does NOT have an on board Intel video card!! I don't know if you can get one without it??
Also, try to get 1 with enough system memory. The cheap ones are short on memory.

[Creeper]

My dell works fine for similar purposes, and I haven't broken it yet.

[DeadMeatGF]

I've always found that most laptops now are of a similar build quality and spec - the real difference in quality comes in the support should something go wrong.
Personally I've had really excellent support from Dell UK, although I regularly read that Dell US are crap at support. (This may be true, or just "attack the market leader" stuff - you never can tell.) Conversely Acer laptops have been fantastic, reliable and great value - but if one should go wrong you might as well bin it, as replacement parts cost more than a new laptop and getting even basic support is almost impossible, and involves expensive, premium-rate phone calls. Again, this may not be the case outside of the UK ...