To upgrade or replace?

[mikester]

Fishing for a bit of advice here. I've (somehow still) got a Dell Inspiron 2200 which I bought nearly four years ago. It works alright despite have been dragged halfway across the globe twice, beaten, dropped, Red Bull treatment, and a few electrical shorts. I've just installed Windows 7 and it's working just fine after a few driver tweaks.

My question is simply this: should I bother spending fifty quid to remedy the only two outstanding issues with this laptop, namely the battery and the RAM? Or should I spring for an HP 311c for two hundred, or a used netbook for less than that? I have one year left in school, and after that I will (finally) have a decent job wherein I can purchase a shiny new system.

Is it worth it?

Thx

 

[mikester]

After a bit of research, the total cost should cost to approximately £114 including shipping. I would max out my hard drive (replacing old 60GB drive with a 120GB IEDE 2.5 inch WD 8MB 5400rpm), memory (adding a standard 1GB PC2700 stick for a motherboard maximum of 1.2GB) and battery (8-cell Li-ion 14.8V) to breathe some new life into this four-year old laptop.

It still strikes me that I could spend a few extra quid and find a used laptop with far better specs, mind you.

Still on the fence.

 

[mikester]

Cheaper option it is. Thanks, guys.