BleepingComputer.com: Advice Needed Re Laptop Specs

Please forgive my ignorance if this is posted in the wrong forum.

A friend's considering getting a laptop for her daughter to primarily play internet games.
Could anyone advise me as to whether the specs below would be ok

· Intel Celeron processor M 540 1.86GHz
· 512MB RAM
· 80GB Hard Drive
· 15.4" widescreen display
· 16:10 format for optimised DVD playback
· Windows Vista Home Basic
· Dual layer dvd rewriter
· VIA Chrome9 HC DirectX 9 graphics
· Built-in wireless networking (802.11b/g)
· NERO Burning ROM 7 Essentials
· 1MB Level2 Cache
· FSB 533 MHz

Help would be v much appreciated!
Many thanks


Mod Edit: Topic moved to more appropriate forum~ TMacK

Hello,

The system looks ok for playing simple online games, however, the OS is vista which is power hungry at best and 512MB might not be enough to satisfy it.

Vista basic Really means BASIC its not as fun looking and a kid would rather have home Premium to get the full use of Vista. But if this is all you could find for the price you want to spend it will work fine. I would Look into upgrading to at lease 1GB of ram on Vista Basic and 2GB of ram on Home Premium.

other then that looks good for online games unless there playing games that come on Cds or games that come from places like Steam.
Im saying Cd games or Steam games because most likely you wouldnt want to play them on a laptop. the processor wouldn't be the best for that and nearly not enough ram.

Personally I would wipe it clean, install XP home, registered in your name and then download the drivers for it. Windows Vista is still unstable and there is still no service pack for it which it desperatly needs.
Also alot of software over 12 months old will not run on Vista and you will need to buy the new versions.
Windows XP is by far the most up to date and stable version of windows ever made. It is not power hungry and will suit your system much better than Vista as it is minimum spec for Vista and above minimum for XP.
PoweredByGoogle has a good point about upgrading the ram though, even with XP it will be a big noticable difference.
I hope I have been of some help to you.

Phill.

What kind of budget are we working with? The computer will be ok for playing games on yahoo etc..but depending on the age of the kid it will be outdated fast (Doing more on the computer, wanting to do more at the same time is taxing on a single core processor with minimal ram). Vista with only 512mb of ram may not be a good Idea, as mentioned above I would install XP home edition or upgrade the memory at least. If they can afford better I would opt for a dual core processor. It won't get outdated as fast.