spec recommendation please

I've been asked to help some family members to buy several new computers (2 laptops and a desktop). It's been a while since I've shopped for a computer, but a P4 2Ghz, 512MB RAM, 30GB HD sounds like a decent machine to me. They're not gamers, and they'll mainly use the computers for Internet and basic Word, Excel type of things. They're very budget-minded (i.e. cheap), and think the prices I've found for these type of computers (from Dell) are too high .

Is Celeron nowadays a good alternative to P4? What's the minimum amount of RAM for Win XP?

If you don't want a P4 I would get an AMD system. Both are comparable and good. Celerons are really really slow.

Minimum memory is pretty much 256MB although 512MB is ideal and much better.

<font color=red>GOD</font color=red> <font color=blue>BLESS</font color=blue> <font color=red>AMERICA</font color=red>

Thanks for the warning against the Celeron. I didn't have a high opinion of them before and I guess that's still true now.

I didn't want to spend the time to build a system. And I can't build laptops anyway. Any recommendations on what are good brands if Dell's not so great? I hate Compaq/HP.

Celerons with a 256k cache aren't too bad. FSB of 100, so really only for mobos who's max is that though.

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