I recently got rid of my Dell Vostro 1500; and I've been bumming computer use off my friends.

I can't decide If I should grab a $250 9" Vostro to hold me over until I go back to school in February(At which point I will buy a SolidWorks capable $1,200 machine)

or

Should bump up to a 13" $600 Vostro with a good(256mg Nvidia9400M) video card/cpu, and just use that through the school year...


Grah! Cheap sexy easily modded ultraportable netbook is calling my name!!!!

just traveled to europe with an asus eeePC. the 10' screen was small for me, im used to a dual monitor setup, it worked out really well.

if all you need to do is web, email, a few docs, and if the lack of screen real estate doesnt bother you, i would just go netbook. if 600 bucks is within your budget, i would look further than just dell, to the other brands of netbook (asus, msi, lenovo, etc).