Dell Australia is promoting their budget notebook computer — the AUD$898.70 Dell Inspiron 2200, and that includes free delivery and an hard disk upgrade.

There has been quite a few notebook computers selling for under $1,000 these days, which was unthinkable even 3 years ago. The Dell package has to be one of the better offers —

• Processor: Intel Celeron M 1.40Ghz, 1Mb L2 cache
• Memory: 256Mb
• Monitor: 14 inch at 1024×768
• Hard drive: 60Gb
• Optical drive: CD-RW/DVD combo drive
• Graphics: Integrated (Graphics Media Accelerator)
• Network: 10/100Mbps ethernet, 56kbps modem
• Service: 1-year collect & return service

Notably missing is wireless networking, which comes as an AUD$26.40 extra option. Why get a notebook if you can’t go wireless?

To bring up the spec to make this budget notebook a workhorse, I’ll upgrade to 512Mb of RAM (AUD$48.40), add wireless mini PCI and upgrade to DVD+/-RW drive (AUD$51.70), which sums up to be $1,025.20 delivered. That would be quite a nice machine to get work going.