IN BRIEF | We spotted a good bargain on a well specced -- and well priced -- Core 2 Duo notebook that qualifies for a Windows 7 upgrade.
If you've got a notebook that you're tossing up upgrading to Win 7 or replacing completely with a new notebook including Windows 7, you might want to check out this deal from Officeworks:
Officeworks has a Dell Inspiron 15 with a 2.1GHz Core 2 Duo processor for just $796 -- only $97 more than the underpowered Celeron model sold on Dell.com, and is even $2 cheaper than Dell's own Pentium D model.
This is a remarkably good deal, because upgrading from Celeron to Core 2 Duo on Dell.com normally costs $287.10 extra on top of the $699 base unit price.
The Officeworks Dell Inspiron 15 also sports 3GB RAM and 320GB HDD -- bigger than Dell's own standard Inspiron 15, which comes with 250GB.
The downside is that it comes with Windows Vista Home Premium, but it does qualify for a free upgrade to Windows 7 through Dell by mail-in redemption (you get a Windows 7 upgrade DVD in the mail).
Dell's own machines are now shipping with Windows 7 preinstalled, but it seems that if you can be bothered with the Vista-to-7 upgrade process, you can get a better deal through Officeworks than Dell itself at the moment.
You can check out the Officeworks machine here.
Have you spotted other good deals on Windows 7 notebooks with beefy specs? Post them in the comments below.