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Systemax offering $1,000 Vista Ultimate laptop

Tom Krazit Former Staff writer, CNET News
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Google, as the most prominent company on the Internet defends its search juggernaut while expanding into nearly anything it thinks possible. He has previously written about Apple, the traditional PC industry, and chip companies. E-mail Tom.
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Tom Krazit

Windows Vista Ultimate, as the name suggests, is the most feature-laden release of Windows Vista and commands a $399 price on store shelves. But Systemax is offering the OS plus a laptop around it--which is always helpful--for $999.99.

My colleague Dan Ackerman took a look at the Pursuit 4155 over on Crave and notes that it's a decent option for a cost-conscious buyer who still wants all the bells and whistles. But, according to Microsoft, the 1GB of RAM in the system is the minimum requirement for a Vista Ultimate PC, meaning that you might--as always--get what you pay for in terms of performance. If you're shelling out all that cash on Vista Ultimate, you might as well get 2GB of RAM to handle the extra demands of the OS, and that costs $200 extra.

But you will get a free upgrade to a Core 2 Duo processor, because earlier on Tuesday, Systemax promoted the laptop in a press release with a Core 2 Duo T2250 processor. That chip doesn't exist; Intel's T2250 chip is a slightly older Core Duo model, and that's the processor that comes with the $999 system. But since Systemax touted the Core 2 Duo, a representative confirmed that starting Wednesday it will offer a free upgrade (that would have cost $90) to a Core 2 Duo T5200 with the purchase of the laptop.