i picked up a dell laptop someone had taken all the stuff out except battery is it worth messing with?

Depends on how old it is, how fast a CPU it has and how much memory.

If it is less than a P3 and about 800MHz, I wouldn't waste my time on it.

Depends how much you already spent on it, if anything. How old it is, and how badly you need a mobile system. Paying a monthly payment at Dell for a high-end top is more recommended, because you can get insurance and data-theft protection and other things like that. Warranty for one.

Dell has recently (2005+) [to me, people] been engineering their laptops better and better to be able to allow the consumer to replace or upgrade hardware in there. So parts might not be cheap, but may be obtainable and installable.

Model number and Mfg. year would be a very helpful detail to other answerers.

I don't know, is it?

You would need to give us more details.

The model number of the laptop would be a good start. Just saying it is a "dell laptop" doesn't tell us if it is worth putting any effort into it.

Dell makes computers to where you need to buy their parts in order to fix them and saying that dells parts especially for laptops are expensive.It really depends on whats left from inside the computer and what you want to use it for,as computers as a whole are getting cheaper these days ,its best just to go buy a new one.

No not unless you want a chunk of plastic and a battery. You might as well buy a new laptop.

no.. bc all the repairs will equal up to the amount an actual laptop costs.. including the price of Internet.. or wireless

might as well get a new laptop and Internet without all the hassle

no, its easier and cheaper to replace a laptop than to install new parts. Just buy yourself a new one.

sure if you just wanna mess around with it...use it to learn how to solder