Published April 27th, 2007
in Shopping Bargains.
Update: Currently sold out for delivery. Check your local store for availability.
This is certainly not the best laptop out there but this is the cheapest I have seen. Get it from CompUSA today for just $336 after two mail in rebates. Free shipping. Offer expires tomorrow, April 28, 2007
Product description:
Intel Celeron M Processor 440, 1.86GHz, 512MB RAM, 80GB Hard Drive, 15.4-inch WXGA TFT Display, DVD / CD-RW Combo Drive, Windows Vista Home Basic
Source: discussion at FatWallet forums (via WiredDeals)
Published November 21st, 2006
in Shopping Bargains.
Best Buy has just revealed an addition to their already leaked Black Friday ad. The additional items are:
- Panasonic 42″ Plasma HDTV for $999
- Toshiba Satellite Notebook for $249.99
- Samsung MiniDV Digital Camcorder for $129.99
- Kodak EasyShare 7.1-Megapixel Digital Camera for $129.99
- Samsung neXus 50 XM Satellite Radio and MP3 Player for $49.99 (with mail-in rebate)
The laptop looks pretty hot. Will have to add it to my list.
Published November 18th, 2006
in Money Saving Tips.
I have been in the market for a low-end laptop for a while and the preferred choice so far has been the Compaq Presario for $299 (after rebate) from Circuit City. However the more I look at my options the more it sounds like I might skip this year Black Friday altogether. Unfortunately it looks like none of the return rebuy tricks will work this season. Read what this FatWallet member says about Circuit City:
I remember last year, CC closed the customer care/return counters. All the cashiers were ringing up new sales. You might not be able to return on it that day
Here is another comment apparently from a former Circuit City employee in reply to a post where a member suggests to price match the laptop:
From previous experience of working at CC during black friday, our store had a specific NO PRICEMATCH policy during black friday. They would not pricematch because they are “limited” offers.
The other laptop I was considering is HP Core Solo for $379.99 from Best Buy. I actually went there yesterday to take a look at it and I should say it looks very stylish compared to the brick-like Compaq Presario. So I dug into Best Buy related discussions hoping to find some useful tips but so far I only see comments like this:
2 years or so ago I went to Best Buy as my 2nd stop or so because there’s wasn’t anything I was desperate to have. The problem was getting in the store or even getting the product… I stood in line for over an hour just to CHECK OUT. They literally had a line winding all around the entire store like that snake game you play where you try not to run into yourself. It was the biggest @#$()*! joke I’ve ever seen.
This is very discouraging and looks like this year it will not be different. Best Buy has pretty good deals compared to other stores and most people will be shopping there but… probably without me. I might still go just for the sake of shopping spirit (and if I find a company to spend long hours in the line) however I am certainly not as anxious anymore.
For those of you who have not given up the idea here is a good article with tips on how to make the most out of your Black Friday shopping.
Published November 14th, 2006
in Shopping Bargains.
I am looking at the low-end Black Friday laptop offerings. My old IBM Thinkpad running 366MHz Intel Pentium II badly needs a replacement (yeah, I am that cheap ;-)). I will mainly use it for word processing, Internet browsing, and basic image editing (that pretty much sums up my midnight blogging :-)).
Here is a quick roundup of all promotions I have found around the forums and web sites. What do you think? I am leaning towards the Circuit City one since I don’t really need a 80GB hard drive. The only concern is the quality of these brands. I like my IBM laptop a lot, is Compaq going to be much worse?
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CompUSA
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Compaq Presario
AMD Sempron 3300+
15.4″ high-definition widescreen
CD & DVD reader/writer
512MB DDR2 memory
80GB hard drive
$399.99 (after $230 mail-in rebate)
$199.99 with Motorola RAZR ($29.99) and 1 year service
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Best Buy
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HP
Intel Centrino Technology
Core Solo T1350
15.4″ widescreen
CD & DVD reader/writer
512MB memory
80GB hard drive
$379.99 (no rebates)
Ad Scan
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Toshiba Satellite
Intel Celeron M 420
533MHz FSB, 1.6GHz CPU
15.4″ widescreen
CD reader/writer & DVD reader
512MB memory
60GB hard drive
$249.99 (no rebates)
Link
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Circuit City
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Compaq Presario
Intel Celeron M 420
15.4″ BrightView(TM) widescreen
CD & DVD reader/writer
512MB DDR RAM
60GB hard drive
free upgrade to Vista Basic
$299.99 (after $100 mail-in rebate)
$99 with 12 month Vonage subscription
Ad Scan
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Staples
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Compaq Presario
Turion 64 Mobile Technology ML-28
15.4″ widescreen
CD reader/writer & DVD reader
512MB RAM
60GB hard drive
$399 (no rebates)
Ad Scan
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All stores open November 24, 5am except Staples which opens 6am
Here is a relevant discussion at FatWallet
Update 11/21: added unadvertised Best Buy Toshiba laptop
Published November 2nd, 2006
in Interesting / Other.
One Laptop Per Child is the name of the program that aims at building a $100 laptop. The design is done by MIT Media Laboratory while Taiwan based Quanta Computers will do manufacturing. The initiative is currently aimed at third world countries and educational uses.
The laptop runs on a 366 Mhz AMD processor, Linux OS, and has a 802.11b/g wireless chipset which enables browsing internet and running web applications. The latter is especially important since the laptop doesn’t have a hard drive and goes about with 512MB flash memory.
IDG News reports that the first laptops will roll off production lines by the end of this year.
The company expects to ship 5 million to 10 million of the laptops next year, and said orders to Argentina, Brazil, Libya, Nigeria, and Thailand have already been confirmed.
While the first laptops will certainly go to schools in Africa and South America I fully expect to see them in Sharper Image, Discovery and Kids-R-Us stores here in the US once the production kicks in at full capacity. This is also inevitably going to affect prices on all lower end laptops including brands like Dell and HP.
So, a sub- $100 laptop sometime next year, why not?
Read more about One Laptop Per Child program at their web site laptop.org
