Laptop Wars!

[Andrew Blair]

I'm sure that everyone, and not just people shopping for laptops have noticed a pitched battle for price between the many laptop sellers. Dell started it with the $549 laptop,HP countered. Dell lowered to $499, Hp countered. Best Buy countered. It seems to me, the closer we get to the beginning of school, college or otherwise, the hotter the deals get. I know that this fight has been going on for years, but I feel that this year it has simply exploded. I suppose it's the drop in computer hardware. I'm wondering what anyone's thoughts on this are, when you feel it will end, and any absolutely spectacular deals that are either great, or too good to be trrue.

[sanddrag]

My thoughts are that all the laptops that cheap are Celerons or Semprons which aren't really the best. They may serve fine for web browsing or word processing, but I wouldn't count on them for anything like Inventor.

[Cory]

You get what you pay for... a $400 laptop isn't going to be very good for anything except word processing and internet browsing.

[Ryan M.]

True. Cheap laptops = cheaper parts. My $600 eMachines works just fine for me, even handles a decent Halo game, but sometimes it does seem a bit slow...

[mechanicalbrain]

where as my $2300 Alien Ware works very nicely with the 3D games i play.

[JoeXIII'007]

Sure, cheap laptops aren't going to get you power. BUT, consider the bright side of things (sorry for repeating the key things, I had to):

• You get internet connections on the road: at a hotel, etc. OR if you really want to be sneaky you get a wireless adapter (which some laptops are equipped with, and search your neighborhood for wireless hotspots.
• Why just use it for word processing? Most new and cheap laptops today can run Powerpoint, Excel, Open Office, Windows Media Player (for music, podcasts, videos & trailers, etc.), Adobe Reader, and other various apps that are extremely useful. Photoshop even has a shot of making it in.
• Games? Never mind about Halo, what about some serious fun puzzels like Super Collapse? Something that can last for a good amount of time without really growing old.

[Jay H 237]

Another thing to look out for is the upgrades. They may advertise a laptop for $499 but if you want to add more memory, a bigger hard drive, or upgrade to a larger screen, that's where they'll hit you.

I did get a Dell flier in the mail the other day and saw the deals although I have since tossed it. The thing that got me about it is that I bought (won) a used Toshiba laptop last year off eBay for $418 where I could get a new one now for just a little more. That $499 laptop would work fine for me since I use the one I won as a 'second' laptop and don't play any games on it. I purposely looked to eBay so I wouldn't have had to spend a grand or so.

[Courtneyb1023]

1st off, this is NoRemorse, on my gf's account.

You definitely get what you pay for. but there are a few great deals out there

my gateway cost 1600 and i got:
1024MB ram
2.4GHz 64bit AMD 3700+ (1.6GHz FSB)
ATI Radeon 9800
100GB HDD
integrated broadcom airforce wireless
UltraBright Monitor
Dual Layer DVD burner
6-in-1 card reader
EXTREMELY sturdy


My family and I have owned 8 (2-Dells, Compaq, HP, Northgate, gateway, Toshiba, and some OLD company, don't even remember, the screen was green and black) laptops and this one is by far the best value (out most expensive was a hp 3.1 HT for $3200 but pales in comparison to the gateway)

[Melissa Nute]

Considering I work at Best Buy...

I see enough of the cheap laptops come back or the cheap ones from competitors (do you service dells?) go to the geeksquad I'm glad I forked over a nice bit of money for my laptop.

Be smart when you buy please.

[mechanicalbrain]

yeah mine is has six speakers, Pentium 4 processor with 3.4 gig hertz and hyper threading, 1024 meg of ram, 80 gig hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5700, and integrated wireless card. its so purty!

[spears312]

I got my Dell Inspiron 6000 for under $1500 (used one of the many Dell coupon deals from on-line). It has a 1.6 Centrino, 60 Gig (5200), 1Gig ram, and an 128Mb ATI X300, and it runs even games real smooth. I'm looking forward to testing out Inventor on it. When I was looking for a laptop, I seriously considered some much cheaper laptops, but only really decided to go with the one I got because my current computer wasn't really up to muster any more.

[The Cyborg]

My HP Pavilion laptop was pretty inexpensive, with its price point being just under a grand. It has a 60 GB hard drive, a 1.4 GH Intel Celeron processor, and about 500 MB of RAM. Hardware also includes a CD player and burner, and a DVD player with the appropriate equipped software.

I, personally, do not have a problem with its lack of ability to run super-programs. It was bought with only internet portability and word-processing in mind. But I also found that it is excellent in programming, and is an excellent portable DVD player. The Celeron processor is not as bad as critics say it is, it runs almost as fluently as a Pentium 4, with only one of the few problems being that it can't run as well when running programs that take a huge bite out of RAM and processing power.

For all of those High-tech gaming capabilities, I could just buy a Playstation or Xbox, both are which a fraction of the price point of a super gaming PC.

In my opinion, my laptop suits me perfectly, and it doesn't matter what price a laptop is to me, as long as it fits my capabilities, and satisfies my need to complete a task.

[Wetzel]

Originally Posted by mechanicalbrain

yeah mine is has six speakers, Pentium 4 processor with 3.4 gig hertz and hyper threading, 1024 meg of ram, 80 gig hard drive, NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5700, and integrated wireless card. its so purty!

Thats not a laptop, thats a lapwarmer. The P4 is not a good idea for a portable laptop. Shrug, some people are using them as desktop replacements rather then as a portable computer.

Originally Posted by Cory

You get what you pay for... a $400 laptop isn't going to be very good for anything except word processing and internet browsing.

Which is what the majority of people shopping for computers at Wall-Mart or Dell will use it for.

Me, I'm happy with my HP.

- AMD Turion(TM) 64 ML-34 (1.8GHz/1MB L2 Cache)
- 14.0 WXGA Widescreen (1280x768)
- ATI RADEON(R) XPRESS 200M w/productivity ports
- 512MB DDR SDRAM (1x512MB)
- 60 GB 5400 RPM Hard Drive
- DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
- 54g(TM) 802.11b/g WLAN w/ 125HSM/SpeedBooster(TM)
- 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery

I added a further gig of ram after I bought it, bringing the total cost to just over $1000. I can play Civ III and Sim City4, run Streets and Trips, wireless internet, and take notes in class. Another nice thing is that the battery will last longer then 5 hours, and it only weighs 2.3kg.

Wetzel

[NoRemorse]

my friend i think has the same laptop, compaq version though

[Cory]

I went away from the mainstream manufacturers, because most of them are either thin and light, or massive desktop replacement, with little middle ground between the two, as well as not having many options when it came to detailed customization.

I ended up paying around $2200, for what was the very best you could get at the time, until PCI-E and Sonoma came out three months later
15.1" SXGA+ display @1400x1050
2.0 ghz Dothan
1024 MB RAM
60 GB 7200 RPM hdd
128 MB Mobility 9700 Pro
Integrated a/b/g wireless
CD-RW/DVD drive (Didn't want to waste an extra $200 on the DVD burner I'd never use)

It's nice and thin, light for the power it packs in (6.25 lbs) and gets great battery life--around 4-5 hours doing word processing/web browsing, and around 2.5-3 while watching DVD's.

Works great, would have been nice if they were making larger 7200 RPM drives at the time, as I quickly filled mine, but I got an external 200 gig for $115. Best part was I got it $1000 cheaper than the closest configuration Dell had, which was the only mainstream manufacturer that had a product similar to what I wanted.

Still runs anything I can throw at it, great for CAD, and games, but I wish I had waited for PCI-E/Sonoma for the next generation graphics and processor.