haniboo

i am not in the US, but MR. H is --and i'm put in charge of researching laptops. any good deals he could pick up at a mall, best buy, etc in littletown USA? thanks

DenverBrian

www.salescircular.com

Pick your state and category. Looks like Best Buy has a $399 Gateway laptop.

jimquan

He beat me to the return key.

I second the recommendation. Great site. I use it even though I like wading through the Sunday paper with ads.

Jim

mac-guy

What kind of laptop are you looking to have Mr. H pick up? Or more specifically, what do you want to do with the laptop; email, web browsing, photo/video editing?

If Mr. H. will be in one place long enough, web mail order sites can deliver to him before he comes home. I've had good luck with PC Connection/Mac Connection.

kanebear

If he can get NewEgg to accept his credit card, they ship VERY quickly and the overnight fees will be offset by the savings. Failing that, Amazon have excellent deals on many notebooks. It'd be helpful to know what you're looking for? Cheapest possible? Slim/light? Big multimedia powerhouse?

haniboo

the sales circular is a wonderful resource. thanks for pointing me to that.

Mr. H had some extra time and did the shopping himself (not sure which smiley would be appropriate here...). Since it will likely be his machine, it's probably better that he chose his own bells and whistles anyway.

thank you all!

krobbins

Is the Gateway T2310 a good machine for $399? My daughter currently has a three year old Toshiba and we are in the market for a new laptop for her - this price sounds good, but may not be based on features. Luckily, she only uses it for email and school work, so no superpowers needed, just the basics. I can never seem to get anyone to help me at Best Buy - can anyone here?

DenverBrian

Unfortunately, if you haven't bought by now, stores are likely sold out. This is a very good deal - and usually BB has maybe 5-10 of these in each store max. They are "doorbusters" to stimulate traffic - they lose money on these guys and the savvy buyers are there the moment the store opens to snatch 'em up and sell them for $599 on eBay.

Just in case you can find one, this looks like a great machine to me. Let's analyze:

Notebook Computer with 15.4-in. Ultrabright Widescreen. --A great widescreen size. Resolution is 1440x900 - very nice at this size. The Ultrabright technology should ensure a bright screen.

Intel Pentium dual core T2310 processor. --The 1.46 GHz speed of this processor might be a little slow for graphics-intensive applications, but for e-mail, Word, PowerPoint and such, you'll never notice it. Compared to a 3-year-old notebook it will seem blazingly fast.

1GB DDR2 memory. --This is the weak spot of the machine in my opinion. I always recommend 2 GB of memory with Windows Vista. Again, however, for e-mail, Word, PowerPoint, and the web, 1 GB will be quite adequate and this machine will seem much faster and more responsive than the 3-year-old one it's replacing. You can always add 1 GB of RAM later for about $50.

120GB hard drive. --Better than the 80GB hard drives of competitors.

Dual layer DVD +-RW LabelFlash drive. --I believe this is similar to LightScribe, meaning that with special CDs and DVDs, you can burn a label directly into the media without having to print a separate lable.

802.11g Wireless LAN. --Settle for nothing less.

Windows Vista Home Premium. Better than Home Basic, and quite adequate for your daughter's needs.

I tend to think Gateway's quality is a bit better than Toshiba or HP at this price point - that's subjective in my mind only.

My verdict: A good buy at $399.

krobbins

Thanks Brian. Maybe I'll get lucky and find one.

BTW, just returned from Denver - cold, snowy... and beautiful. Nice try.

DenverBrian

You can visit as much as you want. You just can't come live here. That's the rule.