The truth I've found is Office Depot is the BEST place to buy your cheap computers come BF. I noramly stand in line at Best Buy and run in and grab a few things. (Computer accesserys as Office Depot has an old selection/poor selection on these items many times) then walk over to Offiece Depot before it opens. (30 mins prior to open) and the line is like 20 people or so, I allmost allways get what I want from there. Depending on what you want though I think the best discount laptop computer out there now is allready on sale at Office Depot The Hp 6105 for $549 of course this is more than the 300 dollar ones people are looking for but the processer is much better and fast, as well as the much better vidio card, it has things you can't upgrade allready at great speeds and packed with goodness. Only thing on laptop I'm look at is perhaps another they have in there upgradeable HP that is 17" screen and 1g ram allready at $599 this might be what I go with allready. In fact I like the hp 6105 so much I bought it a week and a half ago from Office Depot knowing that it was what I wanted in a computer. You are not getting the core due tecnolagy at the 300 price and the AMD chip is much better at this level and instead of a cheap 1.66 speed chip the mk-36 is 2.0 so your computer can run better programs. (I'm going to use my laptop for World of Warcraft as well) Laptops are poor on computer games unless you get key items, that is part of the reason I'm going with the HP 6105 and upgrading the ram with a 1g stick.
All that said Office Depot has the BEST price by far on a desktop computer this year other companys are at 150-200 on there cheapest one with Office Depot being $99. That price is insane I will have another desktop this year from Office Depot. With that said things I look at for that desktop are more Ram, Video card, and hard drive. BF is the best time for looking for many of these items as well. For Hard Drive I would recemend an external Hard Drive this way if you like me and like to upgrade yearly with these great deals it's easier to transfer data between computers and as well you then have an area to consoladate all your data. For Ram it's nice to get a system up to around 1g ram. And on vidoe cards reserch is good for them but most on sale are way better than top of line just 6 months ago so you can't go to wrong. That said need to make sure what style of slot the new computer will have before getting the cards.
Enjoy the great deals, and like I said in my area the best deal is that Office Depot is a hidden treasure in that everyone else is sucked into Best Buy, Walmart, and Circut City when Office Depot has the same and better deals and basicly no lines.
As well I was very upset 2 years ago when Office Depot ran the shortest rebates I had ever seen (2 week to get postmarked) There rebates were threw Office Depot there self not a manufature. I was so upset in losing around 500 dollars that I was to the point that I wasn't going to ever go to the store again when I talked with the management they worked with me and got me my rebate with some of the best customer service I've ever had (and belive me this was my mistake not theres but in my last purchase there they highlighted the rebate due dates and they were like most 30-60 days out.)
That customer service has me hooked on them for life they treated me right and they stand behind there company with there customers. That I find to be rare today.
10 years running that I have boycotted Phillips Magnavox due to the worst customer service I've ever had on a warrenty issue. (Customer service is one of the most important things to me when I'm burned I'm done)
