8truths

Because CNN has the financial means to survive a trade secret lawsuit.

There were some reasonable dual cores last year. And I recall a few i5s. I don't specifically recall an i7 offered by anyone. But, this year was the first year that retailers have tried to push the i7 laptops at all to anyone besides the usual Alienware and Sony customers who buy the top-flight everything.

What do folks think will be the best deal on a high-end laptop? By high-end, I mean a Core i7 or an AMD quad core. I was looking at a Staples ad this week with an i7 for $749. Seems like BF ads should at least match that, right?

price?

If you're looking for a netbook, skip Black Friday and just go ahead and purchase one of the Intel Atom netbooks available on NewEgg or TigerDirect for $200. Or if you're not married to the small form factor, get the $200 laptop from Walmart. It's not a bad machine for the price.

In general, Windows XP will outperform Windows 7. Windows 7's great advantages come in two main places: 1. Scalability. Windows 7 runs better on heavily multicore systems. However, it doesn't overtake Windows XP performance in most benchmarks until you're running an 8-core system, which to say the least you will not find in a consumer laptop anytime before 2015. 2. Direct X 11. Only important to high-end 3-D gamers. Windows XP will not run it. Overall, Windows 7 is Vista, only much improved. I only run Win7 on my media center PC. Most laptops -- especially single-core -- will see a significant improvement in general performance and battery life running XP vs 7.

True sadness washes over me. Unless Wally World suddenly decides to go all-in, the Year of the $99 Netbook is a real dud. Considering you can always find a decent $200-300 netbook on NewEgg and TigerDirect, there's no reason to get too excited. Except for the RadioShack netbook -- almost a sub-notebook, really -- there's not much to inspire at the low end. Although there are some real winners when you get into the dual-core laptops.

Slight deviation from topic: Does anyone recall if NewEgg or TigerDirect had run any deals on Blu-Ray drives last year? I have a media center PC, and I'm hoping to upgrade it.

1. A repeat of the entire post-BF Christmas season from last year. While BF largely sucked, the ongoing sales at places like Aeropostale were insane. I've never seen so many 50% off sales before Christmas. 2. A respectable, affordable netbook. 3. Could go for a well-priced laptop. That's it. Except for the netbook, I'm not married to anything except good sales. I got my DSLR and lenses last year. I've built two desktops in the last year. Just not a lot left to buy.

Here are my thoughts on the K-Mart netbook: 1. A 400 MHz chip from 2009 is far superior to a 400 MHz chip from ten years ago. Performance-wise, even this odd ball Sammy chip is going to outpace an old Pentium II. So, it should be survivable for all but the bigger Flash elements on the web. 2. It is a netbook. There's always a certain element of lowering your expectations with netbooks. 3. It is K-Mart. I'm not so much excited about this particular netbook (folks can do better, for sure). I'm excited about the price. If K-Mart, one of the also-rans for BF computers, is going $120, it's sets the bar for BB and Wally. And when BB and Wally get into a fight over BF computer prices, we the consumer tend to win big. K-Mart obviously isn't going all-in for BF electronics. They never do. So, to see K-Mart so close to a $99 netbook gives me a lot of hope.

Wow. No one has yet posted about the $120 netbook from K-Mart this year? That's a very positive sign. Considering the tendency of Walmart and Best Buy to get into a shooting war over the big electronics items, a $120 netbook at K-Mart (a lightweight in the electronics fight) all but guarantees both Wally and BB will have a $99. In fact, I wouldn't be shocked to see Wally go $89 on a doorbuster.

The cheapest desktop I ever bought on BF was a $125 eMachine in 2006. P4-era Celeron, 3.2 GHz, 512 Mb RAM, 80 Gb HD. While it still works, I no longer have it hooked up. The main fan got noisy last fall, and I replaced with a quad-core system I built myself for $500. The big ugly this year is that Intel has such a wide range of processors for the market that you need a scorecard . . . so here goes: Really low end = Celeron Dual Core, Intel Atom (mostly single core), AMD Sempron (single core) Low end = Pentium Dual Core, Athlon x2 Medium = Core 2 Duo, Phenom II x2, Phenom II x3 (a three core oddity) Higher end = Core 2 Quad, Core i5 (actually a quad core), Phenom II x4 Highest end = Core i7 (also a quad) The doorbuster super-cheapo desktop PC is always a bit antiquated. I wouldn't be shocked to see a few single-core systems still floating around for $100-150 depending on how badly the stores want to get rid of them. Anymore, you should aim for a good dual-core for general use. That's where I think this year could get interesting. The Pentium Dual Core (not to be confused with the old, crappy Pentium Ds) and Celeron Dual Core processors are selling $50-75 cheaper than any other Intels. And the AMD chips are very competitive. Pair a PDC with a 160 Gb HD, 2 Gb RAM and Windows 7, and you have a meaner computer than most BFers now own. I like the odds on a door buster $150-200 Pentium Dual Core. A lot of all day systems should be PDCs and Core 2 Duos in the $250-400 range. Expect a quad core for $400-600. And maybe Best Buy goes over the top and sells a $1000 Core i7 (the current king of all processors). And maybe if we're really, really lucky, someone will sell a sub-$200 Intel Atom desktop. Currently, a pretty nifty one can be had on NewEgg for $200 (no accessories). In truth, if you really watch the sales, especially on TigerDirect, you could probably snag a competitively priced desktop before BF.

Does Sears offer delivery on BF items? Looks like they will have a ton more W/D combos than last year. Definitely interested. Also, am I mistaken or is there a non-doorbuster combo this year for $500?

Sears - hoping they run some version of the washer / dryer combo again. Walmart - $99 netbook? Please?

If you don't get an order into NewEgg before 12 PM on Friday, it almost never gets handled and shipped before Monday.