RedDevil

FRYS is LIVE right now. They have a $187 laptop online right now. 4 gigs of RAM, AMD E2-1800. Just so you know in case you were looking for a cheap lappy.

Sears has a 14 inch ASUS laptop online right now for $208.99: http://www.sears.com/shc/s/p_10153_12605_00310658000P Update: Looks like it is sold out now ...

Yes, they should be sufficient for surfing and some basic kids games. I would recommend the Lenovo with the AMD E-300 dual core processor over the Compaq with the (slower) dual core AMD C-60. The AMD E-300 will also have significantly better integrated Radeon HD 6310 graphics.

Asus it the most reliable laptop brand, I think. They are in the top for sure. I tend to stay away from HP/Compaq. At work we have nothing but problems with HP as well. Lenovo in another very reliable brand.

You're welcome!

Best Buy has a pink Asus. Current price is $312.99 it appears. SKU is 5732476. Not sure if the link will work, but here it is: http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus---14%26%2334%3B-Laptop---4GB-Memory---320GB-Hard-Drive---Matte-Pink/5732476.p?id=1218688220484&skuId=5732476 It's in the black friday ad as well for $249.99

No, that is not the correct laptop. The $179 Walmart laptop is the CQ58-bf9WM listed here: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Compaq-Pacific-Blue-15.6-CQ58-bf9WM-Laptop-PC-with-AMD-Dual-Core-C-80-Processor-and-Windows-8-Operating-System/21150616 They do have it marked incorrectly by the way. The processor is an AMD C-60. Not C-80 as they list in the title. The AMD C-60 is a pretty weak performer. Way below the AMD E-300 even.

If the reference was to the 2011 BestBuy Lenovo G575 laptop it was: 179.99 You can see in here: http://www.stlpcwizard.com/BF2011/Best%20Buy%20-%20BF%202011.pdf The laptops were similar, but the Frys one had better specs. **Best Buy: AMD E-300 processor, 2 USB ports, 1 mono speaker (in most), 2GB RAM, 250 GB Hard drive: $179.99 **Frys: AMD E-350 processor (a bit faster), 4 USB ports, 2 stereo speakers, 3GB RAM, 320 GB Hard drive: $178.00 I noticed that the current cheapest 2012 black friday laptops (at Walmart [$179 Compaq] & Best Buy [$187.99 Lenovo]) have the old AMD E-300 [$187.99 Lenovo] and AMD C-60 [$179 Compaq] processors. I would stay away from those unless you know how to install more memory, turn off Windows services, stop many programs from auto starting, and the like. The C-60 especially is very weak. It will work for browsing and some light tasks and editing, but not real multi-tasking. I'm surprised by the lack of real laptop deals so far to be honest. Like a $230/$250 Core i3 or so.

I respectfully disagree on both. The laptop was $178.00 Look for yourself: http://www.stlpcwizard.com/BF2011/Fry%27s%20-%20Thanksgiving%202011.pdf In addition, as I mentioned previously, you need to put some work into improving the speed like turning off unneeded services, uninstall junk software, etc. It's not a brick. This can be achieved by free software (for example): *CCleaner *PC Decrapifier *Autoruns *Revo Uninstaller and many others Also follow some of these guides to improve the speed of your laptop even more: * http://www.blackviper.com/service-configurations/black-vipers-windows-7-service-pack-1-service-configurations/ * http://www.computingunleashed.com/speed-up-windows-7-ultimate-guide-to.html * http://www.askvg.com/windows-7-services-that-can-be-safely-set-to-manual/ * http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/10things/10-ways-to-speed-up-windows-7/3332 No need to do all the items mentioned. Just try it out and see what you prefer or need. Once you are finished with that this $178 Lenovo laptop is far from a brick. (I'm typing on it right now.) This will work for most computers. Now, this black friday, most (if not all) laptops will have the new Windows 8. I'm not familiar with that yet. In conclusion, I agree that a laptop with an AMD E-300, E-350, E-450, and the newer E1-1200 and E2-1800 are not fast. These are not even close to an Intel Core i3. However, if you know what to do to speed it up, $178 is an amazing deal! Happy hunting!

Frys.com had a doorbuster dual core, 3 GB RAM, webcam Lenovo laptop for $178 last year. It was available online as well. I'm typing on it right now. I imagine this year we will see a $160 (or so) 15.6 inch laptop.

I would highly recommend not getting this $275 BestBuy laptop. It has an old and very slow processor. It has an AMD E-300. BestBuy's doorbuster laptop 12 months ago has this same E-300 and it sold for $179. Now this same processor is yet another year older. This is not a deal. I'm sorry. There will be much better deals. Look at the frys.com deals every friday morning (4 AM or so). I just got a new ASUS X54C 15.6 inch laptop from them for $218 (no taxes either for me) with an Intel B820 processor, HDMI and USB-3. It's almost 3 times faster compared to this underpowered AMD E-300. The E-300 is similar to an Atom netbook processor. Unless you know how to turn off a lot of the Windows processes, turn off Areo, use an antivirus that has a small footprint, etc.: stay away from the AMD series with: E-300, E-350, E-450 and the newer E1-1200 and E2-1800. Too slow and will bog down quite quickly. You can look them up at: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php :-) My 2 cents.