136 replies to this topic

[gatorburg]

Is this the year that a laptop might come in at the $150.00 range or do you think one of the $199.99 tablets will come down to the $150.00 or $99.99 range? With or with out Gift Cards. Which is better really? a laptop or a tablet?

[tyreejames]

I think the idea of one being better than the other is determined solely by what one plans on using it for. Since purchasing my iPAD I am only on my laptop when doing papers for grad school. Even those I could do on the iPad but I chose not to buy the keyboard. With the rumored new Kindle Fire, I think the first model will more than likely drop in price and I can see that going for around $150.,,.

[freesia39]

It really depends on what you need. I use my ipad for surfing the web while on my couch. If I need to do anything more intense (including some surveys) I'll use my laptop. If I'm writing anything long, I'll use my laptop. Lately I use the iPad only for reading. (which I don't recommend, what a battery suck, but I get books faster from the library in epub then I do in kindle format.)

[Brad]

As always, we have several dedicated threads for the hotter items each Black Friday. Please try to keep all discussion related to these items in their official threads. Other threads posted will likely be merged into this main thread.

[Bstar0306]

I've been wondering this also. I have seen some laptops go for the $299-$350 range on 1SaleADay and not sure how much lower we'll see them on Black Friday. I'm also going to be interested to see if Best Buy does any giftcard deals on apple products. I had an ipad stolen a few weeks ago and really want to get another one

[barc]

Laptops can be found in the $150 - $ 170 range on BF. They aren't great laptops (entry level eMachines and Gateways) but they do the job for most folks. You'll be able to get a pretty good laptop for $300 on BF so it that's the range your looking to spend, wait till BF and buy up a couple of levels from what you can get now. Of course, if you buy now you don't have to stand in line for 24 hours and miss your Thanksgiving dinner.

[mamat2011]

Walmart normally has a 199 and a 299 HP. Hopefully they stick to trends.

[mongoose]

My oldest son needs a computer. He'd love a alienware but unless I win it, that aint happening lol So I'm thinking of black Friday shopping. Has anyone bought one on BF? Anyone have any place they can recommend and who to avoid??? I don't want one of those "oh we had one" nor where I have to sleep for 3 days outside of a store.. some of us work for a living. lol Any suggestions of who, where and if BF is the best time?

[racerfan]

I have ordered computers for BB 3 separate years and had them delivered (one I picked up in store on BF after 4pm) None of them were Doorbusters they were all mid range computers (2 laptops and a desktop)

[bluebear]

I have done well ordering things from Best Buy and Staples on Thanksgiving or early BF and getting them real quick. But, the 2 laptops I've gotten for Christmas gifts, I haven't got on Black Friday at all. One of them I got on a normal sale in November, it was a lower-mid-range. The other one I got in early November when best Buy was clearing out their back-to-school stuff to get ready for Christmas stuff. It was on clearance, had been a display so was open-box, and the had coupons out that week for open-box items. Ended up getting it for half price. This was a fairly high-end laptop (reg $1100) If he wants Alienware, is he going to be using it for gaming? You will need to take that into consideration. Typically you will want to make sure there is a video card in the computer, and decent amount of memory. For desktops, both can be added later. For laptops, you will need to make sure it has the video card already (will say ATI Radeon or NVidia Graphics), but memory can be added later. That is going to bring up your cost. And will be harder to find on BF (that's why I got mine beforehand last year). I am also going to in the market for a laptop this year, thankfully not a gaming one again.

[dwc designs]

For what you get with this laptop I think $249 is a great price point for my DD10. I'm just wondering if anyone has any info or thoughts on if there will be any deals on these around BF. They are already selling out fast so I'm kind of nervous to hold out, but I'm wondering if they will offer some specials like lifetime cloud storage or specials on bundles. The accessories and apps I'm not to concerned about because I can get them at any time. They offer 100gb's of free cloud storage for 2 years with purchase but I'm not sure of the pricing afterwards. If they offered a lifetime plan with purchase that would be a big deal.

Also is there anyone who already has one? What are your thoughts on it?

[Brad]

For what you get with this laptop I think $249 is a great price point for my DD10. I'm just wondering if anyone has any info or thoughts on if there will be any deals on these around BF. They are already selling out fast so I'm kind of nervous to hold out, but I'm wondering if they will offer some specials like lifetime cloud storage or specials on bundles. The accessories and apps I'm not to concerned about because I can get them at any time. They offer 100gb's of free cloud storage for 2 years with purchase but I'm not sure of the pricing afterwards. If they offered a lifetime plan with purchase that would be a big deal.

Also is there anyone who already has one? What are your thoughts on it?

I had one of the older Samsung Chromebooks. For what I needed it for, it wasn't the right choice - a little too restricting. But if she only does basic stuff, it might be a decent low-cost choice.

[dwc designs]

I had one of the older Samsung Chromebooks. For what I needed it for, it wasn't the right choice - a little too restricting. But if she only does basic stuff, it might be a decent low-cost choice.

Thanks. I just ordered one through Tiger Direct. I'll test it a little to see if it will work for her needs. I'm sure it should be fine as her biggest need for school is Word and Power Point and it looks like Google has their versions installed.

[annbaumel]

What are the chances we will see a decent laptop under $200?

[riven3d]

depends on what you think decent is as for specs are concerned

[bpr]

A workable laptop; sure. Other than that, decent means something different to everyone. I want a decent price on a gaming laptop, but it ain't going to be under $200, lol.

[stationchief]

As with every year, the sub-$200 laptop doorbusters are gonna be a few years old far as technology, but they'll get the basic jobs done. Nothing fancy. And they're always the one thing people in the front of the mile long lines want. So if you plan on getting one, better plan on being early enough to be one of the first dozen or so in line.

[annbaumel]

I'm not looking for anything gaming.... Just something for my 3 college students...

[tokanm]

Think I can get a new Mac Book Pro with windows 8 and all the bells and whistles for under $200? Well I can dream lol !

[bpr]

For what you get with this laptop I think $249 is a great price point for my DD10. I'm just wondering if anyone has any info or thoughts on if there will be any deals on these around BF. They are already selling out fast so I'm kind of nervous to hold out, but I'm wondering if they will offer some specials like lifetime cloud storage or specials on bundles. The accessories and apps I'm not to concerned about because I can get them at any time. They offer 100gb's of free cloud storage for 2 years with purchase but I'm not sure of the pricing afterwards. If they offered a lifetime plan with purchase that would be a big deal.

Also is there anyone who already has one? What are your thoughts on it?

No experience with this, but it could be limiting based on what is able to run on it (I didn't look that closely). You would be better (IMO) to just get a cheap laptop for $249 or so at BestBuy. In fact HERE is one for $274 that would do fine (again IMO, but may want to upgrade the RAM). There will be similar ones around BF, but BB has had some similar to this already for $249. Buy now and avoid the rush, lol.

[bpr]

Think I can get a new Mac Book Pro with windows 8 and all the bells and whistles for under $200? Well I can dream lol !

That's all you can do, lol.

[annbaumel]

That's all you can do, lol.

Well, I wasn't looking for anything with bells and whistles.... Just trying to afford something for my 3 college students to be able to do their homework on.

[biomajor]

Think I can get a new Mac Book Pro with windows 8 and all the bells and whistles for under $200? Well I can dream lol !

lol! If you do find that, you must post it! I get socket shock every time I go to the Apple store

[dwc designs]

No experience with this, but it could be limiting based on what is able to run on it (I didn't look that closely). You would be better (IMO) to just get a cheap laptop for $249 or so at BestBuy. In fact HERE is one for $274 that would do fine (again IMO, but may want to upgrade the RAM). There will be similar ones around BF, but BB has had some similar to this already for $249. Buy now and avoid the rush, lol.

Thanks. I actually got the email from Best Buy this morning and purchased the laptop you just posted $274. I went back and checked on the Chromebook and even though it said it was shipping same day it was back ordered in my account. Plus I just realized that she couldn't add iTunes to it which is kind of a big deal because I would like to get my iTunes library back. We were sharing and I'm tired of listening to Kids Bop!

[bpr]

Well, I wasn't looking for anything with bells and whistles.... Just trying to afford something for my 3 college students to be able to do their homework on.

I think there will be plenty of sub-$300 laptops in the next few weeks. As I posted, Best Buy as been having one in the $249 range for the last couple of weeks. I wouldn't be surprised to see more $179 Doorbusters like last year. I recall two; one was at BB but I can't remember where the other was. Also, if they are doing college work (as mine is), you can invest in MS Office through Microsoft's website. College students can get the full version MS Office 2010 University for about $99. I got mine for less two years ago but it's a lot better than $120 for the Home & Student Edition but you can get it for $149 for 3 users but it only has 4 programs with it. Plus, if you buy MS Office University 2010 now you get to upgrade to MS Office 2013 for FREE (next spring).


If you want to save more money, you can download a FREE program called OpenOffice from HERE. It is a great alternative and fully compatible with MS Office. I've had both over the years.

Even though OpenOffice is free, I prefer MS Office. When I was on a budget, I was using OpenOffice. It works great and is not something someone through together; It is a top notch program IMO. Hope that helps.

Edited by bpr, Nov 2, 2012 - 7:32 am.

[knudsons]

I have ordered computers for BB 3 separate years and had them delivered (one I picked up in store on BF after 4pm) None of them were Doorbusters they were all mid range computers (2 laptops and a desktop)

I have also bought several from best buy the last couple years on BF I had them delivered and once I picked them up.

[RedDevil]

Thanks. I actually got the email from Best Buy this morning and purchased the laptop you just posted $274. I went back and checked on the Chromebook and even though it said it was shipping same day it was back ordered in my account. Plus I just realized that she couldn't add iTunes to it which is kind of a big deal because I would like to get my iTunes library back. We were sharing and I'm tired of listening to Kids Bop!

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.cpubenchm...et/cpu_list.php
:-)

My 2 cents.

[RedDevil]

I think there will be plenty of sub-$300 laptops in the next few weeks. As I posted, Best Buy as been having one in the $249 range for the last couple of weeks. I wouldn't be surprised to see more $179 Doorbusters like last year. I recall two; one was at BB but I can't remember where the other was. Also, if they are doing college work (as mine is), you can invest in MS Office through Microsoft's website. College students can get the full version MS Office 2010 University for about $99. I got mine for less two years ago but it's a lot better than $120 for the Home & Student Edition but you can get it for $149 for 3 users but it only has 4 programs with it. Plus, if you buy MS Office University 2010 now you get to upgrade to MS Office 2013 for FREE (next spring).


If you want to save more money, you can download a FREE program called OpenOffice from HERE. It is a great alternative and fully compatible with MS Office. I've had both over the years.

Even though OpenOffice is free, I prefer MS Office. When I was on a budget, I was using OpenOffice. It works great and is not something someone through together; It is a top notch program IMO. Hope that helps.

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.

[jamieva]

I got the Lenovo BF deal at BB last year. It was either 179 or 199 and it's a brick. Locks up constantly and even when it did work it was extremely slow. Just know that if you get a sub $200 laptop it's nowhere near top of the line and if you want it to do anything beyond basic computing it will not work for that. Invest more and buy a $300-$400 machine or you will be buying another one in less than 2 years.

[RedDevil]

I got the Lenovo BF deal at BB last year. It was either 179 or 199 and it's a brick. Locks up constantly and even when it did work it was extremely slow. Just know that if you get a sub $200 laptop it's nowhere near top of the line and if you want it to do anything beyond basic computing it will not work for that. Invest more and buy a $300-$400 machine or you will be buying another one in less than 2 years.

I respectfully disagree on both.

The laptop was $178.00
Look for yourself: http://www.stlpcwiza...giving 2011.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.blackvipe...configurations/
* http://www.computing...e-guide-to.html
* http://www.askvg.com...-set-to-manual/
* http://www.techrepub...-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!