Where to buy a Laptop?

[Accordlover]

Hi everyone!

I need to buy a new laptop for my friend, and she needs a windows model, pref. vista, but that's not a big deal. Does anyone have any ideas as to where the best prices are on basic laptops (wireless, 15" screen+, CD burner etc.)? I know where to find Mac stuff at a decent price, but I haven't bought a PC in over 4 years.

Got any ideas?

Thanks!

[MichNYC]

If you're planning to buy online, check out www.bhphotovideo.com. Its a photography place in NYC, but they carry a lot of other electronics, and have the absolute lowest prices of pretty much any authorized dealers around. In fact, for the two items I'm eyeing there, they have the lowest price by about 15% of all authorized dealers. You should be able to find a basic Windows PC for around $800 or less there.

[bleacherbum003]

slickdeals.net

All the best deals on laptops and everything else are posted there. Thats where I found a killer deal on my thinkpad.

[brobo]

newegg.com >>> BEST EVER!!
tigerdirect.com
ecost.com

[mwmcginn]

for all the dell discount codes check techbargains.com

As for long warranties, I found you can do better getting a personal property protection plan from a state farm agent.

[segentry]

This is a whole 'nother thread but...

Don't buy a PC!!! Buy a Mac! :thmsup:

If you want quality, with no problems....

[blueasianmonkey]

lol....im gonna hijack =p here's a good website to buy a laptop

www.apple.com/store =)

[brickman]

I use tigerdirect.com quite often and have had great success buying their name brand of Systemax.

[ccnicco48]

i'd say newegg.com too it's a great site. but if want something fast and pretty good deal i'd say get an xps from dell. i have an 2 yr old fujitsu which works fine.

[Foreign_Wide]

I agree about Tiger Direct. Good people

Also Buy.com or Amazon.com

[BenjiBoy650]

If you want a basic laptop just look in the papers! Yesterday OD had a $450 Toshiba dual core 15.4" and a $399 Celeron M model. CC had a $399 Compaq 15.4" AMD Sempron. BB had a $379 Compaq 15.4" Celeron 520 model NO REBATES. On Black Friday, there were hordes of $299 and $349 laptops that were fairly good. If the name "Celeron" scares you, don't let it get in the way. The new ones are based off the same architecture as the dual core Intel procs. They are very quick for their price range.

If I ever buy a $800 "basic laptop" I have instructed a tech savvy friend to shoot me.

[honda761]

Be careful of rebates, some places have great reps and some you have a 50/50 chance of getting a rebate. I no longer deal with electronics rebates unless it Circuit City. My latest avoidance is office depot which stiffed me for 20 or 40 bucks, I forgot.

Ebay has the best deals but its a free for all on ebay, if it doesnt work how the hell are you suppose to get another without being a hugh hassle?

I love laptops, I work all day on a desktop and when I get home the last thing I want to do is sit in front on another desktop.

[thesteve151]

i agree with new egg :thmsup:
http://www.newegg.com/
make sure you get 1 gig or more memory if you plan to run vista.
i would personally stay away from it right now. XP is so much faster and takes up less cpu to run.
just bought a 2 month old Toshiba labtop off of a friend. it had vista and i down graded it to xp and it is so much faster. :banana:

[Accordlover]

Thanks for all the Tips! and to the person that recommended a Mac, I'm already covered, but thatnks for the suggestion. It's for an elderly friend, and she's a teacher who needs it to sync with the school districts stuff, which is all windows.

I got a killer deal! I first called dell and they gave me what I thought was great. It was the Inspirion E1505 with the TV tuner she needed, 1gig of ram, 120gb of storage, CD/DVD writing/reading, core duo etc. for 1163.54 with tax, minus my mothers state worker discount. Well they said it wouldn't be here for MORE than TWENTY days, I said, are you serious? He offered me expedited shipping then tells me it's not garunteed! What a load of crap. By this point I didn't want to give anyones money to them. So much for amazing customer support, the guy interrupted me left and right, not to mention talking back to me.

So I called HP, I've always loved their products (well, before my affair with a Mac. :naughty: ), and I had the original Packard Bells back in the day. They were great. I bought the laptop in 12 minutes, and it will be here by Jun 7th at the latest. Here's what I got...

HP Pavilion dv6000t customizable Notebook PC

* Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit)
* Intel(R) Core(TM) Duo T2350 (1.86GHz/ 2MB L2Cache)
* 15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen (1280x800)
* FREE Upgrade to 1.0GB DDR2 (2x512MB)!!
* Intel(R) Graphics Media Accelerator 950 - Core
* Free webcam included with HP Imprint + Microphone
* 802.11b/g WLAN
* FREE Upgrade from 80GB 5400RPM to 120GB 5400RPM!!
* DVD/CD-RW Combo Drive
* HP Expresscard TV Tuner for Windows Vista Notebook
* 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery
* Microsoft(R) Works 8.0
* HP Home & Home Office Store in-box envelope
Order subtotal $868.19
Shipping
(Standard 5-7 Business Days) FREE
Estimated ship date:
Your customized HP Pavilion dv6000t customizable Notebook PC will be
built by June 7, 2007

TX Tax $71.63
Grand total $939.82

Thanks for all the help! Great to have so much input :), and I fully recommend HP's ordering hotline.

[namegoeshere]

Newegg is good if you're gonna build your own PC, but if you compare their laptop prices to places like Best Buy, Circuit City, Office Depot and Staples which run very good deals practically every week, Newegg loses almost every time.

Circuit City's and Office Depot's hot laptop deals usually involve mail-in rebates though whereas Best Buy's doesn't.

Nobody's pointed out Microcenter (microcenter.com), but they're pretty good too.

And of course, there's also Dell. Aside from new, you can also get a killer deal on a refurb or scratch and dent (used?) Dell.

The other night, I saw a E1405 with a Core 2 Duo chip, 120GB HDD, DVD burner, 1GB RAM, 14" XGA+ lcd, Vista Home Premium.... all for $650

[Accordlover]

Our last dell refurb experience was horrible. It took 2 months and 3 people fired to get a refund on that hunk of junk. Never again. The only place I will buy refurb from is Apple. They give their refurbs just as much warranty as new products, and it's extendable, plus I don't have to deal with the hassle of mailing my machine away for warranty repairs. I just go to the Apple store.