Notebooks at Netbook Prices: How Low Can We Go?
by Jarred Walton on July 28, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Enter the $300 Laptop
It used to be that getting any laptop for under $1000 was virtually impossible unless you were willing to buy used. Since 2000, we've seen a huge surge in laptop sales along with an accompanying drop in prices. We've had new laptops starting at under $600 since around 2005, but a quick look at the specs of the laptops in that old article will show you just how far we've come in four short years. For those that don't want to follow the above link, here's a quick recap.
Four years ago, $600 would buy you a single-core processor (Celeron M or Sempron) running at between 1.4GHz and 1.6GHz. Hard drives were usually of the 40GB 4200RPM or 5400RPM variety, paired with 24X CD-RW/4X DVD-ROM combo drives. And here's something that's amazing in today's market: many inexpensive notebooks failed to provide built-in WiFi support (though you could add it for a moderate $50 or so). The real kicker however is that all of those cheap laptops checked in with a paltry 256MB DDR-333 RAM. Ouch! Battery life ranged from just over two hours to around four hours, which is one area where things unfortunately haven't really improved much.
What can you get in an entry-level notebook (not netbook!) these days? Best Buy and Wal-Mart have had $300 laptops in the news lately, though it appears both are "limited quantities/availability". Rather than restrict ourselves to short-term sales, we wanted to look at the specs of a few sub-$500 notebooks you can currently buy. We'll start with Wal-Mart's $300 offering as the baseline - it went on sale this past Sunday Morning (July 26) and likely sold out shortly thereafter. However, it's an in-store-only offering, so unless you run by your local Wal-Mart(s) there's no way to know for sure if it's available or not.
The $300 Compaq Presario 15.6" CQ60-419WM
This is not a powerhouse laptop by any stretch of the imagination, but if you want something that can run circles around a netbook and prefer a larger keyboard and screen (and lower battery life and increased weight) then this Compaq Presario has a lot going for it. The Sempron SI-42 is a single-core 65nm processor with 512KB L2 running at 2.1GHz - it should be rather similar in performance to the old Athlon 64 3500+, which should be about twice the speed of the Intel Atom N280 give or take. [Ed: Note that the link compares a dual-core 1.60GHz Atom with a single-core Pentium 4 3.6GHz - and the P4 660 ends up being about 65% faster on average; twice as fast is a conservative estimate!] For web surfing, office work, email, and other basic school needs such a CPU is more than "fast enough". Graphics are provided by NVIDIA's GeForce 8200M, which should handle even HD video playback.
Perhaps one of the best aspects of this notebook is that it comes with 3GB of DDR2-800 memory. Compaq ships the unit with Windows Vista Home Basic, which is naturally a 32-bit version. There's not much sense in getting a 64-bit version of Home Basic (why get a stripped down, 64-bit OS?), and while we could grumble a bit about not getting 4GB RAM for a few dollars more, without a 64-bit OS it really doesn't matter. Also keep in mind that Windows Home Basic is not eligible for Windows 7 upgrades (this applies to all the laptops in this article shipping with Home Basic). Rounding out the package you get a 160GB hard drive, DVDRW, and 802.11G networking. Battery life with the 6-cell battery is "up to four hours", though we suspect three hours will be more likely under light usage. The LCD quality on virtually all sub-$500 laptops/notebooks is going to be questionable at best, but it's doubtful anyone in the market for such a computer will notice.
This is a great laptop for the price - as a point of reference, the Compaq 15.6" CQ60-410US is very similar in overall specs (slightly lower in some areas and higher in others) and retails for $448. Of course, it's not a limited availability laptop. Assuming you can find the CQ60-419WM in stock, the real question is whether you like the lightweight netbooks with improved battery life or you prefer a larger display, keyboard, and laptop with better performance. You get what you pay for, and in this case it's a very reasonable trade if you're not a demanding computer user.
We can say the same about many other laptops, so let's look at a few of the alternatives that are available online and in stores. We searched Best Buy, Wal-Mart, and a few other websites looking for laptops that sell for rock-bottom prices while still providing all of the necessary features. We tried to avoid any limited time offers, which means prices are going to be higher than $300, but you should be able to find similar laptops at a variety of retailers. Here's what we found.
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garydale - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
There's more to 64 bit than simply addressing more RAM. However, 64 bit drivers have been slow in coming for Windows so a lot of manufacturers pre-install the 32 bit version instead.However, this is strictly a Windows issue. Any one of these machines will run 64 bit Linux where there are 64 bit drivers for all of their hardware. Missing 64 bit drivers is strictly a Windows issue because manufacturers don't bother updating drivers for older hardware.
The other problem is getting a laptop without paying the Microsoft tax (Microsoft reportedly don't make it easy to return unused licenses).
Frankly, the thought of running Vista or Windows 7 on one of these machines is not appealing. The mobile versions of the processors always run slower than the desktop versions even without considering the slower hard drives. When you're running on lower end hardware, you want an OS that can take advantage of what the hardware can do without wasting cycles on unnecessary eye candy.
kpxgq - Thursday, August 6, 2009 - link
i run windows7 rc7100 on my netbook (extremely low spec: 1.6ghz atom, 1gb ram) and i highly reccomend it... it has improved my experience over windows xp... it has better memory management (loads my most used apps into ram), it has better hdd management (defrags in the background), the UI has better support for small fonts, it has also improved my battery life... it definately ran faster than when i had XP on it.. in fact its about as fast a when i had ubuntu notebook remix on itBikeDude - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
[quote]There's not much sense in getting a 64-bit version of Home Basic[/quote]What are you trying to say here?
Is there no 64-bit version of Home Basic, or is there no sense in 64-bit Windows? What?
I'm looking for a cheap 64-bit laptop, because there is no sense in having 3GB+ memory and an OS that can barely handle 2GB (as each process is limited to 2GB user memory with such a configuration).
GaryJohnson - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
I've been told that Vista install keys only care about version and market. So with that laptop, if you could obtain a 64 bit Vista Home Basic OEM disc, you could use it with the key on the laptop to reinstall/upgrade the OS to 64 bit.garydale - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
That only gets you so far. Most Windows applications are only 32 bit. Software manufacturers for the most part don't want to maintain two versions, let alone ship with two install disks or a dual-mode installer. Instead they build just the 32 bit version, which will run on 64 bit systems - just not at full speed.If you want to run pure 64 bit, you need Linux. Linux apps have been running on 64 bit systems for more than a decade so the translation to 64 bit x86 wasn't a stretch.
JarredWalton - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
My point is that Home Basic is the stripped down version of Vista. Why get a stripped down OS but then worry about getting 64-bit? If you want 64-bit you should be buying the full featured OS in the first place.FWIW, I have had OEM computers (from Gateway) where it came with 32-bit Vista and I used my Vista RTM 64-bit DVD with the same key and re-installed. Still, having used 32-bit and 64-bit Vista pretty much since their release, I have found no benefit to the 64-bit version unless you're running more than 4GB RAM.
KompuKare - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
Having been playing around with VirtualBox for the last few days I've been annoyed that the E5200 in my Desktop doesn't support Intel VT (I know it's £50 / $66 CPU but similar priced AMD CPUs do have AMD-V).With Microsoft relying on hardware virtualization for the XP-Mode feature in Windows 7, Intel’s lack of VT in so many processors (even the Q8200 doesn’t have VT) is going to annoy a lot of people.
Anyway, I think Jarred should have mentioned VT/-V when comparing the AMD vs Intel based laptops. Even the Intel T4200s or T3400s don’t support Intel VT so not a single Intel-based laptop in the whole article features Intel VT…
A5 - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
Many people seem to have an epic misunderstanding of what XP-mode is for. It is not for your Mom to run her 8 year-old version of Quicken...it's for businesses who do not want to or can not rewrite their XP-era corporate apps to work with Win7. Hence why it's only included in the Professional and Ultimate versions.The0ne - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
It actually doesn't matter or seem that way to some users. If they have XP they will try to run their programs on it, if not just to see how it runs or performs. I've tried XP mode and it blows. You're better off with VirtualBox or VMWare with XP Pro. And while I didn't look hard at the XP you can download for XP Mode, it's appears to be crippled.If you're really desperate and have no other option then XP mode is ok, otherwise I don't recommend for use at all.
Calin - Tuesday, July 28, 2009 - link
Probably Jarred didn't even thought of the need of virtualisation on such a lowly computer. These being said, it might be interesting to know either way.