Notebooks at Netbook Prices: How Low Can We Go?
by Jarred Walton on July 28, 2009 12:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Laptops
Other Online Vendors
You can probably find deals comparable to what we listed above at other brick-and-mortar shops - OfficeMax, Office Depot, Target, Costco, etc. should all have similar systems, with prices that may be slightly lower or higher. If you have the time to shop around more, keep an eye out for special deals as we've shown that the Wal-Mart $300 laptop is still one of the most compelling in terms of price and features. We checked out a couple other online vendors including Newegg and TigerDirect as one last point of comparison.
Newegg
Newegg actually had several of the same laptops we've already listed, for slightly higher prices or with slightly different features. The $380 Acer 15.6" AS5516-5474 from Wal-Mart for example is available at Newegg for $400 or at Frys.com for $340 (yeah, tough call). There's also a recertified Compaq Presario 15.6" CQ60-215DX for the same $380 price as Best Buy.
The most attractive Newegg offer at present is the Lenovo 15.4" G530-444635U, priced at $400. This comes with an Intel Pentium T4200, 2GB RAM, 160GB hard drive, DVDRW, and Windows Home Basic. It uses the ubiquitous Intel GL40/GMA 4500M chipset and boasts up to 4.6 hours of battery life. If you're willing to pay a bit more, the Lenovo G530-444636U has 3GB RAM, 250GB hard drive, and Windows Home Premium for $450, along with limited availability of a free Targus notebook carrying case combo (a $90 value!)
TigerDirect
There are many similar/repeat products, and one of the brand names we keep on seeing is Acer. Acer has made a huge push into the affordable notebook market, and they have been successful in increasing their market share. They may not always be the best built notebooks on the planet, but if you're looking for an affordable laptop it's almost impossible to escape their presence. Considering Acer now owns Gateway, their market presence is even greater than you might think. Looking at TigerDirect, the most interesting laptops all come from either Gateway or Acer, although a few others from Compaq, Lenovo, and Toshiba are also present. Like Newegg, most of TigerDirect's non-netbook offerings are closer to our maximum $500 price point.
First up is the Acer Aspire 15.6" AS5535-5452, a $450 laptop that includes a dual-core AMD Athlon X2 QL-64, 3GB RAM, 320GB 5400RPM hard drive, 802.11N, Gigabit Ethernet, webcam, ATI Radeon HD 3200 integrated graphics, and Vista Home Premium. It's extremely similar to the Acer AS5536-5883 at Wal-Mart, with a slightly lower price.
For $30 more, the Gateway T-1424u is a 14" laptop that has similar features in many areas. The primary changes are that it uses the Athlon X2 TK-67 (dual-core, 65nm, 1.9GHz, 2x512KB L2, 1600MHz HyperTransport), a slightly slower dual core chip compared to the QL-64 but one that also uses a bit less power (31W TDP vs. 35W TDP). The chipset is the AMD M690T with ATI Radeon Xpress X1270 graphics, and networking is downgraded to 802.11G/100Mb Ethernet. Gateway doesn't specify the battery life, which is unfortunate, but the smaller chassis is a nice option for thin and light notebooks. The Gateway M-1631U is virtually the same concept in 15.4" trim with a TL-60 CPU (dual-core, 65nm, 2.0GHz, 2x512KB L2, 1600MHz HyperTransport) priced at $500. The M-1631U also upgrades the memory to 4GB and comes with Windows Home Premium 64-bit.
Two final $500 notebooks from TigerDirect are the Lenovo 3000 G530 4446-24U and the Toshiba 15.4" Satellite L305-S5961. You can also buy the Lenovo at CompUPlus for $487 plus shipping or the Toshiba from Amazon for $480. As mentioned, these brands tend to cost a bit more for the provided features. Toshiba doesn't include a webcam and uses the GL40/GMA 4500M chipset with a Pentium Dual-Core T4200 CPU, 2GB RAM, 250GB HDD, and Vista Home Premium 32-bit. The Lenovo 15.4" 3000 G530 is almost the same but with 3GB RAM and a Pentium Dual-Core T3400 (dual-core, 65nm, 1MB shared L2, 2.16GHz, 667MHz FSB). Lenovo also includes a webcam (0.3MP), and we would give them the edge simply based on the overall appearance and styling. Lenovo may not make flashy notebooks, but they are well built and many people like the conservative styling.
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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.