About that $300 laptop at Wal-Mart...

Have you seen this laptop?

(Credit: Wal-Mart)

Last Friday, Wal-Mart announced a selection of in-store discounts, including a 15-inch Compaq laptop for $298, that would be part of a one-day, in-store sale. That day, November 8, has come and gone, but what about the remaining supplies of the participating laptop, the Compaq CQ50-139WM?

The laptop is listed on Wal-Mart's Web site, but you can't buy it online or even find out the price, which is listed as varying by store. I used Walmart.com's store locator earlier today and plugged in more than a dozen zip codes chosen at random to find out if it was still available and, if so, for how much. Every result returned was the same: Not in stock.

I gave up and submitted my First Take of the product to copy edit this morning, and full-time copy editor and part-time Crave blogger Daren Darrow uncovered Compaq CQ50-139WM hiding out in his home state of Oklahoma. We both called the Henryetta, Okla., Wal-Mart and were told that they have the laptop, but it costs $398.

Even at $400, it still costs less than most Netbooks. Given that it uses a single-core Intel Celeron processor, it likely performs on par with a Netbook, but with less battery life. For those on a tight budget who care more about screen size than portability, the Compaq CQ50-139WM might work. Good luck finding though. If you've had any luck finding this laptop, please let me and Crave readers know below.

[the_iceman]

compaq sucks the fat donkey. I dont care the price, I'll pass

[operationthunderbolt]

haha you funny.

Agreed. I'll NEVER buy another compaq product. They've sucked since at least the mid 90's.

[U. Tripps]

this is a story worth publishing?

[mattumanu]

Yes, it's a story worth publishing. It's possible that Walmart is pulling a fast one, which is why he reported that the price was not $300, but rather $398.

[boopiejones]

not true. the way i am reading the story, the author states that it WAS on sale for $298 LAST FRIDAY. Now the author is trying to see how much they cost AFTER the sale, and they are unavailable. I wonder how that could happen? Hmmm.... perhaps they SOLD OUT AT $298!?!?!?!?!

[shadowhywind]

If you look closely on the ad for walmart, it says prices will vary in <lists a couple of states>. I live in wisconsin, which was in the price will vary list. When I talked with walmart employee's around the state, I got the same response, Wisconsin has a fair trade policy(or something on that lines). They couldn't really explain it that well, but from what i understood, Walmart could not sell the laptop cheaper then their competitors.

[sugarhillgang]

Actually my uncle went to walmart and people were actually complaining to customer service because the ad showed 298 but they had it on sale for 398. So it looks like from what he said a line of people asking questions about the 100 price upgrade.

[Maruuk]

It was only $298 for the pre-Black Friday early risers on Sat. A one-day only sale of very limited supplies. All gone by 7am. Why are folks whining about it going up $100 after the sale? That's how sales work.

Expect a repeat of this item at $298 on Black Friday. But expect the lines to be 100 times longer and campers pitching their tents the day before. That's why I moved on this deal, I knew very few folks had even heard about it. I got there at 6:15 and had only 10 folks ahead of me. Turns out, I could have got there at 6:55 and still scored. But all bets are off for Black Friday given the state of the economy. It's gonna be a zoo at every outlet.

[sugarhillgang]

Actually when my uncle went it was on the November 8th the day of the add and that's why the people were complaining at the store where he went to.

this things at the wallmart right outside of brattleboro, vt nearby the gamestop.

[zalah]

I was one of the lucky ones! Super nice laptop, comes with Vista and packed full of useful applications.
Also comes with Norton and other nice security features. The cost was $289. Not a bad buy, lots of ram, disk space, modems and DVD-RW drive. Well worth the wait and $$.

[RohdBurn]

Was 20th in line at 7am. Luckily there was also a sale on a 46" HD TV and several people were in line for that. Was told they had 50 in stock. Paid $289 and am very happy with it. Bought it for my wife who only checks emails and browses. For that it works great. Screen is bright, and is not as slow as I thought it would be with Vista on a Celeron.

[justinjudy1]

I work for Wal-Mart and let me give you the run down on this laptop. It was sent in for a Saturday morning sale that Wal-Mart was having to kick off the Christmas shopping season. They sent this laptop along with a Sony MP3 player, a 47" Sanyo 1080p LCD, and some other items and marked them down from the hours of 8:00 am to 11:59 pm. This laptop was $298.00 from 8-11:59 on Saturday and then went back up Sunday at 12:00 am. The Sanyo LCD was regularly around $1198.00 and they marked it down to $798.00. We had 90 of the laptops come in and they were gone in less than 2 hours. We probably could have sold 150 - 200 buy noon.

[mgibboni]

Umm...yea. Boopiejones makes a fantastic, as well obvious point that I have to agree with: It's virtually sold out accross the country because it was a sub $300 laptop on sale at one of the country's largest retailers.

The price of the laptop (at any Walmart that still has it in stock) has gone up because it was on sale. The definition of a sale, you ask? "A special disposal of goods at lowered prices."

I cannot believe this crap of an article made it to the cnet homepage.

[ks99]

I debated getting one for my wife and strolled in to my local walmart at 9:15 am not thinking they would have any more but they still had a bunch. I went ahead and picked one up for the price. To tell the truth, I'm a hardcore mac guy myself, but $300 for a laptop was something I couldn't really pass up. Not the fastest thing in the world, but more than enough for my wife to IM, browse the web, and do other odds and ends. She's been pretty happy with it and the little time I've had with it has been pretty positive. It's not slow by any means and again for $300 it was well worth it. You can barely get a tiny tiny netbook with a toy screen for that money.

[danisnotstan]

This seems to be the start of a new trend: desperate times call for low prices, although this isn't the best deal Ive come across. Matter of fact, If you happen upon Best Buy's weekly ad you will see not only a $299 laptop, but a desktop as well. Neither will win a speed prize, but never the less, a hard deal to pass up. The laptop is a 14" (usually more expensive than 15") Emachines AMD athalon, 1gig ram, 120 or 160 gig hard drive (don't remember) Vista, dvd burner, etc. I played with one and was surprised it didn't perform half bad. It started up in half the amount of time as my optimized $1500 hp tablet w/ turion 64x2 and 2gig ram! $299 is a great price although I would expect less by now. I actually bought a HP dv1000 @ Best Buy 2 1/2 years ago for on $50 more! ($350 well spent, its still going strong with no problems to date). I was actually intrigued by the desktop deal at the same price. Emachines as well, it was a small form factor AMD Athalon processor, 250? gig hard drive, 1 gig ram, cd/dvd burner, etc....it also INCLUDED a 19" LCD flat panel and keyboard, mouse and speakers. All for what a good 19" monitor will cost by itself! My biggest surprise was to see it was preloaded with XP!! I thought XP was only reserved for low power netbooks, but I guess that is wrong considering I have still seen XP disks for sale on many store shelves recently. I personally think the great deals have only just begun....not only due to the bleak economy but mainly due to the fact that I was at Best Buy near closing time yesterday and they still had a pile of each of these deals out in the wide open! Usually these would be gone from the early birds who saw the ad the night before, forget about walk in customers....that was odd to see them still available with no takers. (the "we have Wii's in stock" sign might also be an indication of whats to come.

[miamiman5]

I had gone to the Walmart nearest to me the very night I read the story on Cnet. Although I was told it would be available for sale until 8am that day, the manager agreed to sell it to me for the advertised price of $298.

Cnet raised questions as it relates to the make (Compaq) vis-a-vis its affordability. Similarly, allow me to raise this question: When was the brand of a PC mattered? I thought it was all about specs. The specs are well worth the price even at $499, much more so at $298.

[Lerianis]

Guys, if you are going to buy a portable computer and foresee yourself EVER doing anything more than just going online to get e-mail and surfing the net..... DON'T BUY A NETBOOK!
Seriously, just bite the bullet and spend the 700-1400 dollars on a good notebook. You will thank yourself in the long run, because a good notebook today like the Gateway one my family just bought can last you a good 7 years, at least.

[darthtazman]

Oklahoma has a state law that does not allow items to be sold below cost so Walmart was not pulling a fast one. It's a law and it should have been communicated by the associates although it was in fine print in the ad on the website. Hawaii and Wisconsin are the other states with a similar law. The normal price for the laptop was actually $428.

[johnb1aze]

This laptop was available at our local Wal Mart in Gonzales, Louisiana @ the $298 price.

[IowaNinersFan]

Why would you want a Celeron CPU anyway?

[jjayguy23]

Good point.

[Rottentomato]

Why is this such a hot deal? These prices have been around for almost 2 years now. Does anyone here ever look at the Staples, Office Depot or Best Buy weekly fliers? Every second week they have a laptop for around $300. (Sometimes after rebates)

This deal is very average.

Let me say this: true, we are in rough economic times, but at the end of the day you need peace of mind. If you are planning on doing any serious work on your computer, buy a GOOD machine. When it comes to laptops, the $100-500 laptops are built one way and the $1,000-3,000 are built another way. From my own personal experience, cheap laptops start falling apart after a few months. Keyboard keys fall out, speakers blow out, headphone jack stops working, screen starts flickering, etc...

If you are making a list which household items to invest in, COMPUTERS should be one of them. (Along with treadmills and cars). You don't want to have a heart attack waiting for a program to open.

[JLDSeattle]

I actually wasted valuable reading time on this article. If you are on a budget get an iphone. It will be more reliable than one of these cheap last a year computers.

[tnut13]

That's a silly suggestion. An iphone has serious limitations compared to any PC and a 100.00 per month use penalty. You could save your monthly fee for 6 months and get a great machine.

I actually wasted time responding to your post.