Laptop bargains: So you only have $350 to spend...
Just the other day here at the CNET N.Y. offices, a co-worker IMed me with a question from his uncle, who was shopping for an affordable laptop for his niece. Should he consider buying a laptop he saw on sale recently, which had a large screen and a DVD burner, for only $350?
I had a feeling the laptop in question was similar to the Toshiba L455-S5975, and it turns out I was basically right. For ultracheap laptop bargains, there are two ways to go: buy a small, cheap Netbook, or go with a full-size low-end laptop sporting a processor such as an Intel Celeron 900.
Either way, you're not getting a lot of processing power. To get something more significant, you need to climb up to around $500 and go with either a dual-core thin-and-light or a cheap Core 2 Duo or equivalent laptop, such as the Toshiba Satellite T135-S1309 (we reviewed the similarly configured but more expensive T135-S1310 here).
For around $300, though, 10-inch Netbooks like the Dell Mini 10v provide nice portability and design, but lack an optical disc drive or a full-size keyboard/screen, and tend to have less RAM and smaller hard drives.
The Toshiba Satellite L455-S5975, which we reviewed as part of our holiday retail laptop roundup, falls in the other camp. It has a bright, large 15.6-inch screen, a full-size tapered keyboard, and a DVD-burning drive. It also has a decent amount of hard drive space at 250GB.
But that's where the advantages end. With an underpowered single-horsepower Celeron, it can't achieve most of what you'd like a big-screen laptop to do in the first place, such as play back high-quality full-screen streaming video. It also lacks a Webcam, something many Netbooks have, which is nice for students who use webchat or Skype (although a USB plug-in can also do the trick). Most importantly, however, its battery life ran at under two hours, which is worse than any Netbook.
For portability and battery life, a Netbook is still the better choice. But if you really need that optical drive and feel like you can't live without a really large screen (in other words, you're looking to plant this on your desk and not travel much), something like the L455-S5975 might be a decent second computer for a household looking to save a little cash. But if it were us, we'd save a couple hundred more and go with something that doesn't look like it escaped from the year 2000. At least you can rest easy that everything comes with Windows 7 now, Netbooks included.
On Sale Now: $329.99
View the latest prices for Toshiba Satellite L455-S5975
Scott Stein, a New York Jets fan and CNET senior associate editor, has written about tech, entertainment, video games, and viral culture for outlets including Laptop, Wired, Maxim, Esquire Online, Asylum, and Men's Journal. He also appears on the Digital City podcast. In his spare time, you might see him performing improv in New York City (when he's not being a dad). 
I for example recently purchased a Compaq CQ60-420US with 2.00GHz Intel Dual-Core T4200, 15.6 LCD Screen, Dual-Layer DVD burner, 3GB of RAM, 250GB drive, WiFi, SD card reader...all for $380 bucks at Staples after $30 easy online rebate.
Now that's a bargain as the system looks good and has enough juice and memory for most of the tasks that the niece could possibly want.
Now that's a bargain and similar are frequently available, just need a bit of patience and some good advice. ;-)
eMachines® eME627-5082 --$299
* AMD Athlon(tm) 64 Processor TF-20
* 2GB DDR2-667 RAM
* 160GB 5,400RPM Hard Drive
* 8x SuperMulti Double Layer DVD±RW Drive
* 5-in-1 Digital Media Card Reader
* ATI Radeon(tm) HD 3200
* 10/100 Network
* 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED®
* 15.6" HD Widescreen XGA High-Brightness Display
* Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
* Black
Another was
eMachines® eMD620-5133 --$279
* AMD Athlon 2650e Processor
* 2GB DDR2 RAM
* 160GB Serial ATA II Hard Drive
* Super Multi 8x DVD Double-Layer Drive
* ATI Radeon X1200
* 10/100 Network
* 802.11b/g Wi-Fi CERTIFIED®
* 14.1" Widescreen XGA High-Brightness Display
* Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic
* Black
There was also and acer with dual core amd processoer which i couldn't find in their advertising that was $300 , i believe it had teh amd athlon 64 tf-20 proceesser, 3gb ram, 250 gb hd.
Both AMD procs you have listed don't even come close to T4200.
Check out here: http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_list.php
Proc CPU Score CPU Rank
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Pentium Dual-Core T4200 @ 2.00GHz 1222 262
AMD Athlon TF-20 389 580
AMD Athlon 2650e 407 560
2 gigs of ram
windows 7
160 gig hD
some sort of pentium processor
not a bad computer at all
While I do need the speed and power as a software developer, one of my close friends has a Netbook with the Atom processor, and it meets her needs perfectly (I talked to her beforehand and told her what it could and could not do). She is a casual user and just goes online, browses the Web, sends emails, sometimes writes a document or two.
I think it's great that there are so many choices available, as long as people get clearly told what each machine can and can't do.
shadymoin also makes a good point.... there is NO reason why a computer in this day and age should only get 1 hour of battery life, unless you are using the discrete graphics at full power. It should get anywhere from 3-5 hours of battery life, at least without using the full power of the discrete graphics.
The biggest 'energy waster' today is the discrete graphics cards in the higher-end laptops, and for no good reason in most cases.
But I personally would never buy one. For $350, I'd buy a Netbook any day!!! I LOVE portability, the tiny keyboard does not bother me at all, and the processors are perfect for Internet, music, movies and even some old games or WoW with lowest settings. But that's just me. There are people out there that find Netbooks too small, and sometimes bigger is better... for them!
It's not a horrible machine at all. A netbook might have been a good alternative but is it the right choice for someone who isn't 16-30 years old and doesn't like inconvenience? She'd probably find it easier to watch a DVD using the computer than trying to remember how the DVD player by her t.v. set works.
For people who want to mess a bit more with things, a netbook seems just fine.
Why would any one in this day and age buy a freaking celeron processor laptop? Unless they truly do not know anything about computers!? I can't believe Intel still sells this junk and gets away with it. "
Today's Celeron CPUs are FAR FAR more powerful than ones several years ago. They are basically a Conroe Core with less cache.
Core Celerons are fast and use very little power which makes them perfect for laptops. I'm sure people would love a Core2 with a buttload of cache and as fast as a desktop. But you wouldn't be able to buy them anywhere near $350.
A $350 Celeron laptop is perfect for web browsing, office documents and watching Youtube videos (which is what most people use laptops for). If you need the power of a Core2 or even Quad cores to do your video editing and gaming and you're looking at $350 laptops... you need a reality check bud.
no bud, you need a reality check. who would ever use a SINGLE core celeron in this day and age? "
Wrong bud, pull your head out of your arse. Single core Conroe Celerons give AMD cpus a run for their money.
You need to quit being an AMD fanboy and accept reality. I loved AMD during the Athlon vs Pentium 4 days because AMDs were better. Today, Intel just pimp slaps AMD every chance it gets. Intel's Conroe chips urinate anything in AMD's arsenal. AMD has nothing even close to Intel's i7.
I loved AMD when they were trying hard and produced something better. Today, they're just sitting on their thumbs watching Intel just zoom past by them.
- by asifsid November 16, 2009 12:46 PM PST
- check out http://www.pccounter.net for some great deals,discounts & coupons on laptop computers, you can get brand new laptop for less than $300
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