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November 27, 2008 7:56 PM PST

Who's got the best Black Friday laptop deals?

by Dan Ackerman
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Taking a peek at the big Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales, there are plenty of big-screen TVs and cameras, but not quite as many laptops. That's surprising, because based on the extreme interest readers expressed for Walmart's $298 Celeron-powered Compaq laptop earlier in November, we suspect a lot of people will be looking for laptop bargains during the holiday weekend.

Industry watchers say many of the deals this year aren't particularly exciting, so you may have to dig a little deeper to find a bargain. Here are a few of the Black Friday laptop deals we spotted that may be worth checking out.

Best Buy has a Toshiba Satellite L305 for $379 (in-store only). It's a basic 15-inch with 3GB of RAM and a 160GB hard drive. It's usually $650, and if you don't mind the AMD Turion X2 processor, it's a decent deal. There's also an in-store deal on the HP G50-104NR, which is a 15-inch with an Intel Pentium dual-core T3200 CPU, 2GB of RAM, and a 120GB hard drive. Both of these have limited quantities, a minimum of 15 per store for the Toshiba and 8 per store for the HP.

Walmart has one of our favorite Netbooks, the Acer Aspire One for $398, and the configuration is one we can get behind -- 1GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, and a 6-cell battery (Netbooks with 3-cell batteries just don't cut it).

Levovo has a coupon code for 15-percent off on almost its entire laptop line, just go to the Lenovo Web site and use the code, "USPBLACKFRIDAY." Sadly, this doesn't include the S10 Netbook.

Amazon has HP's business Netbook from last year, the 2133, on sale for only $299. It's got a great keyboard, and we love the brushed metal construction -- but also kind of hate the underpowered (even for a Netbook) VIA C7-M processor. Still, for the price, we'd be tempted.

If these deals don't float your boat, my colleague Julie Rivera has already covered Apple's special Black Friday deals, and some decent breaks on Apple products at Best Buy -- check it out here.

New York native Dan Ackerman, a former radio DJ turned journalist, has written about technology and music for publications including Spin, Blender, The Hollywood Reporter, and USA Today. He hosts the weekly Digital City podcast and the New York edition of Editors' Office Hours. Dan's new album, Tales Out of Night School, is available now. E-mail Dan.
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by flyworld3 November 27, 2008 8:48 PM PST
The best deal on a laptop is the Sony VAIO TT. You wanna know why? CompUSA is selling the $5,999 for $999. YES, YOU HEAR RIGHT. A FIVE THOUSAND DOLLAR DISCOUNT. Tell your friends!
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by letsgethightech November 27, 2008 9:59 PM PST
Why would one mind an AMD Turion X2 processor? It's a good chip!
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