Smaller and more convenient weighing in at 2 and a half pounds each, they feature a 10 inch screen and both come in a variety of bright colours. One would be surprised at how easy they are to use as well, seeing as they both feature a keyboard that is about 90% the size of a normal one.

Now for the differences folks. Price: Dell costs $239 and boasts 24 hour shipment and HP costs $229 and is available locally. The slight difference between the two does not indeed change the fact that these netbooks which work as well and as fast as a basic laptop cost half as much as their larger counterparts.

One thought is that although they are a bit less beefy than larger screen laptop computers they are still only about a year behind and have a great price for the service they offer. RAM on each is 1GB and hard drive for each is about 60GB, great for a normal computer user.

The best function besides price is style. Compact, attractive and available in many colors they look great and somewhat futuristic at any age. WiFi makes it an ideal toy for checking email at the cafe or looking up quick facts at the lunchroom or library before a meeting.

Yes, there are a lovely variety of protective cases available for 10 inch netbooks, many of which are designed to look like a purse with art or floral patterns. If I were to choose a brand I would choose the HP in pink.

Although the Dell netbook has convenient options like payment plans, 48 hour delivery and a toll free technical assistance line for Dell owners, the HP has a slight edge in price and is generally of better quality and longevity. Dell has much better choice of colour in a multitude of strong candy-coloured casings but overall HP is still thinner, sleeker and more attractive.

If this does not sound like the type of device for you then consider it for a young one on your gift list, as it is cheap and a fun starter computer. The best of luck selecting your next computing device.

Many computer companies will refurbish computers and sell them for a discounted price. The company Apple is well known for this. These computers are sent back to the companies, fixed, wiped clean of any viruses and personal data from the previous user, and sold. Something to take into consideration is that when buying these computers, most times they are sold without a warranty. Sometimes this is a deal breaker for some people and others are okay with this. It all depends on your comfort with the brand.

Buying a slightly older model When looking for a computer, sometimes older is better. Many computers these days have many features on them that are useful to more tech savvy people. If you are not one of these people or simply use your computer to browse the internet or simple things like that, then you don’t need the extra bells and whistles that these computers come with. The HP computer brand is a good computer to do this with. They are constantly releasing a new computer model every 4 to 6 months so if you bought an older model, you wouldn’t be as behind on the newest technology. Most times, computer stores sell the older models of computer for a discounted price. Take advantage of this and find a good deal on a new but, older computer, that will most likely suit you better.

When offered a rebate, use it! Nowadays, so that you will buy from their stores, most offer some sort of reimbursement program or rebate offer. They tell you that as long as you buy a computer and some accessory, such as a laptop bag or skin to cover it, they will give you a card that you can mail in to get anywhere from 50 to 200 dollars back. Most of the time this works out in your favor. You get a new model laptop, an accessory, and you end up getting it cheaper than you would before. Many computer brands such as, HP and Compaq offer this.

To buy an very cheap laptop, the first thing you need to figure out is how much can your budget be. Depending on your budget size, you can differentiate between what kind of specifications you would want and what you would get. You would really need to dig in to the kind of specifications you want and that solely depends on the budget you have.

You can either go in go in for a brand new low price laptop, a second hand one or sometimes you can come across a free laptop. However, buying a brand new laptop from the stores is appealing because of the benefits like warranty, good condition and long lasting batteries, and being the first person to use it, you have the assurance that it definitely would work without any glitches. You would also want to get it from a known laptop manufacturer like Lenovo, HP etc.

It is possible to get discounts from sales especially from bulk deals that take place with companies and educational institutes. If you are working or studying or know anyone who is, you can try to arrange a laptop at discount from the bulk deals that are available there. Make sure you have your list of specifications ready when you enter a store or even if you want to get it second hand. Whether you want it for homework or for games or for business or Internet, make sure you have the right specifications for the same.

However, just because you want an inexpensive one should not mean you ought to compromise everything that you need as long as your budget can handle it. Having specifications ready means that no sales guy would be able to force something onto you and you just might be able to walk away with the best laptop for your budget. Buying laptops online can help possibly get some of the best deals available especially in bid price web sites like E-bay.

Be sure that you get some security on such deals like warranty or being able to get a refund. Its always advisable to go in for a new and cheap laptop rather than going for a second hand one, because you will be relaxed knowing that you are using one, right off the shelf or out of the factory.

First things first I highly recommend buying a laptop from a brand that you are familiar with. You go to your local Best Buy and see a Samari brand and an Acer brand well that would be an easy choice you would go with the Acer. Brand names are very close in cost to those of non brand names except that no name brands may end up going out of business and you are out of luck when you want a part for your computer.

Memory is very unimportant in my opinion when you do not have a whole lot of money. You go to the store and the salesman says you must have 3 GB of memory or else your computer won’t do this or this. Wrong you do not need very much memory at all especially if your main purpose for the computer is to use the internet. Hard drive is another issue when looking for laptops a high capacity one is not needed. I can go on and on with all the different technical aspects of what is not needed but let me change things up a bit and tell you what to look for.

First off think about what you are using the laptop for. If you will be using it on long trips a laptop with a longer battery life will help a great deal. What size of screen do you want the smaller the cheaper. Do you want a bulky laptop or one that is slim and light in weight?

So now that I have gotten you to think about those features pick and choose which ones are most important to you as you will not get everything in a low priced laptop. Just remember the things that should be the most important are things that are almost impossible to change or would be very expensive like the screen size, the design, the hard drive, the weight of the laptop, CPU etc. Cosmetics like memory, the battery, and DVD player can all be changed in the future and added for a low cost.

Just do a little bit of research before jumping in and buying laptops on sale and always remember if you buy the older model there’s a good chance you will get it a whole lot cheaper than the newer model.

Naturally I think the best place to start is online. Why is that exactly? Well, it’s simple. You can often get the best deals online due to the fact that these online stores have very little overhead. They don’t have a building they have to pay for every month, they simply have hosting. They don’t have scads of employees to work cash registers and stock the shelves, either. They can make a profit while offering drastically better deals than the stores, allowing them to offer you some really outstanding deals.

Naturally I don’t think that you should just go off to the first site you find online. You need to be careful whenever dealing with anything online, particularly when you’re giving out your credit card information. Certainly most are honest businesses looking to do good by their customers, but even then, I think you should stick to the sites that are already well established. Those would typically be sites such as Tiger Direct, New Egg, and any of the large manufacturer’s sites (such as Dell, Apple, HP, Toshiba, etc.). I’m certain that there are some other great sites, but it’s better to be safe than sorry!

In my humble opinion, Tiger Direct has always been the best online store for finding laptops on sale. It’s a store that’s been around since before the internet became popular; in fact, the store itself has been around for 20 whole years. That’s even pre-AOL if you can believe that! Their customer service has always been top-notch, and you can be assured of getting a good product. They also sell some very cheap refurbished laptops, many of which offer savings of up to 50%. New Egg also offers some great products, so definitely search both before you run off to the store.

Should you not find what you need online (not likely!), you might try going to a normal store for your laptop needs. The best brick and mortar store in my opinion is Fry’s Electronics. This store doesn’t exist everywhere; it’s mostly a west coast USA establishment, but if you can find one near you, it’s almost as good as going online. Their selection and prices are unbeatable compared to stores such as Best Buy, Staples, etc. They don’t even compare.

So, there you have it everyone! Today was admittedly a basic overview of where to find laptops on sale, but it should have been a solid primer for you whenever you decide to buy a laptop for yourself. Thanks for reading!

Brent is the author of http://www.refurbishedlaptopsguide.com.

Such deals are usually available all year long, especially when a new line of devices is announced and retailers try to get rid of old stocks. However, the best sales offers can be found during late November and December, the period officially called “Winter sales season”.

Regular laptops now run from around 400 bucks to as high as 3 to 5 thousand bucks, for the highly performing gaming rigs (like Alienware). It’s a vast range and anyone can find something suitable in between. Expensive laptops might get price cuts from time to time (significant I might say), but they’ll still remain pricey.

Standard and cheap laptops however can drop from their regular $500-$600 bucks for instance, to as low as $350-$400. I am expecting the biggest drops on November 27th this year, during Black Friday 2009 day. You might be able to get some very good Black Friday laptop sales offers that day, especially as early birds (products only available early in the morning, as “baits” to lure people in stores) . These deals however run out incredibly fast, and you might have to get in lines early in the night and fight some angry shoppers to get to them.

Online webstores offer good bargains on laptops too. I would suggest scooping Dell’s or HP’s homepages on Black Friday and the week just before Christmas if you want to profit from the price cuts.

Also, if you want, there’s the alternative of the smaller cheaper notebooks called netbooks. You could get some of the best such netbook computers for around $300 bucks, and they are good enough for most standard applications, while being very light and offering incredible battery life (around 6-7 hours).

Last but not least, you can go for refurbished laptops. They are usually 20 to 40 % discounted, but might have minor scratches and faults and come with only up to 6 month warranty.

In the end, I’m pretty sure there will be some very very good deals on laptops in the following two months. It will be just up to you to be able to profit from them and get the desired product for the desired price.

*This is a guest post on Laptops On Sale. *

First, the amount of RAM that the system has is very crucial for its performance. Depending on your needs, RAM can make you or break you. For example, if you plan on loading some games on there or doing things that require precision timing, RAM is a big factor. If you do not have enough of it, it can slow your computer down and even cause it to freeze up. Most software requires that you now have at least one gigabyte of RAM. I would recommend getting at least two to three gigabytes, and most good laptops come with that, or at least have the capabilities for more.

Another key part of buying a laptop on sale is the processor speed. Many laptops will give you great deals, but have poor processing speeds. Processors do all the computing on your computer. These small chips pack a ton of power. Most are over two gigahertz, but the more the better. You also want to get the newest chips out there since they have the most transistors and work the fastest. This is important to make sure your laptop runs at its peak performance.

Hard drives are also important in your purchase of laptops. Software is becoming extremely large, and many people run tons of programs on their computer at different times. This causes them to need humongous hard drives, many over three hundred gigabytes. Many of them come with this, but many do not, and the price will reflect that.

Of course, if you want the best, laptops on sale might not be the best. However, Newegg has a bunch of laptops on sale that are great and very consumer friendly. The best bang for your buck is the Acer laptop. They are cheap, but very well put together. Asus are not well known by many consumers, but they put the best laptop together for under one thousand dollars.

1. First, know what you’re looking for. Visit two or three different computer retailers, and examine a variety of laptops in person. Decide what you absolutely need in terms of functionality, wireless internet access, memory capability, and processor speed. Then, make a list of the specific types of computer that you might be willing to buy. Be sure to write down the exact serial number and specifications of the model that you’re looking at, because it’s easy to mistake one laptop for another. With your new list, you’ll be able to monitor weekly ads for sales on the specific models that interested you, and you’ll be able to compare the most recent price against the price that you have recorded on your list.

2. Once you have a list of models that you’d be willing to purchase, head to your local library. They should keep a good stock of computer magazines and consumer journals, which you can use to figure out a rough estimate of the average price for each laptop. While you’re reading these articles, make sure to take notes about consumer satisfaction ratings, possible glitches, and common complaints about each model. You may need to budget money for an extended warranty or repair plan, and you’ll want to factor estimates of those costs into your potential expenditures.

3. Now that you have a list of possible costs, and a rough idea of what to expect from each laptop, examine your options. You’ll want to consider whether there are any big sales coming up (like Black Friday or Back to School specials), and you’ll also want to ask yourself if you have any consumer loyalty cards or coupons that would apply to a computer purchase. It’s usually a good idea to take stock of these options and then wait for a few weeks, recording the advertised prices for each laptop on your list to get a sense of the overall trends in the market. If prices seem to be going up, for example, it might be a good idea to purchase a laptop during the next sale period, in order to get the best deal.

After you’ve spent some time working on your list, researching your potential laptop, and monitoring prices, you’ll be able to make the best laptop choice possible, and find the best deal that’s available in your area.

First of all, the processor speed of your laptop should be good enough so that you can run multiple processes on it. The dual core or the quad core processors are the latest products available in the market, however the quad core would be a little bit expensive. But dual core processors can also serve the purpose.

Secondly the Random Access Memory (RAM) of your laptop should be high so that the functioning of the laptop becomes speedy. A high Ram would ensure that your laptop doesn’t take enough time while starting up. Equipping your laptop with an anti virus software would be of great help if you are planning to work on the Internet. Anti-Virus software protects your laptop against any kind of spy-ware or virus threat. If you are planning to buy a new laptop then you will get free software with it. However, one can buy it also as it is a very helpful tool to use Internet safely.

Lastly, if the purpose of your laptop is gaming then it should be equipped with a high definition sound card and a video card. Gaming laptops require very high configuration as the games are designed in a very heavy manner and compatibility issues might arise if you do not have a video card with you. If you are buying your laptop for simple purposes or home use only then you can settle down without any graphic or video card.

1. Free up disk space
You may not realize it it, but many little files and other things are saved in different areas of your hard drive that you can easily remove by running Disk Clean up. This tools will help you free up space on your hard drive. The program identifies all the files that you can safely delete, along with you having the choice to delete any or all of the identified files.

Use Disk Cleanup to:

Remove temporary Internet files.
Remove Windows temporary files.
Remove downloaded program files that you no longer use
Remove optional Windows components that you don’t use.

2. Defragment the hard Drive
When files are stored in you hard drive, it causes your system to take longer to gather the information since your computer will typically fragment them. When you use the utility, it consolidates fragmented files and folders on your computer’s hard disk so that each occupies a single space on the disk. The computer will have an easier time located and reading the files. I typically run this program once a month.

3. Detect and repair disk errors

After running the two utilities, to optimize your computer or laptop’s proformance, check the integrity of you files by running the Error Checking utility. Over time the computer can and will develop bad sectors, causing the slow down of the hard drive as well as making data writing (file saving) difficult, if not impossible. The utility will scan the drive for any bad sectors and searches for any files or folders are misplaced.

Taking these few steps can save you a world of grief. If you’re like me and you use your computer or laptop on a daily basis, you should run these utilities once a month.