Black Friday Laptop Deals

Black Friday 2010 is just around the corner, and with it the opportunity to find some excellent deals on all sorts of products. There’s no guarantee you’ll find any particular item or that you’ll be able to get the Black Friday pricing — often, the biggest savings are strictly limited in quantity and sell out within moments. But if you have some flexibility in terms of what you’re looking for, and do a little research, Black Friday can be a great time to purchase cheap laptops on sale.

Your first task is to check around on the Internet beforehand to see if any Black Friday deals are leaked. Some chain stores such as Best Buy may intend to offer a big sale on laptops, and this can help you plan which stores to visit to maximize your chances of finding what you want. Also, bear in mind that people are more likely to compete with you for the items if you go to the stores commonly associated with electronics, so remember to check out other locations such as Staples or Office Depot as well.

Another strategy is to look to Internet retailers for specials. Many popular laptops for sale such as Toshiba, Asus, Sony, or Samsung are available through a number of online stores. Again, the most commonly thought of retailers for laptops are also the most likely to be sold out quickly, so build a list of all online stores you can think of that has laptops in their inventory. And don’t forget places like Dell or Sony’s online store — sometimes the manufacturers themselves will offer you great deals on Black Friday and you might be able to score laptops under $300.

What features should you look for in a laptop? You should try to buy a system with at least a dual-core CPU, 250GB hard drive, 4GB memory, a DVD+R/DVD-R/RW drive, 802.11n Wi-Fi built-in, and Windows 7 installed. This combination costs around $650-700 online, but look to buy for $100-150 less on Black Friday (or 15-25% off). Also look for TV-out capability, which will likely either be S-Video or DVI if present on the laptop; this can allow you to use your laptop to stream services like Hulu, Netflix, and Amazon On-Demand to your television set. Blu-Ray drives have also come down in cost lately, so keep an eye out for those as well if that interests you. Lower-end laptops are available for around $500 if you are unconcerned with performance, but you should ensure they come with a better operating system than Windows 7 Starter and more than 2GB of memory.

Before you shop, make a list of the features that are important to you in a laptop, and carefully compare them before you buy. Sometimes Black Friday electronics are stripped-down versions of regular electronics with a minor modification to the model number, so check each feature line-by-line. If in doubt, don’t buy; it’s better to pay a little extra down the road than to regret your purchase for years to come. If you’re planning on playing games, read as many gaming laptop reviews as possible, before you buy.

Hopefully, this will help you work out a plan to find the best deal on the laptop you want on Black Friday. There’s no one place to go or one perfect strategy, but between research of stores in your neighborhood and stores online you can maximize your chances of finding the deals that suit you.

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Top 5 Laptops For Individual Needs

There are so many different reasons why someone would purchase a laptop and there are just as many different individual requirements that consumers have. With this in mind, here are five laptops out, of the vast amount of laptops available, that seem to stand out in their respective categories.

1. Good gaming laptop

Some of the good gaming laptops that stand out are the Alienware M series laptops, specifically the Alienware M15x laptop. It stands out due to its allocation in the series; it offers the best of both the high end and the low end models. In tests this laptop proved very formidable and could handle all the gaming that was thrown at it and over time had consistency in terms of CPU speed and processing. This was due to the machine’s astounding i7 Intel quad core processor which (if you didn’t know) is one of the top processors in the industry, definitely a plus. In addition to this, this highly awarded laptop 6 gigabytes dual channel DDR3 memory and 512 megabytes of GDDR3 GeForce graphics along with your choice of hard drive space. With this much power and graphics this computer will please any gamer. It will cost you, around $1400, but its well worth the cost when you can play games on your laptop in HD. Check a variety of gaming laptop reviews before making your decision.

2. Cheap Laptop

Not everyone has the resources to dish out $1400 on a laptop. There are some who would prefer to have a laptop to check emails, the occasional Microsoft office document, and web surfing. For this demographic, I recommend the Compaq Presario CQ62z. First of all, it’s only $400! What a deal! It comes with windows 7 and has 2 gigabytes of memory and 350 gigabytes of hard drive space, all of which can be upgraded. It has a decent AMD notebook processor which can handle simple tasks and never slow down. This laptop is definitely a favorite for many people.

3. Portable laptop

With all the things going on nowadays, there are some who prefer laptops that are portable and easy to carry around. With such laptops people don’t have to worry about carrying bigger conventional laptops. For this segment, the HP Mini 110 series really stand out. This computer is really cheap and only has a 10 inch screen and is really easy to carry around. It can do anything a normal computer can and comes with windows 7 in addition to that. It has about 1 gigabyte of memory and around 160 gigabytes of hard drive space (again, this can all be upgraded). In such a small device this is very amazing! It can do everything like a cheap computer but is smaller and easier to carry around.

4. College student laptop

College students usually get cheap laptops, but usually end up regretting this choice. In many cases, when they go to college, laptops become their TV’s, video game systems, and their home computers. With so many tasks student laptops need to be quite powerful. College is an investment, why not also invest in what you take and use their. In this section, the Apple Macbook pro is a great fit. The 15 inch model is, in most cases, the best fit. However there are 13 and 17 inch models also available. It comes with 2.53 gigahertz of processing speed 4 to 8 gigabytes of DDR3 memory based on your choice, and 256 megabytes of DDR3 memory. The hard drive space is 500 gigabytes. With such great features what else would a student need? In addition to this apple runs a college student program were college students get a free iPod with the purchase of a Mac. It costs around $1800 bucks but is well worth the costs, definitely a durable and student centered laptop.

5. Business centered laptop

There are some who use laptops for business alone. For these people I recommend the Dell fastrack vostro 3300. This laptop offers unparallel power. It comes with windows 7 and other Microsoft productivity software, a fingerprint scanner for security, and damage protection. This laptop is in the $600 laptop range and comes with great power and processing speed that comes with windows 7. It runs with the intel core I processors, has lots of available memory, and offers lots of available hardrive space, all of which is customizable. It has a 13 inch screen and is perfect.

All of these laptops are great. Check your local store ads for these notebooks on sale to save some money. I wish you luck on this journey as you search for the best laptop that fits you needs.

READER QUESTION: What gaming laptops do you like? Any others besides Alienware? If you own Alienware, what do you think of it?

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Review: Toshiba Laptops

Note by editor: Toshiba laptop reviews is a guest review by one of our readers: Jim J. Donalds.

Today we are going to take a look at three popular Toshiba laptops each with a different price point and purpose. Exact model numbers will be listed followed by the most basic but important stats. Also included for comparison purposes is average price from several popular and reputable websites. After a brief review of the pros and cons a recommendation will be made for each model.

Toshiba Satellite C655D-S5043
Price: $400
The Stats: 15.6″ screen, AMD V120 2.2GHz processor, 2gb DDR3 ram, 320GB HDD, ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4250, Windows 7 64 bit
The Facts: It’s a $400 dollar laptop, expecting it to do anything other than basic word processing and surfing the web, email etc. is currently unrealistic. That said this laptop does surprisingly well considering it’s minuscule price tag. 2gb of ram is too little in this day and age, thankfully Toshiba has left one ram expansion slot open so when the buyer gets tired of dealing with the low ram they can easily toss in another 2gb stick and call it a day. One of the more recommended cheap laptops on the market.
Recommended for: Basic email and web surfing.

Toshiba Satellite A505-S6035
Price: $1,000
The Stats: 16″ screen, Intel i7-720 QM 1.60 ghz processor, 4gb DDR3 ram, 500gb HDD, NVIDIA GeForce GT 330M gpu with 1gb vram , Windows 7 64bit
The Facts: Toshiba actually delivers a laptop at the thousand dollar mark that turns out to be a decent gaming laptop. You won’t be able to play the latest and greatest games at max settings but for the price the performance can’t be beat. As a gaming laptop it is of course able to handle any other basic tasks thrown at it with aplomb. At 6.5 lbs it’s hit’s that middle of the road spot for portable laptops. Still with a shorter than usually battery life and 16″ screen while you could use this as a literal laptop I think of it more as a mobile desktop, something to set up at a desk or table at the airport. While Toshiba earns points for making sure the laptop stays cool they get a negative for the amount of bloatware that comes per-installed.
Recommend for: Budget conscious gamers

Toshiba X505-Q890
Price: $1,700
The Stats: 18.4” screen, Intel Core i7 740QM 1.73GHz processor, 6GB DDR3 ram, 500GB HDD, 64 GB SSD HDD, Bluray Combo Drive, NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360 M
The Facts: This is a monster of a computer in laptop form! While you definitely will not be using this beast in your lap for any extended period of time it’s great for setting setting up at your destination and not having to regret leaving a desktop behind. Huge 18” screen will playback your blu-ray movies from the combo drive in full 1080p HD! The 64GB SSD drive will ensure quick boot times and load times of Windows and other essential programs. The NVIDIA GeForce GTS 360 M will allow you to play the newest games on high settings with all the trimmings. Other than the size and possibly the price tag there isn’t anything not to like about this laptop and honestly if your even looking at this model neither of those will come across as a negative.
Recommended for: Gaming and desktop replacement.

There you have it, three very different notebooks on sale from one reputable company. Something for everyone and even if none of the three Toshiba models covered in the article quite meet your needs the reviews can still give you a good place to start from. Decide which model closest meets your needs and then check out other laptops from that model line. Happy shopping!

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Review: Dell Laptops

I’ve had several different brands of laptops over the years, but the brand I keep coming back to over the years is Dell. They have a huge selection of laptops to choose from, everything ranging from a purse-sized netbook, to an entry-level laptop, to the ultimate gaming laptops.

The first laptop I ever purchased from Dell was an Inspiron 15R. The Inspirion 15 starts at about $399, making it ideal for first-time laptop users, students, and anyone else looking for a sturdy, dependable, entry-level model. Fully customizable, the Inspiron line features 2.26Gh Intel Core processors – fast enough for any computing the average user does and comes preloaded with Windows 7. The basic Inspirion comes with 2GB single-channel memory, but I recommend upgrading tot he 4GB dual-channel, as I find it adds significantly to the performance/speed of the laptop. All Inspirions come with a massive 320GB hard drive, Intel HD Graphics card and 5-hour battery, although for heavy users you may want to upgrade the battery or purchase an additional one. It’s one of the best cheap Dell laptops you could buy.

The next laptop I purchased from Dell was my netbook, or as Dell calls them, “Minis”. These are by far the best cheap laptops out there. I got mine refurbished for under $200 on Dell’s outlet store; a new model starts at $299. The thing I absolutely LOVE about the netbooks are the small size. I can tuck it into my diaper bag or purse whenever I go out – it’s perfect for web browsing and or writing that essay I’ve been trying to postpone. I have to admit I jumped the gun a bit and bought one of the first Mini 8′s. With an 8GB hard drive, it was virtually impossible to run anything on it. However, all the Minis now come with a minimum 160 GB hard drive so that’s no longer an issue. That being said, the Minis aren’t great on power. You really can’t have any apps on them or they tend to run at snail’s pace, so make sure you have another laptop or desktop to run your beefier programs on because the Minis come with a mere 1GB of RAM. However, if you are looking for a truly portable laptop for web-browsing, the Mini is what you want.

If you are looking for a powerful, and I mean powerful laptop, check out Dell’s Alienware line. My most recent purchase, the Alienware laptop was my husband’s last Christmas present – he was not disappointed! Built for gaming, the Alienware 15X is available with a Intel® Core™ i7 940XM Quad Core Processor, the fastest laptop processor in the world. You can also pack in a whallopping 8GB of dual-channel (yes, I said dual) memory and an available 256GB solid-state hard drive. The 15X comes with a beautiful HD screen, and with an available 1 GB GDDR3 NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX video card, you can make sure all your graphic-intense games look great on it. The 15X starts at $1350, but with available options can top out at well over $3000. For hard-core gamers, it’s a small price to pay for premium performance.

Dell laptops are available nationwide at retailers such as Walmart, Target, and Best Buy. You can also customize your laptop online (their Studio line is available in 200+ designs) at dell.com. If you are truly looking for a great deal, check out their online outlet. You can get brand-new and refurbished laptops at a fraction of the cost, so if that costly system you’ve been eyeing has been alluding you, you’ll definitely want to check them out.

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Laptops On Sale: What To Look For

The first step to purchasing very cheap laptops is knowing what you want it to do. If you intend to perform any gaming, it is important that your prospective laptop have some form of NVidia or ATI graphics processor: An Intel GPU lacks 3D processing capability and is therefore only suitable for web browsing and other office work. For gaming purposes, accept nothing with less than 2 GBs of RAM. At the time of this writing, the Intel-family processors dominate the AMD equivalents in performance and cost, but AMD processors are generally somewhat cheaper.

If gaming is not a serious concern for you, go with the cheapest thing you can: Just about anything will run your word processor and browser. For an operating system, unless you are purchasing more than 3 GBs of RAM, try to stick with Windows XP: Support and compatibility are simply better at this point time. However, be aware that you will need a 64-bit operating system (Win7 64 is recommended) if you intend to exceed this amount of memory, as 32-bit operating systems such as XP are unable to effectively utilize more memory.

The next important point in buying laptops on sale is to know where to look. For this, we turn to the Google. Key in a helpful query like notebooks on sale, and peruse the hits returned. Competitive price offers begin at the $200 range, but these lower-end models will not be suitable if you intend to use your computer for portable gaming. Under no circumstances, however, should you seriously consider spending more than about $800, which should be more than adequate.

Finally, take a look at the addon options provided: Some sort of external USB mouse can be very useful as the trackpad is not suited for precision control. While not normally recommended for a desktop PC, the extended warranty of up to 3 years is worth considering: Laptop computers often have high failure rates due to battery failure, loss of external components such as the rubber feet, friction wear of the built-in mouse touchpad, and failure from overheating. As laptops are not particularly user-serviceable, you can’t count on being able to fix this yourself or have a technical friend fix it for you: When laptops fail, they pretty much have to be sent back, and that means you’ll want the warranty. Be sure to keep track of when your warranty will expire and send it back for one last servicing before it does, and get those lost rubber feet, the dead battery, damaged power jacks, and other wear-and-tear issues fixed up for the last time.

With all this in mind, an external hard drive is a worthwhile consideration, to back up all your data when you send it in. Expect to have to do this! Plan ahead, because within a year of the warranty expiring, you’ll be the proud owner of a doorstop, paperweight, or brick. Good thing you know how to get cheap new laptops, right?

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