Buying Very Cheap Laptops (and getting a good deal...

This is a guest post by Rob C, one of our new readers.

If you are like me, you probably don’t have a whole lot of money to spend on a new laptop. If you don’t get caught up in all the different features, there are some good quality, very cheap laptops on the market.

I highly recommend buying a laptop from a brand that you are familiar with. You can find brand name laptops that don’t cost much more than no-name brands, but you’ll have much better luck when you need to find a part for your laptop.

If your main purpose for the laptop is to check emails and use the internet, go for less memory. When the salesman says you must have 3 GB of memory, explain what you need the laptop for. Hard drive is another issue when looking for cheap laptops. A high capacity one is not needed if you’re browing some sites and answering a few emails each day.

To save money on a laptop, it’s very important to spend time thinking about what you will be using it 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 they are , usually the cheaper they are. Do you want a bulky laptop or one that is slim and light in weight? Are you starting college and looking for deals on cheap laptops for students? Will it be used by your kids, your spouse or just yourself? These are all things to consider before shopping.

Pick and choose which features are most important to you because you will not get everything in a low priced laptop. Just remember the features that should be the most important are the ones 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. If you are looking for the best cheap laptops, make a list of all the functions you will be performing before you shop. This should give you a good idea of what you need.

Another possibility is to consider a refurbished laptop. I don’t know much about them, but I know a few people who own one and they’re all very satisfied with their purchases.

Just do a little bit of research before shopping at a very cheap laptops 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 one.

Update: One of our readers, Joe L. Allen, submitted his picks for five of the cheapest laptops on the market today:

1. The current leader in the low price laptop market is the Acer Aspire One at about $275. Originally a much smaller unit, the Aspire One now has a friendlier 10.1 inch display. Although this reviewer laments the passing of Windows XP Home (available on earlier models), Windows 7 Starter is an acceptable substitute on in-stock Acers currently sold.

2. Toshiba’s mini NB255-N240 Netbook PC shares much in common with the Aspire One. Both are netbooks; both also have the same display size, memory capacity, and hard drive capacity. The Toshiba has a slightly different Intel Atom N455 processor. How to choose? The tactile feel of the keyboard can make a huge difference. A buyer would be wise to try both keyboards if possible.

3. The ASUS 10.1″ Eee PC is a netbook very similar to the Aspire One. It has 1 Gigabyte of memory, a 10.1 inch display, a 160 Gigabyte hard drive, and Windows 7 Starter. The 6-cell lithium-ion battery in the ASUS is an excellent advantage that this model has over the Aspire One, the latter having a battery capacity of only half that of this ASUS.

4. The Silver Acer Netbook PC, is very similar to its earlier cousin, the Aspire One. The Silver One doubles the Aspire One’s battery capacity, however, opting for a 6-cell battery. This makes the Silver competitive with the ASUS. Another advantage of the Silver is a third USB port. For these two benefits, you will likely pay more for the Silver than the Aspire or the ASUS. Much of the issue comes down to price, especially if you don’t need the second port.

5. Be on the lookout for a newer Aspire One model. Slightly more expensive than the Intel Atom-equipped Aspire One netbook, the newer model (about $350) features an AMD processor with more cache and DDR 3 memory. If you are interested in a more robust Acer Netbook and are willing to pay $50 to $100 more for that power, the Aspire One with it’s AMD Athlon processor is the one to seek out.

Question for our readers:
What was the cheapest laptop you ever bought and were you satisfied with it?

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3 Tips For Buying Laptops On Sale

If you’d like to buy quality laptops on sale, you’ll need to do some homework first. After all, there’s nothing worse than buying a laptop at fifteen percent off the list price, and then discovering that another store was selling very cheap laptops. To help you avoid this problem, here are three computer-buying tips:

1. First, know what you’re looking for. Visit two or three different computer retailers, and examine a variety of notebooks on sale 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. With this information, you’ll be able to spot the best deals on cheap new laptops.

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. If all else fails, you can always rent a laptop for the time being.

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Buying A Cheap Laptop

When you’re looking to buy laptops on sale, there are several factors you should keep in mind, price being only one of them. Even if you’re shopping for cheap new laptops, price is only one part of what you should take into consideration.

You must first decide what uses the laptop will provide. Will it be used for occasional web surfing or emails, gaming, storing music or data, watching movies, or all of the above? Once you decide its use, then you can begin to choose which laptop you wish to purchase.

If you wish to just web surf occasionally and have email access then purchase the bottom of the line cheap laptops. Laptops become more expensive if you wish to put them to more use. If you want to take and store pictures, you need a laptop with an SD slot and USB ports. Something to find out is the number of USB ports, especially using various devices like a web cam or digital camera. If you wish to watch movies on your laptop, then you will need one that has a DVD player. If you want to store a large volume of music or other data, then you will need a larger hard drive. And if you are into gaming, then you need to purchase a laptop with higher end specs such as more processor, more powerful video card, and a bigger hard drive with more ram and drive space. You may choose the screen size depending on how you wish to use the laptop. The larger the screen, the heavier the laptop will be, but easier on your eyes after an extended period of time looking at the screen.

Be sure your laptop has built-in wireless networking in order to use your laptop anywhere. If the laptop will be used as a desktop computer at home as well as taking it on the road, you need to purchase a docking station, also known as a port replicator, which allows your laptop to be used as a desktop computer.

One final word of caution on making the final decision, if you compromise buying a smaller laptop, you will end up with fewer features then the bigger, heavier laptops. Please be careful in choosing which laptops for sale best suits you.

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Save Money On Laptops

We always want to get the best for our money spent. We never want to pay too much for anything. To save as much as you can, the best thing to do is to shop around and compare. That includes when shopping for laptops on sale. There are quite a few ways to save when buying a laptop, but just because the sticker price is lower, does that really mean you got the best for your money. When shopping for cheap new laptops, there is a lot to consider.

When comparing laptops, not only do you need to look at GB’s, MB’s, MHZ’s. How about the CD/DVD? Are they both of the same caliber? Let’s not forget the programs too. Make sure that they both are using the same OS. Look into the spyware programs, there seems to be many of them that ain’t worth the box their packaged in. McAfee and Norton are two of the well known ones, I like both of them so I don’t favor one over the other.

If you were to go on Dell‘s or Gateway’s website, you would see that they both offer the basic programs (some on 30-60 day trial period), but do you really need them after the trial period ends? After that period ends those files take up space on the hard drive unless you remove the program. Hopefully you won’t accidentally erase a shared file. Save yourself the time with Dell. You can select to have no productivity software installed and if you talk to an operator, you can go through the list of other programs that you’ll never use, especially those trial ones.

You can visit many sites to download free programs, but again you need to watch where you get them from. There are a few site that are well trusted that you can use, the one I’ve used in the past is download.com. Why pay for the same program when another trusted site offers it for free?

If you’re in the market for very cheap laptops, I hope this article has given you some direction. Buying laptops for sale doesn’t have to be hard. Follow your instincts and do your reaserch and you’re half way there.

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