**Ultimate Black Friday sub-$500 laptop thread**

Lets get one thing out of the way right now and that is to answer the question of "Who has the best sub $500 laptop deal this Black Friday?"

Answer in order from

First place : Circuit City - Toshiba L25-S1193 $450 or $380<--will explain later
Second place : WalMart - HP Pavillion ze2308wm $389 (Some may prefer this over the CC laptop)
Third place : Best Buy - Toshiba L25-S1192 $380

Well we know of all the sub $500 laptops now so heres whats hot and whats not and what you need to know before deciding on which unit to buy. PLUS some unadvertised info that may get you $70 off the Circuit City laptop which IMO is the laptop of choice this BF followed very closely by the WalMart laptop.

BestBuy $380
Toshiba L25-S1192
Celeron M 1.5ghz
15" XGA screen (NOT the TruBrite screen)
Graphics Card ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M
256mb DDR2 ram
40gb hard drive (5400rpm)
CD-RW/DVD combo
Wifi
Half-capacity 4-cell battery (1-1.5 max hour life)
S-Video TV out
only 90 day warranty
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Circuit City The laptop is NOT $199 its $450 or $380 with the Gift Card deal<--will explain later
Toshiba L25-S1193
Celeron M 1.5ghz
15" XGA TruBrite Screen
512mb DDR2 ram
60gb drive (5400rpm)
Graphics Card ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M
Wifi
Half-capacity 4-cell battery (1-1.5 max hour life)
S-Video TV out
1 year warranty

The laptop is $199.99 ONLY after you signup for 12 months of AOL. Its $449.99 otherwise. If you want to signup for 12 months of AOL dialup at 24/month the total cost of laptop + AOL will be $488. Here is how you will get it for $380. The laptop is advertised for $450 and you can get $250 off if you sign up for 12 months of AOL. Signup for 12 months of the $15/month AOL for Broad Band plan which will cost you $180 for the year. SO..$450 - $250 AOL sign up + $180 actual cost of the $15/month plan = $380
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WalMart $398
HP Pavillion ze2308wm
AMD Sempron 2800+ 1.6 Ghz
256 MB DDR SDRAM Memory
40 GB Hard Drive (4200rpm)
Graphics Card ATI RADEON® XPRESS 200M
CD-RW/DVD combo Drive
Wifi
15" XGA screen
Full capacity 6-cell battery <--unconfirmed
1 Year warranty
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Staples also has an ok deal which IMO is 4th place. Spec wise similar to the BB laptop but I don't think $80 more is worth the extra battery life and IMO Toshiba build quality is better. Plus this Acer was initally designed for a widescreen so what you have is a standard 15" screen on an unnecessarily wide laptop. Its still a decent deal though.

Acer 3613CLi
Celeron M 1.5ghz
15" XGA screen
256mb DDR ram
40gb drive
CD-RW/DVD combo drive
Wifi
Full capacity 8 cell battery (Will give you 2.5 hours)


The first 3 are the BEST sub $500 laptop deals this BF. There is no question about it.

Forget the other retailers
Compusas laptop will cost you $550 and NOT $299 like the AD states because you have to pay for AOL. The best you can do is $480 IF you can get the $15/month AOL deal.
Office Depot only has a base config "build-to-order" laptop that lacks a CD-RW, Wifi, and uses a slower CPU. The cost of upgrades and $50 shipping kills the deal.

A few things to note before you decide.

1. The Toshiba laptops have half-capacity batteries. You CAN get higher capacity batteries but how much they cost I dont know yet. The WalMart laptop so far is believed to have a full capacity 6-cell.

2. Extra ram is CHEAP. 256mb of DDR is only about $20-$25

3. The Bestbuy Toshiba laptop has a 90 warranty. The Circuit City Toshiba model has a full 1 year.

I was looking for more information on a replacement battery on the Toshiba, since most of the complanist on that laptop is the battery life, but so far to no avail.

Thanks Onion!

Your're right I will update. 1 year on the Circuit City L25-S1193

Is Circuit City deal B&M? Can't find Toshiba L25-S1193 on their website

sunrise said:On the Circuit City flyer, I see some Toshiba laptop for $199, what is the deal there ?
I cannot read the model # though , can anybody comment ?

Its the same laptop discussed. The price is $449.99. IF you signup for 12 months of AOL you get $250 off making it $199.99. AOL is $23/month for dialup although as discussed you MAYBE able to signup for the $15 AOL for Broadband plan which costs $15/month.

$450 - $250 AOL signup - $180 actual cost of the $15 AOL for Broadband plan = $380

Do NOT signup for the $23.95/month plan since the total cost of the laptop and AOL will be $488. But its really not a bad deal, an extra $38 for 1 year of dialup isnt bad. but who uses dialup??? Save your money IMO.

thanks

excellent thread. Thx OP

DealEnthusiast said:Performance wise, can we say the HP AMD is the best among these sub-500 laptop? Assuming additional 256MB upgrade is added.

Looking quickly over some benchmarks performance difference between the 2 looks to be neglectable. Sure the Semprons based on the A64 are good but dothan cored Celeron Ms are nothing to sneeze at because they are in fact Pentium M cores with 1/2 the L2 cache enable. Still they have a whopping 1mb and benchmarks show that perfomance is nearly identical to Pentium M cpus. Its power consumption where pentium Ms are better not performance.

I thought the WalMart laptop isn't in the store right now, that it wasn't coming out on the floor until BF.

And this is a great comparison. I've been debating picking up one of these on BF or trying my luck at the Dell Outlet on a cheap one.