macjoubert said:]Is this a mistake? 399 for Sony is a damn pretty good deal.No mistake. By far the best laptop deal this BF.

onion said:macjoubert said:Is this a mistake? 399 for Sony is a damn pretty good deal.No mistake. By far the best laptop deal this BF.
Yep, it seems very good, I will definitely look forward to get one of these.

onionstink said:Awesome dude.

I would advise people not to get any of the Turion 64 X2 laptops. I have one and even though it's freq is higher then my Core 2 Duo laptop, it is far slower. It's maybe half as fast at best.

Same hard drive? Same amount of RAM? Similar configuration? similar software tune-up? Dedicated graphics? It is very important to remember that a computer is much more than just the CPU. As a matter of fact, a FAST hard drive will make a greater impact to performance than a faster CPU in a laptop.

Case in point: At work I have a hell latitude D620 (core 2 duo T5500, 1.66 GHz, 2 Mb L2, 65 nm Merom) running windows XP pro. Good specs, but the machine is slow. My old and trusty eMachines M6805 (mobile athlon 64 3000+, original clawhammer 130 nm, 1 MB L2, 1.8 GHz) also runs win XP pro, and it is much faster in everyday computing. It boots at least 10 secs faster, shuts down much faster, open windows and documents faster... almost no wait. FEELS noticeably faster. You wouldn't expect an almost 4 years old machine with a single core CPU to beat a more modern machine, would you? But is does, it is noticeable.

So, where is the trick? Both machines have similar amount of RAM (1 GB D620, 1.25 GB M6805), both are running XP pro, both have discrete video cards (nvidia quadro NVS 100M in the D620, mobility radeon 9600 in the M6805) But the hard drives are quite different. The D620 has a samsung HM040GI hard drive (40 GB, SATA, 5400 RPM, 8 MB) while my M6805 has an IBM-HGST 7K60 (60 GB, 7200 rpm, 8 MB) On paper, the hard drives have similar media transfer rates (512 Mb/sec for the 7K60, 530 M/sec for the HM040GI) but the latency, seek time and full stroke favor the 7K60 by more than 20%. This makes a big difference in opening small files (which are the most common) While on paper the HM040GI is a decent match to the 7K60, in real life it is not... a modern budget hard drive against the top of the line from 3 years ago...

Furthermore, the D620 has a full assortment of corporate bloatware (thanks crapAffe) while the M6805 runs KIS 7.0, and it is tweaked often to keep it running fast and smooth. Yes, the core 2 duo shows who's daddy when performing a search within a 600 pages PDF, even if the M6805 opens the PDF faster I am fully aware the core 2 duo is a superior CPU (as much as it hurts me being an AMD fanboy) but your computer is much more than just your CPU, and with a laptop is it quite harder to customize it.... I have not replaced my M6805 because its combo of mobile athlon 64, mobility radeon 9600 and VIA K8T800 paired with a 7K60 still packs some punch.

Back into topic, if I was buying a laptop right now I would buy the Medion from Aldi. If I had to pick a BF item, the HP DV2432Nr from CompUSA in TG day would be the one (14.1", 2 GM RAM, $499 OTD, being the 14.1" the main factor)
By the way, green to OP for the list

Alex

fleckeri said:Nice compilation of information.

I will stick with this post.

It will be nice if some one can dig up a little more spec on these deal. e.g. the 2 bestbuy sony deals does not list the processor or the GHz.
The ad says pentium dual-core, no frequency

http://bfads.net/Sony-Laptop-1GB-DVDRW-120GB-at-Best-Buy

i'm looking for a light laptop.. any one see one that's worth getting?

thnx OP

Are those deals only in store? Can I buy them online? Thanks!

I'll post this in each of the BF laptop threads...

Compaq has a $30 MIR for any laptop with a model number ending in "US" purchased before 1/5/08. There's a pretty extensive list of excluded retailers, but Staples isn't one of them...brings the price down to $319.

Link to rebatey goodness

fleckeri said:Nice compilation of information.

I will stick with this post.

It will be nice if some one can dig up a little more spec on these deal. e.g. the 2 bestbuy sony deals does not list the processor or the GHz.

I am pretty sure the CPU is a 1.46 GHz Intel Pentium T2310

CC $299 laptop is also a very good deal considering it comes with free router and printer . i am not a big fan of compaq though.

manuvns said:CC $299 laptop is also a very good deal considering it comes with free router and printer . i am not a big fan of compaq though.Router and printer are not free.