Black Friday Laptop Purchase...a bad idea?

Hey all...

I've never owned a laptop before and am cheap (like that's a big surprise). For the last two years I said I wanted to buy one of these ~$300 "Black Friday" (day after thanksgiving) special laptops from circuit city, best buy, sears, or anywhere else that'll have them but I've not planned accordingly and squirreled away some "mad money" cash for the purchase.

This year, If I can keep from buying a boat or a motorcycle in the next three weeks...I'll probably go ahead and pick up a laptop at one of these sales.

That is...unless you all tell me it's a bad idea.

What I want out of a laptop:
Wireless internet capability
CD/DVD copying and viewing/listening capability (watching movies in the airport and on the plane while traveling for work...) General "microsof office" type stuff (wordprocessing, excel...not much else I can think of)

That's...uh...pretty much it. I might dabble in other stuff someday, but mostly just need my daily fix of craigslist, and webmail (now that work has locked me out of it)...GRM too...but work hasn't locked that out yet!

Anything to watch out for? Anything that I should get as a defacto accessory? Should I consider service plans?

Hit me!

Thanks, Clem

They're all about the same. Stick with a name brand and understand that you'll need to add memory (buy it on your own and install)

You're a prim candidate for a $300 laptop. Just don't expect the world, and you'll be fine.

Avoid service plans, and I'd recommend Intel's mobile stuff over AMD's. I also avoid HP/Compaq, Gateway, and Dell, but that's just me.

The lines for those things are HUGE, though. Good luck getting one.

It'll probably be a Vista machine and Vista is a memory hog, go for a BARE MINIMUM of 1 GB memory and preferably 2 GB. If it's 512K, you are wasting your time, it'll be super slow and jerky when doing videos etc. FWIW, my 160 GB hard drive 2 GB memory HP with wireless and a DVD burner was about $570.00.

Make sure the first thing you do with Vista is turn off all the 'gadgets' and disable the Automatic Update. After that, well it's still sorta irritating but not as bad.

Vista comes with Microsoft Works which has a Mickey Mouse word processing program. It's ok for printing letters etc but the thing you will run into is that if you Email a Works document, for whatever reason the recipient can't open it. Or at least no one I've ever Emailed aWorks document to has been able to. Ya think Bill Gates planned it that way? :-/ Microsoft Office has the good program which allows you to email documents etc, I think the 'student' version is around $150.00. There will probably be a 60 day trial version on the laptop, if so at the end of 60 days you can only open documents you created during the trial period.

I'd go for it. The worst case scenario is you're going to have to drob $40 for 2 gigs of RAM to speed it up and make it usable.

Black Friday computers are what OEMs build to clear out inventory of obsolete parts. Now that the average user doesn't need anything better than a 2 year old computer, this isn't an issue.

Jensen, if you disable automatic update, you'll miss getting critical fixes to the system, but like most database guys I know you guys are control freaks that like to make yourselves miserable because you have to be "right" (Note: my dad is a DBA and he's the same way and doesn't use XP, instead sticks with W2K because it doesn't phone home as much)

I would recommend looking into Google Docs or OpenOffice as alternatives to MSWorks, unless you get the full installation of Office 2007, which is actually pretty nice.

Costco has deals all year long and as long as you know the laptop is only built to last 3 years (the depreciation period most businesses use for laptops)

I'd have no problem with HP/Compaq or Dell but then I know to buy the business models, not the home products.

I do my updates and you are right, I'm a control freak. I tell the damn thing three times 'not now' when it wants to update and restart while I'm working on a document, then it parks itself in the tray, runs in the background and restarts automatically making me lose 20 minutes' worth of work. That pissed me OFF.

I'll definitely need to have excel and word, but I've got an old "upgrade" CD somewhere with, like Office 2000 or something on it. I don't know.

I'll probably want to get an extra battery.

I've got to find out what is actually going to be on sale on black friday and post some specs to see what you all think. I'm an anti-tech-geek, unfortunately, so I appreciate your info!

Looks like some of the black friday sales are listed online, maybe...I just need to go to the library to check them out (blocked at work...grrr).

Clem

Highly recommend getting familiar with

http://slickdeals.net

http://fatwallet.com

Every question you have has been asked and answered a hundred times in the forums there. And if not people are pretty quick to offer up quite a bit of useful (and useless) info. Not saying we don't have a veritable cornucopia of knowledge here, but there's a lot of hardcore geeks on both of those sites. They're also mortal enemies, so don't mention the other site wherever you post.

When are you going to camp out in line? To get the BFS (Black Friday Specials) you have to be there very, very early.

BTW, Office 2007 and others will automatically save the document you're working on every minute or so.

Yep, Clem feel free to post a single topic on the devices you're looking at and we'll help ya out.

I'll start by pointing you towards "Netbooks"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netbook

http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/netbooks/index.html

with a USB DVD drive and you'd be set. OR you can go without the DVD drive and copy the files over to the laptop.

Edit: (replied a little slow.) @slantvaliant: Not necessarily. A lot of the deals that get posted on the two sites I mentioned are available online even if the ads imply they're in-store only.

It'll probably come with a charger which will also run it from a 110 outlet, so I don't know if I'd bother with an extra battery. I put a power inverter in the Trooper so I can take it to the AX etc and not have to worry about battery life.

I would suggest getting a good laptop carrying bag, I got a Swiss Army for ~ $45. Nice, sturdy bag and it will also hold my small printer.

EDIT: I need to see if I can turn on AutoSave in my Office 2003.

If you aren't anti-dell save yourself the hassle of black friday madness and check out the Dell outlet online. Its refurb Dell products. My last 2 desktops and my current laptop have all come from there for about 1/3 of what they sold for new (and never a single issue with any of them). And the refurbs all get fully inspected before resale so in most cases they are better than an off the assembly line new model.

They have plenty of laptops around $380 right now, just gotta decide what you want. http://www.dell.com/outlet

I'd go with a Toshiba, simply because I've had very good luck with their reliability. And don't count out Amazon - they'll have sales as well and you don't have to deal with the idiocy to get one.

You'll want to rip the movies and put them on the hard disk. Watching a DVD with the drive spun up will suck the life force out of a regular laptop battery in less than the length of most movies.

My only problem with the Circuit City (or other box store) units is the volume of adware/ spyware/ malware that comes pre-installed. Drives me crazy.

I've found local tech shops to be pretty competitive on refurbished units. But probably not $300 for a laptop.

Sounds like you should go for it.

SVrex, most of the techies buy the boxes just for the hardware and the operating system license. They know going in that they'll need to be formatted and rebuilt. It is the closest thing in laptops to buying a generic, like you would do with a desktop.

Thanks again all,

A friend told me about "netbooks" and they sound terribly attractive EXCEPT for the lack of a DVD drive. This will be my only computer, so I'll have no way to burn DVD's onto a thumbdrive or anything if I don't have one on this computer. Now...that USB DVD drive sounds attractive. How much might one of those set me back? If it's not more than the price difference between a netbook and a laptop with DVD, then I'll look into that. (however, I doubt this is the case...but if it's close, I'll still consider that)

When I travel, I end up in airports and airplanes and an extra battery would be handy...I'm not always near a power source. 99 percent of the time (give or take 1%) I'll be fine with a power cord. Maybe without a DVD drive, I could be ok...I guess it's worth looking into.

As far as camping out in lines...I don't know. I'm not from a big city. It might be an issue, but for the sake of comparison, I didn't have to wait in line to vote. I think there will be more of a frenzy for a 'one hour only' deal or whatever these sales are, but hopefully it won't be something I need to literally camp out for.

I also have a problem with all the BS that comes installed on computers when you buy them (FYI...the only computer I've ever owned was one purchased about 8 years ago on a black friday special from WalMart...like $700 for full setup including printer...it's been a wonderful computer, but finally I find myself needing a DVD drive and more USB ports and such. This one had a floppy drive and a couple extra USB ports on the BACK of the computer.)

I'll need to consult a techie when I get this and see about only having the drivers and programs and such, that I want and need, loaded up before using it.

I really figure that, for the most part, arguing about brands of computers is like arguing about brands of cars...so I won't even go there.

Thanks again for the help, folks!
Clem

Osterkraut wrote: You're a prim candidate for a $300 laptop. Just don't expect the world, and you'll be fine. Avoid service plans, and I'd recommend Intel's mobile stuff over AMD's. I also avoid HP/Compaq, Gateway, and Dell, but that's just me. The lines for those things are HUGE, though. Good luck getting one.

+1

Also if it comes with Vista - or even XP, install Ubuntu (or Xubuntu, depending on the specs) on it. You're also a prime candidate for Linux. You'll get rock solid reliability and greatly improved performance, and you won't have to worry about viruses or malware or Windows deciding to deactivate itself for no reason, and all the crapware will be taken care of. Just go to ubuntu.com or xubuntu.com, download the i386 desktop ISO and burn it to a CD, and from there it's even easier than installing Windows.

Looks like Circuit City may be having a fire sale...

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE4A936V20081110

I've been told by tech guys that these ubuntu and linux type systems are the way to go.

I've also been cautioned that they are great for folks who know their way around a computer, but maybe not so much for me.

Here's an analogy. I have NO PROBLEMS going out and spending cheap money on a car with carburetor problems. however, there's no way I'd let my single-mother sister-in-law get into the same situation.

See what I mean?

I know just enough about computers to get into trouble. Does this mean I should go for ubuntu and/or linux (are they the same or similar but different or subsets or???) or steer clear of them? I guess this is really another topic altogether, but if it weren't for threadcreap, what fun would we have? ;)

Thanks,
Clem

Clem, find a reasonably techy guy. Tell him you want a dual boot system. He can easily set it up so you can login to windows or linux, so you can try out linux (it DOES fix a lot of windows problems), or go into the familiar windows environment.

Generally speaking, Linux is right up your alley. It makes the most out of the available resources, and most of the software is completely free. My only concern would be drivers.. if it doesn't want to see your wireless connection or printer or something, it can be a little hassle. Once it's set up, though, you should be fine.

It's a shame I didn't see this thread earlier, WallyWorld had a $299 laptop that fit the bill perfectly last weekend (11/8-9). You may want to see if your local store (a) has any left and (b) will still sell at the cheap weekend price. As someone said earlier, slickdeals.net and fatwallet.com are the places to be for these deals, I usually check techbargains.com too.

This weekend I picked up a $299 laptop that will be a gift to my Mother-in-law. She will just use it to surf the net and likely do very little else with it.

My Best Buy had this: e-Machines D620-5777 http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9057058&st=d620-5777&lp=1&type=product&cp=1&id=1218013392456

It is not awesome but it should fit her needs. Your thoughts?

From what I understand, keep an eye on this sunday mornings paper. This laptop was buried back on the regular page in Best Buys flyer (not on the front page) and what i liked the most was that it was a "straight price." No need to pay high and wait for rebates that may, or may not come.