Laptop Deals

Best Black Friday laptop: HP G71-343us for $450 after rebate

Of the various laptop deals that are circulating the Black Friday pages, the best one in our opinion is the 17.3-inch HP G71-343us offered by Office Depot for $450 after a $50 mail-in rebate.

This is similar, but not exactly the same with their current HP G71-340us which is currently available for $550 after a $50 mail-in rebate. There are a couple of small differences between the two. The $450AR (Black Friday special) has 250gb instead of a 320gb hard disk drive, and its maximum memory is 4GB instead of 8GB.

As far as we can tell, these are the only differences by comparing the specifications on the Office Depot website. There could be more, but we couldn't find any.

Anyway, the reason this rocks and beats the doorbuster netbook deals at some other places is that you are getting a T6600 dual-core laptop, with 4gb memory, dvd burner, 64-bit Windows, and all the other usual laptop stuff. The screen resolution is 1600x900. It does not have a dedicated memory card, but you can't possibly demand that at $450AR :)

HP dv4-1220us yours for $550 (no rebates!)

Office Max is offering HP Pavilion dv4-1220us for $550 and without any rebates. This is a nice stylish laptop with a 14.1" widescreen display and a healthy FOUR (4GB) gigabytes of main memory. It also has a 250gb hard disk with hard drive protection, a dvd burner with lightscribe, and th AMD Turion RM72 dual-core processor.

Other features include
+ 64-bit Vista SP1 (to make the most of the 4gb memory)
+ wireless (a/b/g/n)
+ webcam
+ card-reader
+ ExpressCard/54
+ memory is two sticks of 2gb each
+ display is 1280x800 widescreen
+ ATI Radeon HD 3200 Graphics with 64MB discrete (how generous!)
+ weighs around five pounds

It does NOT have
+ fingerprint reader
+ TV tuner

Refurbished HP Pavilion G60-235DX for $470 (limited time offer)

If you like refurbished laptops, and buying from eBay's new Daily Deals, then you may be interested in this HP Pavilion G60-235DX offered by powerseller "Buy" for $470 with free shipipng and handling. Note that this is a refurbished/reconditioned laptop, not a new-in-box!

The main specs are as follows:
* Pentium dual-core T4200
* 16" widescreen display (1366x768) which means 16:9 aspect ratio
* 3gb memory (max 4gb)
* Intel GMA 4500MHD
* dvd burner
* webcam, wifi, card-reader
* weights around 6.5 pounds

But don't sleep on it! This listing ends at 11am eastern time on Thursday!

Toshiba L305-S5921 for $430AR at Office Depot

The Toshiba L305-S5921 headlines this week's weekly technology deals from OfficeDepot.com. This very usable laptop is offered for $430 after a $40 mail-in rebate. But just because the price is low, it doesn't mean you are not getting a packed laptop. Far from it. Herae re the main specs:

+ Intel Pentium dual-core T3400 processor
+ 2gb PC2-6400 memory (max 4gb)
+ 160gb hard disk
+ 15.4" widescreen (1280x800)
+ Intel GMA
+ dvd burner
+ wireless, card reader, ethernet, etc
+ Vista Premium SP1
+ weighs 5.5 pounds

So, as you can see, you can perform most of the day-to-day task with ease on this laptop. And remember, you can always turn off some of the more demanding and not particularly useful features of Vista *cough* Aero *cough*, essentially turning it into a more "Vista Basic".

The HP G60-230us is not a bad deal either
If you want more however, there is the HP G60-230US going for $530 after a $50 mail-in rebate. Still a reasonable price, and you get a 16-inch widescreen display with 1366x768 resolution, which you can guess, without doing the math, it is a 16:9 aspect ratio, which is a better match if you are wathing lots of DVDs and widescreen videon on the laptop.

You also get a slightly faster processor, the T4200 dual-core, 3gb of memory, double the hard disk (320gb), an extra pound in laptop weight, and the usual assortment of features.

So this is not a bad deal either.

Netbook marketing FAIL
However, the third item is a price-fail. I'm not quite sure what they were thinking, but the red Vivienne Tam HP Mini 1140nr is your typical 10-inch Atom N270 netbook, yet it costs $600. No rebates. Come on now! $600 for a basic netbook? Sure, it may have a nice design, but let's not forget, we are not buying artwork here :)

And the sad part, it doesn't even have 1 gigabyte of memory! Nope, you fork $600 and you only get 512mb.

This is a classic example of MARKETING FAIL.

HP Compaq 6735s Notebook for $330 after rebate

CompUSA.com has a great deal for us all, they are offering the HP Compaq 6735s Notebook Computer for $330 after a $100 mail-in rebate. That's right, a $330 laptop for you, and this is a real laptop, not a netbook!

The specs of this lovely are as follows:
+ AMD Sempron SI-40 2GHz processor
+ 15.4"
+ 1GB DDR2 memory (up to 4gb)
+ 160GB hard drive
+ ATI Mobility Radeon HD 3200 graphics with up to 2GB of shared memory
+ dvd burner
+ wireless
+ Vista Basic

If the name sounds unfamliar, it is because this is part of the HP business laptop line-up, which you won't offer see mentioned the same way you see the Pavilions and Presarios in the Sunday paper ads and such.

And get this, you can submit up to 20 rebates. That's right, you can get up to twenty of these laptops at a $330 after-rebate price! The rebates are processed in beautiful Puerto Rico. The rebate promotion is good until August 31st, 2009.

Refurbished HP dv7-1129wm for $670

If you are into refurbished laptops, then pay close attention! OnSale.com is offering the HP Pavilion dv7-1129wm for $670. Please remember, this is refurbished. The main specs are a 17" XGA+ widescreen display, and the AMD Turion X2 RM-72 Dual-Core (2.10GHz) processor.

Other specs include 4gb memory (two by two, DDR2 SDRAM), 250gb disk, dvd burner, ATI Radeon HD 3200, and all the usual features, including of course Vista SP1.

Refurbished HP Pavilion TX2513cl for $700

If your laptop interests intersect at the corner of HP, tablet and refurbished, then continue reading with joy :) Buy.com is offering the refurbished HP Pavilion TX2513cl tablet notebook computer for $700 and with free shipping and handling.

So what do you get out of this tablet-notebook? Here are some of the main specs:
+ 12.1" WXGA HD BrightView Widescreen Convertible Display
+ AMD Turion dual-core processor (2.0GHz)
+ 3gb memory
+ 250GB disk
+ SuperMulti with lightscribe
+ webcam,
+ Vista Premium
+ remember this is refurbished

Refurbished HP dv9819wm for $550 at Buy.com

If you like buying refurbished laptops, here is one special from Buy.com that you might be interested. It is the HP Pavilion dv9819wm, a 17" entertainment laptop. Here are the main specs of this REFURBISHED laptop:

+ 17.0" WXGA+ HD BrightView widescreen (1440 x 900)
+ AMD Turion TL-62 dual core 2.10 GHz
+ 3gb memory
+ 160gb disk (5400rpm)
+ NVIDIA GeForce Go 7150M
+ dvd burner, webcam, card reader, etc
+ weighs 7.7 pounds
+ Vista Premium
+ remember, this is refurbished

As you can see, this is an older model, as evidenced by the display resolution and hard disk storage. But if those two specs are about right for you, then this might be worth investigating much closer!

HP dv9933nr entertainment laptop for $900

If you are looking for an affordable "entertainment" laptop under $900 and without the pain and hassle of mailing rebates, TigerDirect.com is offering the HP Pavilion dv9933nr for $900 plus shipping. This is a nicely spec'ed laptop, but it is an older model as you can see from the display specifications:

+ Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2.0GHz processor
+ 17" WXGA+ display (1440x900)
+ NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GS with 512MB of dedicated memory
+ 4GB DDR2 memory (max 4gb)
+ 320GB disk (5400rpm)
+ Blu-Ray playback and dvd burner
+ included TV tuner
+ ExpressCard, wireless, hdmi, card reader, etc, etc
+ 8-cell battery
+ weight: 7.7 pounds
+ OS: 64-bit Vista Home Premium