$298 Laptop at Wal-Mart Starts On Sunday

[belardo]

The CPU is not a Celeron. Its an AMD64 single-GPU class chip, its given the Sempron name because its LOW-END by todays standards. Its performance is slight better than a desktop Pentium 4 630 (3.0Ghz).

It runs Vista okay. Its IMPORTANT to know if this notebook includes the FREE upgrade to Windows7 (which would help). For $300, its a good deal. It's NOT a $500~700 notebook... but for $300, not bad.

Acer has a notebook that normally goes for about $350, the Acer Aspire 5515. which is an Amd Athlon 2650e 1.6ghz... and its EASILY slower than this Compaq.

This site has the best info on notebook CPUs & GPUs:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Mobile-Processors-Benchmarklist.2436.0.html


For $300, not bad at all.

 

[nukemaster]

That is actually a great deal.

 

[ahslan]

Sorta wish the cpu was at least a dual core...my brother got a dirt cheap Acer that came with a low clocked 1.9ghz AMD dual core and it performs great for all the everyday tasks that my brother does...besides that, there is no beating this price...

 

[Netherscourge]

That's a great deal for a laptop - as long as it lasts a while.

I don't know how reliable Compaqs are though.

 

[Spanky Deluxe]

[citation][nom]soldier37[/nom]I'll stick with my Asus G51 Gaming monster, thanks. The kiddies can have that cheapo.[/citation]

Of course, for the amount you paid for your "Gaming monster" with a rebadged two year old 8800 GT, you could have bought yourself a netbook (or one of these) and built yourself a more accurately termed "gaming monster" machine with SLI/Crossfire and had enough left over to buy a decent enough screen.

 

[Regulas]

Good buy, get it and replace Millennium II with Ubuntu and you are good to go. If I didn't have my cheap 14" Acer (Ubuntu is on it) I would probably do that.

 

[dark_lord69]

Umm.. that's a good deal! I might check this one out in a bit more detail and maybe even buy it. It would probably run half decent with Windows 7 and a quality Anti-Virus.

And for those that don't know...
Compaq is now owened by HP and they now follow the better standards (of quality) set by HP.

 

[dark_lord69]

On second thought that CPU is kinda lame...
Would be sweet with a Turion Ultra ZM-88 in it!
Then pop in 4GB of Ram and Windows 7 and you've got a pretty sweet laptop.

 

[tpundsack]

also, it probably doesn't get the windows 7 upgrade because it comes with windows vista home basic. i thought you needed to get windows vista home premium to get the upgrade, but i could be wrong

 

[Kill@dor]

I'll get this for my girlfriends b-day...she really wants a laptop!

 

[meganfox16]

I do like the acer one better... even if it cost like $1 more

 

[dextermat]

I would never buy a laptop at wallmart:

All people i know that got them there was really disappointed.

The first they got had a defective dvd burner.
Once exchanged, had a defective hard drive (never booted) and a defective dvd burner.
The third one was fine for a week then died.....
It was an acer..

She got a refund and bought a tower at a local store.
She is pleased with it and will never go back to wallmart.

Good luck to anyone who risk it: you have been warned.

 

[speedshutters]

More than adequate for writing papers and playing solitaire and watching youtubes. And you whiners complain that it can't play crysis? This laptop is obliviously not aimed at you gamers.

 

[witeboy07]

2.0ghz gives you good enough stuff...but not too much..this mite help people that have never gotten a laptop before.

 

[cracklint]

What will $300 get me at the Applel store?

 

[Guest]

My Wife just called our local Walmart Store...apparently our state has a law that they are not allowed to see things for less than cost, so the price will be $398 not $298.

Anyone else hearing this or is our local store full of it?

 

[fans 6]

no. those idiots at retailers, they ruined the netbook market. i just bouight an hp mini 1000 a week ago at the same price

 

[Intrusive_Rogue]

My wife just called our local store to see what the availablity will be on this.

Apparently our state has a law against selling below cost and the laptop will sell for $398 instead of the advertised price of $298.

Anyone confirm this or is our local store full of it?

 

[gsacks]

I don't really care if this is a great deal or not, since I'm not in the market for a low end machine right now. But this budding price war between Best Buy and Walmart can only bode well for us consumers come next holiday season.

 

[deathblooms2k1]

[citation][nom]Intrusive_Rogue[/nom]My wife just called our local store to see what the availablity will be on this. Apparently our state has a law against selling below cost and the laptop will sell for $398 instead of the advertised price of $298.Anyone confirm this or is our local store full of it?[/citation]

I've haven't heard of this before but I wouldn't see it as necessarily a bad thing. It probably makes it so local businesses can still compete thus you keep the industry and the $ in your area which helps keep the standard of living in your area higher. Many people see cheap or free and automatically assume it's a good thing but don't realize the reprocutions it really has.

I could go on and on about the effects of free-trade etc. But all of that is certainly a digression from the main topic, and you may very well just be getting bsed by Wal-Mart (wouldn't be the first time they've done it).

 

[Wayoffbase]

[citation][nom]aoster87[/nom]Reformat with Windows 7 or put XP on it until October 22.[/citation]
people who buy computers at wal mart don't know how to do that...

 

[Guest]

aoster87 :
Reformat with Windows 7 or put XP on it until October 22.


Wayoffbase: people who buy computers at wal mart don't know how to do that...


I just literally lol'd... This computer is obviously geared towards parents who don't know anything about computers and are afraid to drop big bucks on a laptop for their kids for college, I'm sure these will sell out the second doors open. It's not a "good" laptop by any standards, but personally I think it's an amazing deal. It'll run iTunes, microsoft word, and run movies at decent quality, what else does a college kid need in a laptop? If you're a gamer you already have a gaming rig, so just lug that to your dorm and take this thing around to classes for notes, ect or browsing the internet on wireless in your dorm.

and @ the 2 or 3 arrogant idiots with your "Gaming Laptops" If any of you can play crysis at max settings on your laptop with AA maxed and not lag, please go ahead and pat yourself on the back for dropping $2k+ when you could have bought this computer and had yourself a desktop rig that maxes crysis and others for less than the cost of your little laptop.

$1600 bought me a Quad Core i7 920, 2 nVidia 280 in SLI, 2 500g harddrives, a bluray burner/reader and a dual gigabit ethernet mobo, 6gigs DDR3, and oh yeah, I could still buy this laptop for portability and still have spent less money than you at the end of the day. Grats though, yours is probably shinier and doubles as a microwave/hotplate, so you have me beat on multitasking.

 

[a-nano-moose]

Better check your Walmart now. I was in my local walmart and just lucked out and got the last one they had. someone had stocked them early so they just went ahead and sold them.

 

[doomsdaydave11]

This Sempron is significantly faster then the Atom. 3GB instead of 1GB of RAM is significant, since 2GB seems like the minimum these days.

Screw Vista Basic though. I have no problem with Home Premium, but Vista Basic is a total joke. It's like Windows ME all over again.

Ubuntu or Windows 7 for this one.

Really a great deal. I would consider buying this if I didn't drop $400 on some new snowboard gear.

 

[belardo]

[citation][nom]cracklint[/nom]What will $300 get me at the Apple store?[/citation]

Headphones for your iPoop.

Sorry, typoed. I meant iPod.