On the Cheap: Best Buy to Sell $249 Laptop

[kokin]

[citation][nom]mr_tuel[/nom]Its amazing how many people will buy this cheap machine, just to replace it in a year or two with another cheap machine. Its adequate for email and basic web surfing. Or running linux. As basic as basic computing gets. Once you include the bloatware that does in fact come installed (F-ing Norton!!!), it's not even adequate for basic computing since it's too busy protecting itself.[/citation]
Not to mention that Norton doesn't even protect it against the nasty stuff, rendering the whole laptop useless and forcing them buy a new laptop.

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]lca806[/nom]Laptop for school - Your daughter may need graphics and 3d capabilities, but when I was in school, I used openoffice and a few web games. I struggle to think of anything else I really needed. Typing notes in class, writing papers, making presentations, using spreadsheets. This is what most every student will need. You are the exception and their sales will definitely agree.[/citation]
Well, schools are not standing still these days, they are progressing as technology becomes more prevalent in the classroom.

I'll spend what I have to for my daughter's education. As it is, she'll be needing MS Office. For Graphics and Web development I'll probably get her the CS4 package. That should cover most of her software needs. For any other specific needs, I'll consult with her teachers.

In our household, I'm the Systems Administrator which means that I will have full control over my daughter's laptop, what get's installed on it and how it gets configured.

 

[kokin]

Did anyone notice it's on Windows 7 64-bit with the required minimum of 2GB RAM? They should of just stuck with the 32-bit version since many consumers might not even know the difference between 64-bit and 32-bit, causing.

 

[kokin]

[citation][nom]Renegade_Warrior[/nom]DAMN!I've gotta buy my daughter her first laptop for next school year and I sure as hell ain't gonna wimp out and buy her a piece'O'Crap just cause I could save a few hundred dollars on it.I want to make sure I get her something she will be able to use for All her school work no matter what the work may be, whether it's graphics, movie production, Arts, 3-D rendering, Programming, what ever she may need it for.After all, you get your child a cheapo laptop, you're only limiting what they can do where as if you get them something really good, at least they may be able to do better than they otherwise would have done.Remember, you get what you pay for and education is not something to go cheap on.[/citation]
Education is nothing to go cheap on(tuition and books are killing me), but you can't justify buying a laptop for extensive applications like graphics rendering, programming, video editing, etc. You'd need a desktop for that and you'd save so much more money for getting the performance you'd want for your daughter with a desktop than paying a lot more for very limited performance with a laptop.

 

[JMcEntegart]

[citation][nom]pharge[/nom]By the way... that is from Asus.. not Acer. I have not found any laptop/netbook w/ Celeron at $245 from Acer on Bestbuy's website yet (as of 11/11 2:27pm EST)[/citation]

Straight from the Best Buy release (linked in the article but can be found here):

"The assortment, coupled with new technologies and promotional offers like the $249.99 Acer laptop, are intended to help both customers who want to upgrade their own gear with the arrival of Windows 7, and who have computing on their wish lists for holiday."

 

[Guest]

[citation][nom]kokin[/nom]Education is nothing to go cheap on(tuition and books are killing me), but you can't justify buying a laptop for extensive applications like graphics rendering, programming, video editing, etc. You'd need a desktop for that and you'd save so much more money for getting the performance you'd want for your daughter with a desktop than paying a lot more for very limited performance with a laptop.[/citation]
I can easily justify spending the money on a laptop that would have the performance requirements for such needs. A Multi-core 64-Bit Windows 7 Laptop with at least a 17" or larger LED screen.

I can Justify this a lot easier than spending the money things I don't need such as a Lift Kit for my Jeep or games for my computer or my Gaming Console or what ever else I might be tempted to spend my money on that I really don't need.

As for a Desktop, we already have more than one system that would easily fill the application needs. Although I hope to build a new one after I get my daughter a new laptop.

 

[mitchmeister03]

That notebook is sold out online already.

" Acer laptop is sold out online, may still be available at your local store!


Today only, Wednesday, November 11th, Best Buy is offering the Acer Extensa 5230 Laptop w/ 2.2GHz Processor, 2GB Memory, 160GB Hard-Drive, DVD Writer, 15.4" Screen and Windows 7 Premium for $249.

This is Best Buy's lowest-advertised-price laptop to date. These won't last long and quantities are limited! "

from:
http://bfads.net/

 

[mitchmeister03]

Love how it cut off my URL:
http://bfads.net/

 

[Caffeinecarl]

My father bought an Acer notebook two years ago and he still loves it. I did have to decrease the amount of memory dedicated to video and really trim out the fat on that machine though. It was running Vista on 1 GB of RAM. Doable with a homegrown machine, but add in all the OEM's clutter and it turns into hell quick. OEM installs have always been more problematic than homegrown installs of Windows in my experience, all except my Alienware desktop that had Windows XP on it. Setup with that thing could never have been simpler!

 

[Guest]

I bought one of these units tonight. Heck of a deal. I own a computer retail store and it is frustrating.... But man oh man, they have this worksheet that they fill out to try to get you to purchase all of this additional crud.... that 250 can turn into 800 for the average joe!

 

[Guest]

Hahahha, little late with this story. The Acer went "live" at 03:00AM on the 11th and was sold out by 07:00am.


BTW, here's the thing that a number of people here haven't figured out. Many people out there DON'T care to spend $500+ on a computer. It just isn't that important to them even if they have the money.

Others out there realize that they don't NEED a $500+ computer to do what they want to do, which is to surf the web, send/receive emails, sync their ipods, etcetera.

For those people, this Acer is absolutely fine and will serve them well.

And YES, this includes most kids who will use this for school. You don't need a freaking quad core I7 to open MS Word and type a term paper, or a Power Point project, or to access the school's intranet to pull down or upload homework assignments.

If you or your kid are into graphics, audio and or video ? Then sure, pass on this and others like it and buy something else.

But get off your freaking high horse about the issue. You are the outliers. The anomalies. The exceptions to the rule.

 

[tlmck]

The $299 models with the AMD CPU and ATI graphics offer vastly superior performance. Definitely worth the extra $50. It will run Linux also sans 3D ATI drivers. Of course the same is true for Celeron model. No 3D either.

 

[thackstonns]

[citation][nom]Renegade_Warrior[/nom]DAMN!I've gotta buy my daughter her first laptop for next school year and I sure as hell ain't gonna wimp out and buy her a piece'O'Crap just cause I could save a few hundred dollars on it.I want to make sure I get her something she will be able to use for All her school work no matter what the work may be, whether it's graphics, movie production, Arts, 3-D rendering, Programming, what ever she may need it for.After all, you get your child a cheapo laptop, you're only limiting what they can do where as if you get them something really good, at least they may be able to do better than they otherwise would have done.Remember, you get what you pay for and education is not something to go cheap on.[/citation]

You sir are an idiot. So you are gonna buy your daughter a high performace laptop that will last an hour on battery. Myself I will leave my desktop to do the heavy lifting and buy a $249 laptop for notes.
That way I can use it all day without saying "excuse me sorry to interupt your lecture, but I need a wall outlet to charge my massive overkill laptop that weighs 400lbs." Good luck with the chiropratic bills moron.

 

[bildo123]

Too bad half the tards who buy this POS are going to come back, after the return policy, after they installed their limewire/bittorrent crap and complain it's "kind of slow".

 

[Dax corrin]

I wonder if it would be fairly easy to upgrade the mobile processor in that unit?

 

[NicNash]

I have an eeepc with a celeron 900mhz 2gigs ram... it was just as cheap... and certainly not worth it.

!!!DO NOT USE THIS AS A PRIMARY LAPTOP!!!

It can take minutes.. yes minutes to bring up a website, let alone do anything intensive. I dont see how my eeepc and this laptop could be any different given the same specs.

 

[kokin]

[citation][nom]nicnash[/nom]I have an eeepc with a celeron 900mhz 2gigs ram... it was just as cheap... and certainly not worth it. !!!DO NOT USE THIS AS A PRIMARY LAPTOP!!!It can take minutes.. yes minutes to bring up a website, let alone do anything intensive. I dont see how my eeepc and this laptop could be any different given the same specs.[/citation]
You can disable certain Windows services from starting up when you boot, so it has a faster start-up and useless services do not run in the background. You can also disable scripts from running if you use Firefox, so websites can skip all the fancy stuff and load what you really want to see.

 

[slicksd]

Well, I bought one of these laptops to replace my wifes hp dv6000 pavilion that died due to overheating after only three years (HP should have recalled this one!). I found it on the BestBuy website. First I thought it was an Acer netbook but the display size was 15 inches so I was pretty sure it was a typeo so I went to my neighborhood BestBuy to discover it was REAL!!! But it was also real sold-out I found another BestBuy and purchased the $249 Acer Extensa 5230 15.4" laptop. First impression out of the box, the plastic molding seems a little retro, I mean it doesn't look as sexy as the HP Pavilion it was replacing. It was also only a single core Celeron vs dual-core. I installed MS-Office...did a little disk clean-up...and so far it's been working great. Has wifi (802.11n), 2GB Ram, 160GB Drive. Word Processing and Web surfing (including Hulu) is 90% of what this laptop does. At this price point,these sub $300 notebooks are competing with netbooks. If all you're looking for is an inexpensive utility computing device, some customers may prefer the larger screen that this notebook computer has to offer over a netbook.