Who Makes the Best?

Well the headline might read laptops under 400 dollars, but on BestBuy online right now you can get a couple for under 300 dollars. One of them, the Acer Aspire One model comes with 2GB Memory, 11.6 inch display, a 250GB Hard Drive, and at the time of this writing was selling for $279.99. Now that’s a bit short on memory, but for a few bucks more you can add another couple GB and you will still have a fully functional laptop for under 300 dollars.

Or you could just buy the Toshiba Laptop which already comes with 4GB of memory a bigger (15.6″) display and hard drive (320GB) – for right around 300 dollars.

While I was on the Best Buy website I came upon a new product they have been offering: a laptop designed just for kids. Now being a laptop salesman I know that there is a lot of demand for this type of product. But generally clients just end up buying a cheap laptop and hope it can stand up to a tug-of-war between two siblings or a glass of milk be overturned on the keyboard.

But Toshiba seems to have read the market and come up with a model with a wipe-able keyboard and rubberized bumpers. They also installed some kid-friendly software such as an special internet browser that blocks certain content that you wouldn’t want your kids to see.

And this notebook sells for about 400 bucks and is a full fledged 13.3″ notebook, not a netbook. It comes with 4GB or RAM and a 320GB hard drive and Windows 7 Pro. So if you kid turns out to be an internet wiz, he won’t outgrow this laptop too fast.

Note that I don’t sell this model, but hopefully we will get it in stock soon. But you can check it out on Best Buy here.

And if you do get one drop me a comment here and let me know if it is really kid proof. I have a couple of nephews that I need to get birthday gifts for soon.

It’s now been over a week since the Samsung Tab2 arrived at my store, and it’s no surprise that sales have been good. Samsung has been putting out some killer phones and tablets lately, so when I heard that they were going to offer a 7 inch model for 250 bucks, I knew it was going to give the Kindle fire a run for it’s money.

I am a big Kindle fan, and when the Fire came out I became an even bigger fan. The Fire can connect directly with Amazon’s huge library of books and movies, and if you have a prime membership, tv shows and some movies are free.

But since we don’t sell the Kindle Fire where I work (nor does it appear that anybody else will, other than Amazon ), it’s hard for me to tell which tablet is hotter. So instead of offering my opinion, lets look at the facts:

Both

• 8GB memory, expandable to 32GB
• Wifi
• USB
• 7 inch diagonal display 1024 x 600 px

It might appear that the Tab2 wins hands down, and if we look at the specs it does. But the one big kicker that the Fire has is that it has access to the free tv shows and movies if you have a prime membership.

Of course you can access the Amazon App store from the Tab2 as well, and for that matter you can access Google Play and the Samsung App store as well. With the Fire you are limited to Amazon.

So which do I recommend? Well how about this: If you are willing to shell out 79 dollars a year for Amazon Prime, go with the Kindle Fire
. It really is a good machine and you will never get bored with it.

But if you prefer a bit more freedom, I would say go with the Galaxy Tab 2
. The Tab2 is basically a smaller version of Samsung’s more expensive, larger tablets. In my opinion it may be the best tablet in the 200-300 dollar range.

It seems there has is a price war brewing between Asus and HP/Compaq and it looks like the consumer is going to win.

Last week Asus was selling a machine that met my minimum standards for a 500 dollar laptop. The thing is, it was selling for under 400 dollars on both Amazon and Best Buy Online. If you are interested, you can see the current prices in the box on the left. Use the money you save to buy a wireless mouse and a few cases of beer.

If you are looking for something a bit more portable with better battery life, HP has a couple of pretty powerful machines on the market right now. Both have 11.6 inch screens, which is a good size for students or business travelers. One of them, the dm1-4142, is an "entertainment pc", which means it comes with better graphics and sound. This is a good pick for the student that likes to play games or listen to music (which is just about all students).

The other machine is the DM1-4170, which is kind of like a grown up version of the previously mentioned model. It comes with the same souped up sound and graphics but has a quicker Chip made by Intel and slightly better battery life.

Both machines come with 4GB of memory, a 500 GB hardrive, Windows 7 pro 64bit, and Beats audio speakers.

If you are looking for something a bit more powerful, HPs dv4-4270 comes with 6GB of memory, a 640GB hard drive, an Intel chip with a 3MB cache, and a 14 inch screen. These specifications have not previously been found in sub 500 dollar machines. At the time I was writing this article it was available on Amazon for under 500 dollars. Best Buy and HP had similar prices.

It remains a mystery to me how these companies can offer these machines at these low prices and still turn a profit. Furthermore they seem to be killing sales on their higher priced machines. I am selling laptops like crazy in the past few weeks, and I can’t really justify to my customers paying more when models like these have everything they need.

Customers of mine looking to buy a tablet know how fond I am of the Amazon Kindle Fire. The problem is that we don’t sell the Kindle where I work and I am sure my boss wouldn’t be too happy if he knew I was telling the customers to buy elsewhere.

But my worries are over since yesterday the new Samsung Galaxy 2 Tab arrived. I am a big fan of Samsung’s Galaxy line (both phones and tablets), and also am a fan of the Android operating system. So I had been waiting for this product impatiently for this product to come out, and when I first got my hands on one last night, it did not disappoint.

Briefly, the Tab 2 is a 7 inch color tablet (720px) running runs Android 4.0 with wifi, and GPS . It performs very much like the more expensive larger Samsung tablets and as much as I hate to admit it, better than the Fire. The only issue I see with this tablet is that it comes with 8GB of memory. But you can pick up a 16 or 32 GB chip for between 20 and 30 bucks these days, so I wouldn’t sweat it.

And the best thing is that it cost around 250 dollars, or about half of what some of the top of the line tablets are selling for. For this reason I expect them to sell really fast. As of this writing Amazon still had them in stock for around the 250 dollar mark). Best Buy online also showed inventory for about the same price. I’ll check around to see if I can get a better deal, but with them selling so well despite just coming out, I doubt I’ll be able to beat that price.

I hate to sound like a broker record, but the best deal on a laptop this week – at any price – is the same as it was last week, the ASUS X54C-BBK7.

Now this machine has meets or beats all of my minimum standards for a laptop: a full size 15.6″ display, 4GB RAM, Windows 7 Pro, a 320GB HD, and most importantly it’s made by a good reliable manufacturer: Asus.

But the bonus of this machine is it comes with a decent Intel processor, and not one of the cheaper ones that you usually find in models at this price. It seems like Asus is really going after the laptop market these days.

This model is being offered on BestBuy.com for under 400 dollars right now, and I am sure they are selling quickly. When I checked Amazon they were almost out of stock and the price was slightly higher. But it’s worth a visit to check their price and availability anyways, as Amazon prices and stock can vary daily. Check the price on Amazon: ASUS X54C-BBK7 Laptop 15.6″ HD Display 4GB RAM 320GB HDD Double-layer DVD±RW Intel® Pentium® processor B960 4-cell Battery WEBCAM Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Black

Another hot seller is similar to one I have been selling a lot of at the store I work at. This model is the HP dm1-4142nr Entertainment Laptop. This is a budget laptop with enhanced display and sound and a 11.6-Inch display, making it a perfect machine for students.

I have been recommending HP entertainment laptops since they came out, and now that the price of some of them have dropped, well it makes them even sweeter. This model is selling on Amazon for a bit more than 400 dollars. Check the prices here: HP Pavilion dm1-4142nr Entertainment PC 11.6-Inch Laptop (Charcoal)

Unless you have been living in a cave, you already know that tablet computers have become very popular since the release of the iPad two years ago. There is little doubt that have and will continue to revolutionize the way we read, shop and access the internet. So should you get an tablet? – yes. But the question remains which one?

I have sold plenty of tablets over the past two years, and I can’t say there is one tablet for everyone. My personal favorite is the iPad, but quite honestly at over 400 dollars I find it overpriced. Fortunately there are alternatives that cost less than half of the new iPad2.

The Amazon Kindle Fire
is selling like hotcakes and with good reason. At just under 200 dollars it is affordable, yet powerful and easy to use. It comes with 8GB of memory of which the operating system uses 2, leaving just over 6 for the user. 6GB might not seem like a lot compared to the iPad and Samsung Galaxy which come with at least 16GB. But 8GB should be enough for 5 movies plus enough books to keep you reading for quite a while. Once you have seen the movies and read the books, you can delete them to free up more memory.

I am a big fan of the Samsung Galaxy. And on the 22nd of this month they will release the Galaxy Tab 2
, which may become big competition for the Kindle Fire. Like the Fire it has a 7 inch screen, Wifi, and comes with 8GB of Ram (expandable to 32GB).

At the very low end of the market there are tablets available for less than one hundred dollars. Now most of these are “almost Android” devices in that they will run Android apps but cannot access the Android App store. You can still install Android apps, but you will have to download them to an external source, such as thumbdrive and then install them on the tablet.

Now I want to make it clear that we don’t sell these cheap tablets at the store I work at, so I cannot vouch for there reliability. But if you are trying to get one of your kids to read a bit more or need a backup tablet to read the news on your commute to work (assuming you take the bus or train!), then this might be an option. The best place to buy one of these sub-100 dollars models is LightInTheBox.com which is located in China where all of those tablets are manufactured. Although they are located far away from where most of you live, they do ship with major carriers such as UPS and products tend to arrive to destinations in the Western World within a week or less.

It’s been a while since I have written anything here – perhaps because I haven’t seen as many good deals on laptops in the 400 dollar range.  But there still are some great bargains out there, all you need to do is look around a bit.  And that’s exactly what I did today.

If you read this before 8AM EST Wednesday morning, make sure you check out the Best Buy Website.  They are having a midnight sale and although all the prices won’t be published until midnight, they revealed a couple of sale prices and they are definitely good discounts.

For example, you can pick up a 15.6″ Asus Laptop with 4GB Memory,a 320GB Hard Drive and Windows 7 Premium Edition for only 330 dollars. That machine is a great deal at it’s non-sale price of 399 dollars, so on sale it’s a “no brainer”.

I would suspect that there will be other good deals out there as well, but don’t forget it all ends at 8AM EST.

If you miss the sale I still consider that machine the best deal out these days. You can also compare prices on Amazon

A lot of students come into the store where I sell laptops, and they usually don’t have a lot of money to spend. As a result I have become obsessed with finding the best notebook at the lowest price.

But for those of you who are not starving students and can cough up another fifty to hundred bucks, there are some really powerfull machines out there in the 500 to 600 dollar range. These machines typically have a bigger hard drive, faster processor, more memory and a premium version of Windows 7. In short, they lack nothing.

One such machine that I have been selling a few of lately is made by HP – the Dv6-6c35dx.

This machine comes with a quad core AMD chip, 6GB of ram, a high-definition webcam, a 640GB Hard Drive, a 6 cell lithium battery that will last up to 6 hours, and of course, Windows 7 Premium 64 bit. And it even comes with a fingerprint reader, which you can use to login to windows by simply swiping your finger over the reader.

You can pick this model up on Best Buy online for about 550 dollars. They tend to ship in a day, but if you can’t wait you can also order it online and pick it up in the store.

Check Amazon
as well to see what their current price is. When I did they were more expensive than Best Buy, but their prices tend to vary and you might get a good deal.

If there is one thing that the popularity of smart phones has done it was to buck the annoying trend of making phones too small.  I have rather large, albeit not huge, hands which in turn means I have larger fingers and therefore have difficulty pressing microscopic keys.

But since smart phones need to have a screen that displays web pages in a readable format, they can only be made so small before nobody will buy them.  Furthermore, since smartphones have more components inside than a regular phone and that requires more space.   This holds particularly true now that 4G service is being rolled out.  The chips that support LTE are larger and also use up more power, which in turn means a bigger battery.

And since LCD screens have dropped in price over the years phones have bucked the trend in personal electronics and have begun to get bigger instead of smaller.  It makes sense to me, just so long as it fits in your pocket, bigger is better.  Of course not everybody wants a big bulge in their pocket, but lets face it – women carry their phones in their purse.

So big is in, but for how long?  I personally hope for a while but the real test will be when  chip manufacturers are able to reduce the size and power consumption of 4G chips.  In the meantime here are the latest smartphones I recommend:

A friend of mine who travels a lot wanted to buy a new laptop and he asked me which model I recommended . He is paid quite well at his job, so money wasn’t so much as much of an issue as portability and battery life. He also is also still a bit of a kid and likes to play games, so a machine with good graphics and sound was a must.

So after searching online I suggested he buy the HP Pavilion dm1-4010us Entertainment PC. Entertainment PC means it boasts a souped up video chip and premium speakers. And with a 11.7 inch display, it will easily fit into any carry on luggage or even a small backpack.

Furthermore this machine has a good battery that HP claims will last up to 9.5 hours. Now I doubt anybody actually gets that much use out of their battery, but 6 hours between charges is very possible.

And now here is the kicker. This machine costs less than 500 dollars. Sure my friend can afford one at twice the price but I told him to spend his money elsewhere.

Once again, a great argument for my theory that the best value laptops are found in the 500 dollar range.

The other specs are what you would expect in a larger laptop at this price: 4GB DDR3 and Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit. The hard drive is 320GB, but spinning at 7200RPM I found it to add an extra zing to the performance.

And one other thing I like about this machine that nobody, not even HP, seems to be all that excited about. It´s their new CoolSense technology that cools the laptop better. On a smaller laptop like this one this is key since components are so closely packed together. Older HP laptops used to run quite hot, but with in the past year they have made vast improvements in this area. And when your laptop runs cooler not only will it add years to its life, but it should also perform better.

Where to Buy

Amazon right now has this model on sale for for 448.98. But you can get it – direct from HP 449.99 – a dollar and 1 cent more.

Both vendors offer free shipping, but HP ships in 2 days, while Amazon will take 5 to 8 days – Advantage HP.

Then checking out special offers HP also gives you 25% their extended warranty “Care Packs” when you purchase a laptop. As I have said before, I  dont recomment that you buy extended warranties on anything but cellphones and laptops.  And if you are buying one of those two products, buy it from the manufacturer itself.

So in this case, HP wins again.  Hp Care packs cover you where the warranty doesn’t :  such as when you accidentally drop your laptop or spill juice on the keyboard.  Being a former repair tech I can tell you this happens a lot.   So check consider buying one of their Care Packs if you are clumsy like me!