Solid $500 Laptops
PC World has an article up at Yahoo News going over what you can get for $500 if you are shopping for a laptop.
Related Posts:We tested laptops from Acer, Dell, and HP’s Compaq line; each company sells basic models for around $500 (after rebates). Gateway and IBM are also getting into the act: As we went to press, both were advertising units starting in the $500 range after rebates.
Acer’s Aspire 3003LCi, our best-rated system, offers decent performance, a 15-inch screen, 512MB of RAM, and a 60GB hard drive for about $500.To get a notebook for about $500, however, you’ll need to jump through some hoops. The Acer Aspire 3003LCi, for instance, has a retail price of $649. But rebates and special offers make it available for $499 at certain stores. Likewise, HP’s Compaq Presario M2000 retails for $579, and rebates can give you $50 back. The Dell Inspiron 1200 is regularly priced at $549; with an instant rebate at purchase time, you can get it for $499.
Living with a cheap laptop requires making some compromises. Predictably, these low-cost systems didn’t set any performance records, and they lagged well behind the mainstream laptops in our WorldBench 5 suite of tests.