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Five Cool Laptops Under $500
Laptop prices continue to drop, giving consumers more computing bang for their buck. Here are five affordable options worth looking into.
Posted 8/ 2 10 at 7:15 PM | Business Trends, Technology, Business Travel, Online Business, Business Products & Services, Computer Hardware, Consumer Products & Services, IT Services, Media, Software, Telecommunications
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There is a laptop out there with your name on it, and you don't have to take out a second mortgage to get it. The under-$500 price point tends to push entrepreneurs over to the consumer side of the laptop aisle, but that's OK. These machines are capable and portable. And did we mention they're cheap? If you look for sales and rebates and determine which specs you really need, a sub-$500 laptop is definitely possible. Here are five worth looking into.Asus Eee PC 1018PB-BK801, $379.99
Asus has long been a big mover and shaker in the netbook world. The buzzwords here are small, cheap, portable and long battery life. A 10-inch screen, 250 GB hard drive, built-in webcam, and battery life that can hit the 8-hour mark (on a good day) are all solid netbook features. The brushed metal top makes this particular netbook look a lot classier than the plastic-clad models that came before. You won't be shy about showing it off at the next office meeting.
HP G62T, $499.99
This price point isn't limited to just netbooks. This HP packs some good looks around a 15.6-inch screen. When the color is called "biscotti," you know you must be styling. We priced it with a rebate and some special upgrade offers from HP that brought the memory up to 4 GB and the hard drive to 320 GB. One advantage over a netbook is the inclusion of a DVD burner. You also get about five hours of battery life with a 5.5 pound heft. This is a solid choice for business users looking for an inexpensive full-size laptop.
Dell Vostro V13, $449
The Dell Vostro V13 is thin, light, sleek and oh-so sexy. The aluminum body is executive chic at its best. It has a 13.3-inch display that positions it right between netbooks and mainstream notebooks, and its 3.5 pounds are more than reasonable for road warriors. The most basic package starts at $449 with 2 GB of memory and a 250 GB hard drive. Of course, there is a catch. That $449 model comes with Linux, not Windows. If you want Windows, it'll cost you $538.
Toshiba Satellite T215D-S1150, $499.99
The Toshiba Satellite T215 series is another notebook line that straddles the border between netbooks and full-size laptops. The screen is 11.6 inches and it sports a respectable 2 GB of memory and a 320 GB hard drive. Those specs are pretty standard for today's netbook crowd. The dual-core AMD processor helps keep the cost down while still providing some oomph. Battery life is just over 5 hours and the weight is 3.3 pounds. That's a slight trade off for the bigger screen. People that find smaller netbooks to be too cramped should try this one on for size.
Apple iPad, $499
Wait a minute, you say -- that's not a laptop! If you use it on your lap, then it's close enough. Just as 50 million Elvis fans couldn't be wrong, more than 3 million iPad sales means that Apple is onto something. A certain contingent of business users would just as soon dump the notebook concept altogether and get with the tablet movement. The big draws are 10 hours of battery life with the Wi-Fi on, and a slim frame with a 10-inch screen that weighs just 1.5 pounds. It's ultra-portable and it's pretty. If you can get by without Flash and don't need to do a ton of typing, an under $500 tablet is a big draw. If you're still on the fence, there will soon be a decent selection of Windows tablets out on the market to compare.
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Comments (Page 1 of 1)
2 gig RAM memory is too little for Windows 7 to run well - You must have a minimum of 4 gig and a dual or quad core processer for decent speed - These computers are inexpensive because they are under-powered.
The Dell Vostro V13 is thin, light, sleek and oh-so sexy. The aluminum body is executive chic at its best. It has a 13.3-inch display that positions it right between netbooks and mainstream notebooks, and its 3.5 pounds are more than reasonable for road warriors. My boyfriend thinks the same with me. He is eight years older than me, lol. We met online at agelessmate.com a nice and free place for younger women and older men, or older women and younger men, to interact with each other. Maybe you wanna check out or tell your friends.
The big draws are 10 hours of battery life with the Wi-Fi on, and a slim frame with a 10-inch screen that weighs just 1.5 pounds. It's ultra-portable and it's pretty. If you can get by without Flash and don't need to do a ton of typing, an under $500 tablet is a big draw. If you're still on the fence, there will soon be a decent selection of Windows tablets out on the market to compare.btw,I'm a lawyer,30 ,rich but still single.It's hard to get a girlfriend in my town ,most of them like my money more than like me.I just want to find my true love.so i uploaded my hot photos on millionairesocial .c om under the name of hotlove2.u dont have to be a millionaire,but u can meet one there. ..if you girls see this comment,i hope you will check my photos out there.maybe you are the one whom i'm looking for!!!
It would be nice if some editor-like individual could keep these commercials disguised as "comments" off the net. The same ones keep showing up over and over again, with only the opening sentences (lifted from the article)being different for each article.
Dont bet on it. The Acer mini is a good machine, the atom processor is OK at best. Dont buy it if you dont like to wait for things. The under 500 dollar market is the market of soon to be Apple users. Why? well if you spend the same on the Windows machine it will hall ass, but you wont, you will spend the 500 on the windows machine and the 5grand on the Apple and then talk about how much better apple is. Still true to this day, "You get what you pay for" if you buy a 500 dollar machine you will get 500 dollar performance. The dell is the best deal by far, for linux, i would not buy windows on this machine.
windows 7 should come with this;
minimal 4gb of memory
any size hard drive but make sure it is 7200rpm or Solid state
256mb or better of video
anything less on windows 7 and you will wish you saved your money.