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November 7, 2008
This Weekend's $299 Laptop Battle
On Saturday, November 8th, Walmart is having their Pre-Black Friday Sale starting in-stores at 8am. The sale has been covered in-depth in an earlier post, available here. The big draw is the $299 Compaq Laptop.
Then, on Sunday, November 9th, in Best Buy's weekly advertisement, they will be having an eMachines Laptop on sale for $299. And now you're stuck, which laptop do should you buy?
We've put their specifications head-to-head in the following table, highlighting the positives of each laptop.
| Best Buy | Walmart | |
| Brand | eMachines | Compaq |
| Model # | eMD620-5777 | CP50-139WM |
| Picture |  |  |
| Processor | 1.60 GHz AMD Athlon w/ 512KB L2 Cache | 2.0 GHz Intel Celeron 575 w/ 1024KB L2 Cache |
| Screen Size | 14.1" WXGA (1280x800) | 15.4" WXGA |
| Memory | 1GB DDR2 | 2GB DDR2 |
| Hard-Drive | 160GB 5400RPM | |
| Optical Drive | 8X Dual Layer DVD Burner | Dual Layer DVD Burner |
| Graphics | ATI Radeon X1200 | Integrated Intel GMA 4500MHD |
| Operating System | Windows Vista Home Basic w/ Service Pack 1 | |
| Ethernet | 10/100 LAN, 802.11b/g Wireless LAN | |
| USB Ports | 3 USB 2.0 Ports | |
| Warranty | 1 Year | |
| Weight | 5.3 lbs | Unknown |
| Minimum Quantity | 15 Units | 10 Units |
| Product Specs | click here | Unknown/Unavailable |
Walmart's Compaq laptop takes the edge because it has a faster processor (along with twice the L2 cache), a larger screen (although this will make the laptop larger and heavier) and 2GB of DDR2 memory over the 1GB from Best Buy's eMachine.
Aside from the integrated graphics cards (which we give the eMachine a slight edge for the X1200 over the GMA 4500), these laptops are eerily similar in specifications, sharing similar or the same hard-drives, optical drives, operating system and connectivity ports.
Apples to apples, the Walmart Compaq computer is the better purchase by a slim margin. You really can't go wrong with either laptop at a $300 price-point. Best Buy will have 5 more guaranteed laptops on hand than Walmart and since Best Buy hasn't marketed this week's sale like Walmart has, you might have an easier time getting the laptop at Best Buy.
The good thing is, the sales are on two completely different days. You can go to Walmart on Saturday and if you don't get the laptop, you can try on Sunday for the Best Buy laptop. Hope this helps with your holiday shopping!
Thanks for Visiting and Tell Your Friends!
 tags:
walmart, emachines, compaq, bestbuy
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You must be logged in to post commentsLSkennedy at 11/08/08 01:53am
Even though the Wal-Mart one has more ram, and what seems to be a better processor, the AMD processor is much better, unless the celeron is dual core. but, it really depends what your doing it for. gaming, do the amd, work stuff, celeron.
cdbechtle at 11/08/08 07:23am
When I go to the link I don't see the Walmart Compaq listed for $298.00 Is it no longer available? Please tell me where to see or buy it.
Aerie at 11/08/08 08:19am
LSkennedy is wrong.
But really its besides the point. Neither of these laptops are a good buy. You are wasting your money spending $299 on something that really is 3 years old. The Athlon 2650e is not better than the Celeron in the Compaq. Having said that though neither are particularly great.
Wait til Black Friday sales where $399 will get you a current year model with current year processors and such. Chances are there will also be a $299 one. Don't fall for these presales that everyone is having this year.
The only reason there are so many presales is that places did not hire a lot of people for the Christmas season. They are trying to level out how many customers are in the stores. Also their inventory is low but too long in the tail so they are trying to get rid of their inventory of 10 computers of an old model they have in the warehouse and such.
Reply if you want more information.
But really its besides the point. Neither of these laptops are a good buy. You are wasting your money spending $299 on something that really is 3 years old. The Athlon 2650e is not better than the Celeron in the Compaq. Having said that though neither are particularly great.
Wait til Black Friday sales where $399 will get you a current year model with current year processors and such. Chances are there will also be a $299 one. Don't fall for these presales that everyone is having this year.
The only reason there are so many presales is that places did not hire a lot of people for the Christmas season. They are trying to level out how many customers are in the stores. Also their inventory is low but too long in the tail so they are trying to get rid of their inventory of 10 computers of an old model they have in the warehouse and such.
Reply if you want more information.
mbella at 11/08/08 09:48am
LSkennedy is wrong about the processor.
The other thing is these computers are fine for probably about 80% of people who just want to go online and check e-mail and view online videos. Both of these will do that just fine. Sure they are not for gaming or video editing, but I don't think anybody expects them too.
The other thing is these computers are fine for probably about 80% of people who just want to go online and check e-mail and view online videos. Both of these will do that just fine. Sure they are not for gaming or video editing, but I don't think anybody expects them too.
beta_t at 11/08/08 10:17am
My brother needed a second computer so he got one. Its fine. Its not for graphic intense games and such. But for searching the internet, email, MS Word and Excel, its working very nicely. I wouldn't use it major photoshoping (as that eats up the best machines, I know, I own one) but for light stuff like a quick crop and print, it will be fine. We are dumping Vista and putting Win XP SP3 on it tonight. But the big advantage was we avoided the Black Friday crowd madness. Stood in a nicely organized, and friendly, crowd for 1 1/2 hours and got our stuff. (I also got the 46 inch tv) and they delivered it to my car. That would have never happened on BF.
amer9kid at 11/08/08 01:29pm
I was in line @ our local Walmart at 7:00 am. They had 70(not 10) laptops for the 298 price at 8:00am. Anyone wanting more then 1 had to buy 1 and go back at the end of the line and wait to see if there was enough. Not sure if all Walmarts were set up the same, but I'm glad there was 70 of them. Great computer for a christmas present for a future college student.
djduke316 at 11/08/08 04:15pm
I went to my local Walmart today and looked to see if they had any on display. They didn't but they had them in the checkout counter in the electronics area. I asked if they could sell me one and the seller said "Sure but due to a manditory tax markup they are $429." I live in Wisconsin by the way. I said screw that I'm not paying something with a $130 markup. I'm angry at this stupid law. I really got screwed out of a "deal" for a cheap laptop I've been looking for a while. Yeah I realise that "It's still a good deal," but really it isn't anymore, at least not for me. I HATE this state!
jr_saturn at 11/08/08 07:04pm
I went to Walmart today and got there at abouut 7:20a.m. I waited for a little over an hour to get the Compaq laptop. I was almost up to the counter when they yelled out that they were out of them. There were only 4 people in front of me!!! And Walmart DID NOT limit the amount of them per customer. There were people walking away with 3 or 4 of them. If they were limited to 1 per customer, then I would've had one.
I'm going to try Best Buy in the morning to get the Emachines one. I bought the early edition of the sunday paper and saw it in the ad for tomorrow. This one looks just as good as the Compaq. Hopefully I get one of these!
I'm going to try Best Buy in the morning to get the Emachines one. I bought the early edition of the sunday paper and saw it in the ad for tomorrow. This one looks just as good as the Compaq. Hopefully I get one of these!
Daddychoc at 11/09/08 12:49am
I got 2 at 9am, 1 hrs after the sale started. The store I went to had 100. They gave out 100 tickets BUT people left w/o purchasing the laptops. So for 1 hour they overhead paged shoppers if they got tickets come make their purchase, of course no one showed up. So there's about 20 tickets still floating out there but of course there's USELESS cause a "new" line of purchasers "without" tickets bought them at 10am. and I was 1st in line, YIPPY!
Aerie at 11/09/08 07:07am
That's not true by the way. Basically they were just trying to get people to go ahead and buy it at that price cuz they are already there. This happens a lot in many states. Its a horrible deal at $429 by the way. Best Buy has several machines under $400 all the time that are twice as good as these.
Aerie at 11/09/08 07:10am
A agree with installing Windows XP on these machines. They really should not be sold with Vista on them. Not that Vista is that bad now. Most of the issues have been solved, but the power of these computers are not up to par with what Vista requires. You will not get any of the pretty eye candy that Vista offers on these computers so why not go with Windows XP.
rachealt at 11/09/08 08:59am
I got to our local Walmart at 8 am. It was kind of a last minute decision to get one, and I thought I would just see if they had any left. I still got one!!! They had 27 at our local store (and we are a small town out in nowhere with only 20K population). They only gave one per customer. It actually went pretty well, I was suprised.
bucketofballs at 11/09/08 11:25am
I hate WalMart anyway. THis clinches it. I waited for well over an hour in line only to find out that at 6 am they had given away 50 tickets for the 50 computers. They never bothered to announce it to the many other people who got there after the tix were given away. It was me and MANY others around me who waited for nothing. Nice.
pnaw10.com at 11/09/08 02:14pm
I've got the Walmart laptop, and it went surprisingly well. I got there at 5am, half-expecting there would be too many people and I'd be going right back home.
Much to my surprise, there was nobody in the electronics department, and the employee there told me there would be 50 laptops. (Amusingly, he told me some people had showed up at midnight -- who apparently missed the giant "Starts at 8am" prominently displayed at the top of the ad.)
A short time later, the employee told me they'd actually be doing the big sale at the "Ship to Store" counter in the back of the store. So I went back there, and only one person was in line ahead of me -- and she wanted a different item, so I was #1 in line for the laptops.
As time slowly marched on, more people started showing up closer to 7:00. And when the morning manager came on duty, she was telling people there were actually **72** laptops available. The handful of us who had been waiting for hours grumbled a bit about how we could have just walked in at 8:00, but better safe than sorry. When one guy jokingly asked "where's our donuts for waiting," people chuckled, but 5 minutes later, 3 employees came back with boxes and started handing out donuts!
This was a pretty lucky day for the Wal-Mart in Oneida, NY. The employees said they usually get the bare minimum promised in the ad, and sometimes they get even fewer units than they were first promised. "It all just depends on what the warehouse sends us," one manager kept saying.
I was a little apprehensive when I first saw the ad, since it only gave very basic specs on this laptop -- I didn't even know what version of Vista it would have until I had the box in my hand at the register. But for the price point, it's a great deal. Even though I didn't have to get there 3 hours early, it was still well worth it.
Much to my surprise, there was nobody in the electronics department, and the employee there told me there would be 50 laptops. (Amusingly, he told me some people had showed up at midnight -- who apparently missed the giant "Starts at 8am" prominently displayed at the top of the ad.)
A short time later, the employee told me they'd actually be doing the big sale at the "Ship to Store" counter in the back of the store. So I went back there, and only one person was in line ahead of me -- and she wanted a different item, so I was #1 in line for the laptops.
As time slowly marched on, more people started showing up closer to 7:00. And when the morning manager came on duty, she was telling people there were actually **72** laptops available. The handful of us who had been waiting for hours grumbled a bit about how we could have just walked in at 8:00, but better safe than sorry. When one guy jokingly asked "where's our donuts for waiting," people chuckled, but 5 minutes later, 3 employees came back with boxes and started handing out donuts!
This was a pretty lucky day for the Wal-Mart in Oneida, NY. The employees said they usually get the bare minimum promised in the ad, and sometimes they get even fewer units than they were first promised. "It all just depends on what the warehouse sends us," one manager kept saying.
I was a little apprehensive when I first saw the ad, since it only gave very basic specs on this laptop -- I didn't even know what version of Vista it would have until I had the box in my hand at the register. But for the price point, it's a great deal. Even though I didn't have to get there 3 hours early, it was still well worth it.
pnaw10.com at 11/09/08 02:18pm
PS - In response to others below -- there were no tickets handed out ahead of time, and we were limited to one per customer. It's interesting to see how the sale was handled differently at different stores.
PuffyPinkSlippers at 11/09/08 04:52pm
I got one of the Walmart/Compaq laptops yesterday and it works just fine (kids are using it for MySpace, YouTube, iTunes, etc.). Our Walmart did limit the purchases to 1 per customer. I didn't find out about the Best Buy/eMachine laptop until this morning when I saw the Best Buy ad in the Sunday paper.
ONE MAJOR DIFFERENCE: You could purchase the $300 Best Buy eMachine online instead of standing in line before the crack of dawn to get one!! I went on to the Best Buy website to check the specs while rushing to get dressed to head over to Best Buy to try and get one when I noticed the "Add to Cart" button. I clicked on it and sure enough, I was able to purchase the eMachine laptop online!! I just had to pay $20 extra dollars for shipping and wait 7-10 days for it.
ONE MAJOR DIFFERENCE: You could purchase the $300 Best Buy eMachine online instead of standing in line before the crack of dawn to get one!! I went on to the Best Buy website to check the specs while rushing to get dressed to head over to Best Buy to try and get one when I noticed the "Add to Cart" button. I clicked on it and sure enough, I was able to purchase the eMachine laptop online!! I just had to pay $20 extra dollars for shipping and wait 7-10 days for it.
elainem304 at 11/10/08 12:09pm
Thank you thank you thank you. My husband was the 1st one on line at 9:15am at the Boynton Beach Best Buy and by the time the doors opened yesterday, there were about 25 people behind him all for the laptop. The store had about 40 of them right up front and if you wanted more than one, you had to get back on line. Everything went smoothly. Came home, powered it up for about 1/2 hour and my 14 year old loves it. She has her myspace, her im's, her pictures etc!!!
My dad also got one at his Best Buy in Boca Raton where they only had 18 in the store and unfortunately there were more people in line than that. They were told to go on-line and order them.
Keep up the good job... I LOVE THIS SITE....
My dad also got one at his Best Buy in Boca Raton where they only had 18 in the store and unfortunately there were more people in line than that. They were told to go on-line and order them.
Keep up the good job... I LOVE THIS SITE....
