reactionary007 Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Question because I'm curious - I was at Best Buy yesterday and there were a ton of Windows 8 laptops in the 299 to 499 price range. They were all huge 15" plus and plastic. Keyboard decks were flimsy - screens quality overall seemed poor. They were all rather ugly too. This would include a model from Samsung. The laptops that had 13 inch quality screens with nicer more high quality bodies were all 899 plus. On the way out I noticed a really nice looking laptop. Walked up and it was a 13 inch Samsung Chromebook. Body felt like metal - great keyboard - screen looked really nice. $199. How do they do that? Are the internals and lack of OS fee really allowing for that body/screen quality at that price? Why can't there be a Windows 8 laptop that is cheaper with that kind of build quality? Maybe that particular Best Buy just has a crappy selection of laptops... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reactionary007 Posted April 5, 2013 Author Share Posted April 5, 2013 Well - I'm learning more - guess the Chromebook was an 11.6 inch screen with only 2 GB of RAM... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Astra.Xtreme Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 Well the price of the Chromebook has to be low since it has very little functionality (and requires internet access to work) and it doesn't require any sort of powerful specs. But yeah, the OS being open source makes a pretty big difference on cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATLien_0 Posted April 5, 2013 Share Posted April 5, 2013 What you noticed, is what is ****ing me off right now about the PC laptop design market. Anything Sub $1000 is going to be mostly plastic. Before getting my Macbook pro I had looked at the higher ends Lenovo, Asus,Samsung and Sony laptops. All of those had really good build quality. We bought my sister a $499 Dell Studio 15 about 2 years ago, buggest mistake ever. The cheapness was in her budget, but for anyone who has issues with laptops, it sucks. The build quality is absolutely horrible with it, dell has replaced the screen 3 times now due to a faulty hinge, and the trackpad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anibal P Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 There's only two maybe three real choices for quality laptops, Lenovo Thinkpads, Dell Vostro, and of course the over priced Macs, everything else will make compromises somewhere Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epk Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 Samsung ultrabooks are great, z0phi3l, but in line with what everyone said here, you have to be ready to spend a grand or more. Funny how Macs don't seem so overpriced anymore! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Apperson Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 This is one of the reason PC sales are going down and Macs are going up, becuase of people like acer, hp, etc. Who make really bad laptops then people blame MS and think window is bad Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LUTZIFER Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 That's why they are in the 299 to 499 price range... derrr. I've never bought anything under 1000, and to me 1000 is pretty low. Chasethebase and Carbon Fiber 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
farmeunit Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 This is one of the reason PC sales are going down and Macs are going up, becuase of people like acer, hp, etc. Who make really bad laptops then people blame MS and think window is bad I've never heard ANYONE say Windows sucks because of a crappy laptop. PC sales are going down because everyone is buying tablets and realizing they don't need computers or laptops for the most part. People are buying Macs because they're getting iPhones and iPads and want the whole Apple "experience", not the mention the prevalence of Windows based malware. I agree that laptops have gotten "cheaper" over the years, but I could care less if it's metal or plastic if I can get my work done. Crappy trackpads or bad keyboards are what I care about, along with performance. I'll buy a $500 laptop now, and a faster $500 laptop in a few years. Why spend $1500 and be stuck with it for 5-6 years? It's all preference though. Of course it all depends on what you've got to spend on one, also. That's what budgets are for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
a1ien Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 I guess the word has not spread yet, but this sucker is a super fine cheap plastic laptop, state of the art (for the price) in the PC ecosystem. http://www.bestbuy.com/site/HP+-+Pavilion+Sleekbook+14%22+Laptop+-+4GB+Memory+-+500GB+Hard+Drive+-+Sparkling+Black/7922077.p?id=1218862380870&skuId=7922077&st=sleekbook&cp=1&lp=3 It's no Celeron or ARM: there's a Core i3 in there with HD Graphics 3000. This is good enough for so many purposes, I can't even being to list them. It takes 4 hrs to drain the battery down to zero. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
winrez Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 That's where Surface RT has come in handy lately I have had 3 people want to replace their laptop's and do nothing other than simple web browsing and the rest of the time play slotomania on facebook all 3 are happy campers :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mindovermaster Moderator Posted April 6, 2013 Moderator Share Posted April 6, 2013 I never had a problem with Acer laptops. Mine was around $600, does what I need to do with it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcfan Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 This is one of the reason PC sales are going down and Macs are going up, becuase of people like acer, hp, etc. Who make really bad laptops then people blame MS and think window is bad mac sales aren't really going up. one quarter mac sales dropped %20 because they didn't release the newer imacs yet, next quarter they made it back up. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vcfan Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 body is not metal or aluminum. its plastic that's painted to look like metal. specs are also bogus, 1ghz Celerons or arm cpus, 16gb storage.of course theyre cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisj1968 Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 There's only two maybe three real choices for quality laptops, Lenovo Thinkpads, Dell Vostro, and of course the over priced Macs, everything else will make compromises somewhere And Toshiba..don't forget them. only issue I have ever had after owning 3 thus far was a faulty mainboard which was replaced for free under warranty you do get what you pay for. This laptop I'm on is of the "P" series higher end performance aside form the Qosimo((sp?) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ShareShiz Posted April 6, 2013 Share Posted April 6, 2013 Crap product + Windows = low price Nice product + Windows = average price Nice product + MacOS = high price Decent product + ChromeOS = dirt cheap price What you pay for is the hardware and software. ChomeOS is opensource so they can put all their money into the hardware and still sell the product at a cheap price. Other manufactures churn out crappy products for budget users and nicer products for people looking for quality. A computer does the same thing regardless what it looks like. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epk Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 And Toshiba..don't forget them. only issue I have ever had after owning 3 thus far was a faulty mainboard which was replaced for free under warranty you do get what you pay for. This laptop I'm on is of the "P" series higher end performance aside form the Qosimo((sp?) Toshibas are solid and with good specs, but their screens leave a lot to be desired. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsupersonic Posted April 7, 2013 Share Posted April 7, 2013 I got my Netbook for $399 (see sig. for specs). It's well built, feels like a premium laptop, and has great specs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts