maybe one of the liquidators recently upgraded his laptop and didn't wanna bother with ebay or craigslist to offload the old one?

;-)

I think this was sitting in the back of the warehouse gathering dust. Time to bring out all the junk!

I must say that's pretty funny. Some poor soul will buy it for that price or maybe for $680 or so. Sigh =\

Actually the price in the picture is only $705.46 not $705.99. Slightly better deal than you thought anyway!

the liquidation company has prob brought in a lot of products to closeout during this time... prob thinks that were never circuit city products or sold in their stores.

when a company liquidates like this they hire someone to handle it. that company has hundreds of other closeouts in warehouses everywhere that they throw in to try to sell too.

I don't know which one of their deals is worth this one or the candy bars on sale for 10% off. And I'm not talking about cell phones.

@snazz: and they are usually not deals at all just old products that the clearance company is trying to get rid of... prob left overs from another store liquidation

Maybe it is really $70.54/6 pack?

Does this come with a gun to shoot yourself with after you've discovered it's a bad deal? Or is that extra?

@dorianh49: but that's like finding a knife in your femoral artery rather than your carotid :-)

Please tell me that there are not people that would actually think they were getting a great deal. Seriously I would like to see a pic of the person that buys this laptop at this price. Can't help but feel sorry for them.

That's funny. This guy from the blog did a whole video asking people what they bought and how much they cost and then shows the price on amazon and stuff. Even funnier the verizon guy talking smack about CC. It's at http://techspank.com/?p=174

@snazz: like how they sell EVERYTHING the display stands cash registers they might even sell you a lock of one of the salespeople's hair if you give the right offer.

hrmm with those specs open box at a liquidation sale i'd say it's worth at least $150

@farcast: I think this is the most plausible explanation. I'd expect the registers and the display stands to go next week.

Original price.... 3 years ago.

does it have xp? people are willing to pay a lot for garbage laptops if they don't have vista, due to idiocy.

ROTFL I have a friend Not very tech. looking for a new laptop. Thank Bob he called me and asked about the CC clearance sale.He didn't believe me at first.

I bet you that was an old laptop that the store could never sell and was probably sitting in their laptop cage. Hell I remember the dv4300 series back in 06.

But it is a classic- they don't make them like this anymore...

This reminds me of the people who try to sell things on Craigslist for $20 less than they bought it for 5 years ago. Like a PS2 for $120 or a 32" CRT television for $150...

@joe18521:

And by "worth" I meant "worse." Pretty sure neither is "worth" anything.

That laptop belongs in the Smithsonian not a closeout sale.

@se7a7n7: A PS2 new is something like 130 right now, I think.

[perfect-computers.com]

This deal is even worse! By the way, most of the reviews online were from 2006. So why is a 3 year old laptop with those specs selling for such a ridiculous charge?

I find it funny that you can now get a netbook with twice the stats, at half the size, for half the price.
But hey, some people really want that 15.4" "High-definition display"

It was holiday season 2007, I was in a closing kmart store and I saw a Sandisk 64mb SD card going for... $64.99, marked down from over 100$, I nearly died as that was clearly the worst deal I EVER saw anywhere. At that time they were probably going for 5$ brand new on ebay.

And of course all sales are final :(
Sucks for the guy that impulse buys this and goes home, only to find out he has been duped.

But wait! After some googling, you can find it's a great deal compared to this shop!

http://perfect-computers.com/Notebooks/HP-Pavilion-DV4305US.html?flypage=0

Reminds me of the wall of nVidia GeForce 5200/ATi Radeon 9200 AGP cards lined up at CompUSA, for a bargain price of $49.99. Down from $59.99, of course. In 2007/8.

Best buy still has a few, and with Vista Ready stickers slapped on them.

@coren: Yes and you can get them for 99.99 new if you hit on a sale or around the holidays. Amazon usually has a killer PS2 bundle at least once every holiday season. Even then the $130 ones usually come with games or extras these days.

What are the chances they are selling old laptops that are known to not be working? They are just hiding behind the 'all sales final' line.

I know that when stores 'replace' broken laptops through their 'extended warranty' they often sit around in the store for a while. If that is the case, and I'm sure it is, wouldn't that be illegal?

I actually was looking for deals at my local CC and a pastor(straight from church in his collar and all) was getting ready to buy a single core amd hp laptop (with cd burner!) for a little over $800.
I felt bad for him and pulled him aside and told him that it was a terrible deal. Unfortunately, he did not listen, and told me it was the best price he has ever seen and that I did not know what I was talking about..... At least I tried to help.

@Jean Britt: Probably because someone is sure to buy it.

@se7a7n7:

I always tell people that 90% of craigslist sales are absolute crap. another 5% are quality items that are over priced. The remaining 5% of listings are high quality items that are great deals.

My favorite posts are people selling sofas "originally worth 4,000" and are "a steal at 2 grand". Then you check the photos and realize that they paid 4,000 in 1987 for a turquoise leather section that I wouldn't let my dog sleep on.

The Circuit City Liquidation thing has been beaten to death, NEXT!

you couldn't pay me to use an HP. HAHA

Not to defend CC - Bob knows they should have gone out of business years ago, but all they're looking at is what they paid for the thing (10 years ago!). They don't consider the actual value of the product.

It's a sign of how poorly CC was run that that POC was still around instead of getting rid of it years ago when it was actually worth something.

They're better off donating the thing.

When my CompUSA was liquidating, they had a few similar laptop deals. Of course they didn't compare with the 37" LDC HDTV with a cracked screen that looks like it had been hit by a fastball. There was no repairing it. Of course it was only $550.

@Spencer Lewis:

When my CompUSA was closing (the only time I ever visited it), they had some P2 laptops, obviously used. They literally were 10 years old. They were still priced higher than ebay, and at least some ebay stores have return policies.

Retailers sell things for bad prices all the time, it is the consumers responsibility to know what they are doing.

Anyone that thinks a liquidation sale is a real bargain opportunity is daffy.

I'd like to see a Circuit City liquidation story that showed a great deal, that would be a story.

@TrueBlue63: Ya, I'd like to see that too. Fat chance.

It's probably a shrink item. CC couldn't find it during an inventory period and wrote it off and forgot about it.

pure profit for the liquidators.

@dohtem:
No impulse sales! Don't buy tech without doing your homework.
People don't always know, though. Oh well.

@synimatik: They can probably sell anything they want as long as it is sold "as is" and all sales final. Its pretty much buyer beware at these sales.

If its used though, they probably have to say its used, its definitely illegal to sell used merchandise as new and there have been many lawsuits revolving around that. But then again different laws might apply because this is not a retail store anymore, its owned by the liquidators.

I wouldn't be surprised if they were selling old returned laptops, laptops that were replaced by warranties or laptops from friends and family that were already used. Since its a liquidation sale the liquidator can bring in anything they want to sell, its up to the buyer to know what they are doing when they are buying something.

@kaptainkk: Not everyone is tech-savvy, unfortunately.

@StrategicSourceror: Don't feel too bad. The pastor was buying the laptop with tax free donations.

I bought several laptops with very similar specs 3 years ago for about $450 - $500.

Unfortunately, not everyone is knowlegable on current technology, and they would not know the difference between a Celeron and Celery. They see a liquiditaion sale and think they can "stick it to the man" and come out with a great bargain. It is the average consumer however who will be the one to get burned.

Combine that with the fabulous marketing campaign that Intel did for the Celeron line several years ago. Everywhere you looked there was an ad for Celeron. The name became engrained in your mind. The result is people lose their time perspective and think they just saw the ad last week, when infact, they saw the add 3 years ago.

Some liquidators bring in inventory from outside, but it's a little early for this. But it does happen and be on the lookout for non-CC merchandise showing up in their stores!