Looking for an insane deal on a laptop? Look no further than Best Buy. They have a sale going on now that you wouldn’t believe. We got a screencap just in case you miss it.
Asus – Laptop with IntelÆ CentrinoÆ 2 Processor Technology [Best Buy] (Thanks, Jeff!)
Just a warning, it’s got Windows Vista 64-bit pre-installed. A number of people have migrated up to 64-bit operating systems, me included, but some devices just don’t have 64 bit drivers. The older your peripherals are, the more likely you’ll run into an issue. I’d double check to make sure all your stuff is going to work before getting one of these.
@ergasiophobiac:
Or you could get with the times and buy modern equipment instead of using dinosaurs
@ergasiophobiac:
Thanks for letting me know, i was just about to grab one. With savings like these i cant afford not to
@ergasiophobiac: I’d double check to make sure you aren’t paying more than the normal price before buying one of these (you know, the whole point of the post)
@ergasiophobiac:
I guess this is as good of a time as any to bash Vista, huh?
@DePaulBlueDemon: He’s actually just explaining the lack of 64bit drivers, not bashing vista at all; the same would be true for 64 bit XP.
@ergasiophobiac: as we say on Slashdot — Whoooosh.
And just to keep you from being (further?) confused, that’s the sound of the point of this article going over your head.
@ergasiophobiac: Yeah, you know, the 64-bit operating system is CLEARLY the biggest issue I see with this purchase.
@larrymac: Whoooooosh, indeed.
@ergasiophobiac: Well, you’re lucky. It does have a 64bit operating system, but it’s a 32bit increase over the previous 96bit system.
@WiiPoleNotIncluded_GitEmSteveDave: I think you mean a -32bit increase over the previous 96bit system.
@ergasiophobiac: Haha, okay. Wooosh indeed. I read this and thought it was a genuine “Look, great deal!” post, and was trying to be helpful. Next time I need to check things twice I guess.
@ergasiophobiac: It’s a laptop; how many peripherals are you going to install?
Are you going to try to hook up a laserjet4 to it?(checks – yep there’s a 64bit driver for that old beast).
@Firethorn:
Oh yeah, and the specs are 4 GB of RAM & a 512MB graphics card – it’s better to have a 64bit OS than the 4GB RAM & 1 GB video my laptop has – that came with 32bit Vista, meaning I only got ~2.5GB of my RAM as usable until I installed a 64bit OS(currently trying out Win7(64)).
@ergasiophobiac: Really? I’ve been using 64-bit OS for years with no driver problems. The only issue is that the 64-bit flash plugin for Firefox is a little flaky.
Nope. No 64-bit driver troubles here. Of course, it’s Linux; that might have something to do with it. Perhaps you meant to say “64-bit Microsoft operating systems” have driver trouble, not “64-bit operating systems” in general.
There aren’t any issues with 64 bit Windows. Unless you call being able to use all of your RAM an issue. Drivers won’t be an issue as the OS is preinstalled. Does anybody really think that they’d ship a laptop with missing drivers? Unless you have a really old printer, you won’t have any problems.
@ergasiophobiac: omg, any hardware that doesn’t have 64-bit or at least 32-bit drivers that have been “tested” in Win x64 should be tossed in favor of a company that gives a crud to support it’s hardware from future obsolescent.
@Gorphlog: I personally have no issues, but then again I’m running 64-bit linux. Nothing is better than community support and not having to rely completely on manufacturers to actually support the products they sell.
@ergasiophobiac: isnt life grand for you…I wish i could use linux…
@ergasiophobiac: Don’t be this guy.
@Jakuub: OMG that made me laugh myself to tears and I didn’t understand half of it!!!!!
@Jakuub: Hey nice try, but I was complaining about manufacturers support their devices. Not Windows. You were real clever though.
@Jakuub:
Seems like he’s not saying anything negative at all about windows… He simply said it’s nice that the linux community provides support for the devices that the manufacturers should be supporting.
He’s right, too. It’s ecologically irresponsible for manufacturers to allow artificial obsolesence of peripherals because a new version of windows came out and they don’t feel like tweaking some old code.
@greenunicorns: Dude. What are you going on about and why?
Let me know when Linux + ATI becomes a good idea. I’ll be waiting.
I’d like to commend Best Buy on this one. You always know that they are charging too much, but they’ve finally gone public with it. Now, instead of showing you a highly inflated BB price and knocking a few dollars off it to make you think you are getting a deal, they show you what you’d pay elsewhere, and then they add on the Best Buy luxury tax and you arrive at your Best Buy price.
Truth in advertising FTW!
@Joe Reilly: ahahahaha you have temporarily redeemed facebook posters in my eyes.
@Joe Reilly:
I think you have a point: $120 WOULD be just about right for how much they overcharge on each item, compared to online stores.
@Joe Reilly: visable or invisable, you have to justify the paychecks somehow. I still have no idea how BBY manages to move so many notebooks and desktops to this day.
Even better…It’s listed in the Outlet Center along with “this week’s hottest deals in one easy-to-find spot”.
yay.. first tip to get posted!!
I am hoping the 140 people who reviewed this product got this incredible -$120 off!
Sounds like a operator and sign error such as a double negative making a positive.
@Tito151: That seems not unlikely.
@larrymac: I dunno… I’m not sure that’s not the case.
to be honest, I thought this was about getting a laptop for $120…
@EdnaLegume: seriously.. me too.
$120 mark up seems right.
Best buy ones had a psu that was $50 $100 more then then at a other place.
Another, very obvious, thing that is wrong with this is that they state “Centrino 2 Processor”… THERE IS NO SUCH THING! Centrino is a marketing term for Intel when the machine contains the an Intel processor (Core, Core 2, Core i7, Atom, Pentium M), Intel chipset (like a mobile 965) and an Intel wireless card. It is NOT a processor. Someone at Best Buy will probably be getting a slap from Intel if they found out about this.
@mewyn dyner:
[www.intel.com]
@BrewMe: Actually if you read the processor brief it tells you it has either a C2Q or a C2D, so mewyn dyner is right. However, Intel is trying to eliminate the confusion from Core i7, Core2, etc so they do want them advertising Centrino 2, so increase brand recognition, you know blue ocean stuff…
@ergasiophobiac: And you need to wake up and smell the doubled laptop bandwidth.
64 bit is the way of…now.
It is dead now, just $50 savings.
@BrewMe: $50 savings…but the “regular price” is $170 higher.
Speaking of laptops on bestbuy.com, I actually had a really good experience with them this week. (At least much better than I had when I tried to buy it in store.
I wanted the Gateway FX 17-inch gaming laptop that got good reviews from most laptop sites, and it was reasonably priced at $1,149.
I went to the store near me, and after getting the Geek-Squad setup pushed on me by the salesman, and telling him I was a C.S. major and could do everything myself, he said he’d go grab it from the back.
He came out and said the only one they had was worked on by the Geek Squad (refurbished), and it would be fine, he’d just give me a discount.
I asked him if they’d be getting any new ones in, in the near future.
He said no, that he’d just give me the refurbished one.
I told him that I was no longer interested.
Then, I went to bestbuy.com, and ordered it there.
Even though I got standard shipping, it shipped the next day, and took only 2 days after shipping to get here.
The day it was expected to arrive, I saw they lowered the price by $60 online.
I called the Best Buy help-line, and the guy was glad to give me a $60+sales tax credit to my account, which was posted to my bank account the next morning.
Can you believe I ordered that EXACT laptop from Best Buy two days ago for $899? Excuse me while I quietly cuss myself out.
@TuxRug:
Ouch. I was about to post the info for Best Buy’s price protection program, but Outlet Center items are excluded. That sucks.
@farker: I /just now/ gave it a try anyway and they issued a $50 chargeback no questions asked. That just means I paid an extra $3.70 sales tax
@TuxRug:
I thought I was bad – I got mines about 4 weeks ago.
A programatic or logic error on their web store. That never happens.
Oh wait, actually it does, all the time, and gets posted here. Again. And Again.
This is not news. This is not consumer advocacy. This is petty, boring and unoriginal.
Is this affecting thousands of people? Is the monetary ramification large? Does it happen infrequently? If the answer to at least two of those questions is not yes, it’s not worth posting.
@robdew2:
Careful, that kinda talk gets people disemvoweled around these parts…
@robdew2: I thought this stuff would stop when Consumer Reports took the help.
Unfortunately it has not.
@robdew2: And that’s why you aren’t in charge of this site…
@Con Sumer Zealot: No he may not be, but I donate to Conumser’s Union and Consumer Reports Foundation. So I guess a short note if I send a check in this year would be appropriate.
Consumer Reports is founded on authority and factuality. While even the magazine has some amusing stories like this in the back cover, it does not feature simply typographical errors like this. This is not noteworthy.
So now we wait to see how many people start emailing consumerist with hate mail because they bought this laptop from BB and somehow got screwed in the old fashioned BB style.
Thanks for pointing this out – I just grabbed a couple!
Looks like Best Buy graduated from the Ben “Helicopter” Bernanke School of Fuzzy Math.
This has since been corrected. Now Best Buy is showing an $899 “regular price” with a $50 discount. WTF?
As of 1:08 PM EST it is still shows as the screen shot above@Preyfar:
@robdew2: Sorry guys but the bottom-line is this stuff is funny. so suck it trebeck!
i’m still seeing it
lol@best buy
@panzerschreck1: Yeah, I am too. And it’s not a cache issue.
@ergasiophobiac: @Jakuub:
having dealt with 64 bit XP, i can tell you its a far worse situation.
basically MS released it IMHO as a tech test, and abandoned it. XP64 is the true sequel to ME.
Already gone:
Reg. Price:
$899.99
You Save:
$50.00
Our Price:
$849.99
I have forwarded this to a lady at Best Buy executive team who responded and helped when I complained how they treated the kid when they sold him a bogus 9 year old hard drive on it (previous posting on Consumerist before.) Hopefully she’ll help clear it up.
Nice Gal, very professional.
Jill.Nezworski@bestbuy.com
@Con Sumer Zealot: The offending non-discount isn’t on the page anymore. Good on you for e-mailing Best Buy’s customer support, though.
So what is the REAL price? And, what, oh what, is a “vista upgrade”? I bet microsoft would like to know too!