500 USD laptop is far away?

Currently, Acer, Dell and HP all have basic laptops with prices around $ 500. Gateway and IBM are also embarking on a deal: both are advertising product models for only about $ 500 after deducting a commission.

500 USD laptop is far away? Picture 1

Acer Aspire 3003LCi.

If in Vietnam, the laptop manufacturers only want to push the price down to less than 1,000 USD, the giants in the world are looking to laptop models only 500 USD.They are not necessarily the most modern.Evaluating laptop models that fluctuate in this range, they are bargains, especially good for those who only exploit common applications such as e-mail exchanges, web surfing and word processing, DVD playing and Other small applications.

These super cheap products are considered to be more attractive than low-cost desktop computers."Consumers can now buy computers on demand, not necessarily desktop computers," said Stephen Baker, a PC market analyst for NPD technology market research firm.

According to NPD, thanks to the growing laptop business, in August, for the first time, laptop sales were higher than desktop PCs.Laptops currently account for about 52% of all PCs consumed in the market.The purchasing power of laptops increased corresponding to the price reduction: The average selling price of a laptop in August last year was $ 1,350 / unit;but in August this year only 1,100 USD, NPD said.On the statistical chart, Acer is the leader in lower price products.

The Acer Aspire 3003LCi, which is currently rated as the best product, has a decent configuration and performance: 15-inch screen, 512 MB RAM, 60 GB hard drive, priced at many stores. only about 500 USD.However, in Vietnam, to buy a laptop like the above, only $ 500 is still . unimaginable.

Because the $ 500 price of the Aspire 3003LCi is just a special promotional price, the actual retail price is still $ 649.Or the HP Compaq Presario M2000 has a retail price of 579 USD and a preferential price of only 529 USD (50 USD reduction).And Dell offered the original Inspiron 1200 for only $ 549;and if you order in the present time, you only have to pay 499 USD.

On the other hand, in addition to geography, choosing a cheap laptop is that users still have to overcome many concerns, as they often cannot reach any record of performance.Obviously they are behind conventional laptops in accordance with WorldBench 5 testing standards.

For example, Acer's award-winning product scored the highest of the three products, about 68 points, thanks to the fastest chip (the AMD Mobile Sempron 3000+ 1.8 GHz) and the best internal memory (512 MB , also in rival products is 256 MB).

However, Acer products are still 10 points lower than the average laptops available on the market.And the battery that can only last for 1 hour and 19 minutes will not 'penetrate' with users.

With an Intel Celeron M 350 1.3 GHz processor, the Dell Inspiron 1200 gains 57 points according to WorldBench 5 standards;and the Compaq Presario M2000, with 1.4 GHz Celeron M 360 processor chip, also reached 60 points.With these two products, at least you have to raise the RAM to 512 MB, the minimum capacity required to run Windows XP operating system on the laptop.That means you have to withdraw almost $ 50 more for the upgrade.

500 USD laptop is far away? Picture 2 Dell Inspiron 1200.

All three products use low-end graphics cards and chipsets commonly found on PCs and main memory instead of graphics cards and dedicated memory.As such, they cannot be a good choice for veteran gamers or graphics-intensive users, but a consolation is that they play relatively good DVDs.

The appeal of these products is the ability to display universal applications that are not inferior to mass products, such as 'net' surfing, Microsoft Office 2003 publishing and even heavy-duty applications like fix photos with Adobe Photoshop.They are ideas for tight budget customers like students, students and small offices, looking for inexpensive but completely new second-generation laptop systems.However, fans of the game and users exploit graphics applications, please stay away from this plan.

Advantages and disadvantages

The Dell Inspiron 1200 ($ 499 preferential price) carries the most basic features with the acceptable 2.4-hour battery life.However, these 3 laptops lack many of the amenities commonly found in mass products.That's the only Acer Aspire 3003LCi with Wi-Fi built-in;and the Dell Inspiron 1200 and HP Compaq Presario M2000 lack this function.No product is equipped with media card readers, and optical drives do not have the ability to burn DVDs.Acer and Dell have built-in DVD-ROM / CD-RW drives and Compaq only has a DVD-ROM drive.

The Presario M2000 gives you the ability to perform temporarily, loud sound, beautiful design, 15 'LCD screen, which costs only 529 USD.But HP and Dell products have limited hard drive capacity, only 40 GB and 30 GB respectively.Only Acer met requirements because it had a 60 GB hard drive.

However, the systems have all kinds of connections such as USB 2.0, Ethernet, modem, headset, microphone, and PC Card slot.The Compaq M2000 alone has a high-speed FireWire port and Dell has 3 USB ports.

These laptops also offer a surprising amount of design and sound presentation.The Compaq gives clear sound and eye-catching design.Acer is equipped with many shortcuts to activate your favorite applications and open the website, the touchpad and a mouse button with the 4-way scroll key in the middle.All products are open systems for upgrading.This shows that they are not completely budget-saving options but give you the opportunity to improve configuration and performance, especially on RAM and hard drives.

500 USD laptop is far away? Picture 3

HP Compaq Presario M2000.

Acer and HP still give them a one-year warranty with telephone support, but Dell only has a 3-month guarantee.

Limit of lowering prices

A question arises, how low can laptop prices fall?And lower than $ 500 is the answer from many PC makers.According to industry and chipset manufacturers, as well as industry observers, the price of the cheapest laptops may be below $ 400 by the end of this year and down to $ 300 by the end of next year.

In fact, the US computer market has "marketed" a Compaq laptop with a retail price of only $ 425, after losing $ 300 from the original price.

Price reduced, thanks to where?

Getting these average laptops is due to the increase in output and the price of some of the laptop's key components being reduced, said Roger Kay, an analyst at Endpoint Technology.For example, LCD screens, which account for more than half of the total cost of a laptop, have fallen by 70% in just 12 months, according to market research firm iSuppli.The price of expensive laptop components, such as hard drives, RAM, etc. also halved in the past 12 months.

Prices of lower components do not mean poor quality, manufacturers said.In fact, lower price computers have quality components that are not inferior to other common computers

Dell and like-minded companies acknowledge the launch of low-cost products to attract low-income consumers, giving them access to cheap mobile computer products as a form of installment payment because they can still continue to upgrade, said Denise Dibble, HP's laptop product marketing manager.

Should I buy a super cheap laptop?

However, before ordering, users should thoroughly investigate the product to be purchased and determine demand.For example, you only have to spend an additional $ 50 for the Dell Inspiron 6000, with a one-year warranty with a 40 GB hard drive and a 15.4 'screen instead of buying the Inspiron 1200 with only a 90-day warranty with the hard drive. only 30 GB and 14.1 'LCD screen.

Dell's case is still open, but many companies offer low-cost products with a "hard" configuration key and you won't be able to upgrade or have too few components that can be upgraded.

So, consumers should determine whether buying a laptop is really necessary?Because a cheap laptop is on par with a good desktop computer.For example, the HP Compaq Presario SR1420NX Minitower desktop price is only 450 USD, which is equipped with a pretty 'top' configuration: 2.93 GHz Intel Celeron D CPU, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB hard drive, 9 in 1 memory card reader and DVD-RW burner.And you only have to add $ 100 to equip a 17 "or 200 USD CRT monitor for similar sized LCD monitors.