Cheap Laptops | Cheap Netbooks Blog

Even though refurbished laptops appear to be the best option available a lot of people still think it is risky to buy one or they have a large number of misconceptions regarding refurbished models. Through this post I will try to clear up some of those misunderstandings and will try to answer the most frequently asked questions.

• What is laptop refurbishing? And How is a Laptop Refurbished? : Simply repairing a defective laptop does not make it refurbished. A laptop will have to go through a number of stages of repair and quality control before it can be placed back in the marked. I have already explained the method of refurbishing step by step in a previous post.

• Do We get a Warranty With a Refurbished Laptop: Nowadays all refurbished laptops come with a minimum warranty of 6 months. 6 months is more than enough to determine if your machine is defective or not. If a laptop does not show any defects in 6 months then most probably it never will. However extended warranties of up to 2 years, for the used laptops, can be purchased from the laptop manufacturers.

• Are Used Laptops And Refurbished laptops the Same? : No, like I have explained in my posts time and time again, a used laptop is NOT a refurbished laptop. A refurbished laptop is that which has been checked and repaired by the laptop manufacturers, it is then packaged as new and sent to the market to be sold. A refurbished laptop can be compared to a new laptop. A used laptop on the other hand is simply a second hand laptop.

• Are There Any Other Advantages to Buying Refurbished Laptops? : The advantages far outweigh the disadvantages. To read about them you should check out my other posts, I have already discussed all of this in detail. Click here to check out my other posts.
  

The general idea people have about cheap refurbished laptops is that they may be out of date or repaired or defective in some way. This is far from the truth, refurbished laptops are actually latest models that have been returned to the company.

The return may have been caused by a number of reasons. They may be canceled orders from the company store or the might have some software or minor issue which the company repairs themselves and then repackages them as new and sends them back to the market to be sold as refurbished laptops.

If a laptop has some major problem then in this case the company replaces the entire motherboard of the laptop. This way they completely eliminate the problem due to which the laptop was sent back in the first place. the fact of the matter is that as long as the laptop manufacturers themselves work on the laptop and then re-package it to be sold as new. This shows that the refurbished laptops are as good as new.

The main advantage of a cheap refurbished laptop is their price. The refurbished model can be bought at almost half the price of the new model. This way you get the latest model and that too at almost half the price.

The refurbished laptop, once repaired by the company, is tested extensively to prove their functionality and reliability. After passing all the tests the laptop is sent to the market and sold at a greatly reduced price. In addition almost all of the stores offer a 6 month warranty period for all refurbished laptops. This way you can buy a refurbished model without any risks or fear. Considering all of the facts above I can easily say that a refurbished laptop is as good as a new laptop or in some cases even better.

If you are looking for a good laptop but don't have the funds to buy one then why not start looking for refurbished laptops. Like I already explained in my previous post, cheap refurbished laptops are as good as new laptops. To read that post click here.

In this post I'll try to explain why refurbished laptops are better than new ones and that you should not waste money buying new ones when the same model can be found as a refurbished. Now lets talk about some of the reasons why you should prefer refurbished laptops over new laptops:

Cheap Refurbished laptops :

Price:

One of the biggest reasons why you should consider buying a refurbished laptop is the price. refurbished laptops are extremely cheap. In most cases, you are looking at getting at least 50% off the price that you would have to pay if you bought the laptop brand new. Here I would like to emphasize yet again that a refurbished laptop does not mean that it has bee discarded or is defective. A refurbished laptop is one that has been repaired by the manufacturing company themselves. While in most cases the refurbished laptops may as well be a canceled order from the company store.

Better Specifications:

Suppose you have only $400 to buy a laptop. In this budget you can either get an entry level new laptop that has only the bare minimums and may be equipped with a weak celeron processor or you can get a heavily equipped laptop with a powerful dual core processor for the same price. So by buying a refurbished laptop you actually get the best specifications for the lowest price.

Warranty:

Another misconception people have about refurbished laptops is that they are without any warranty and therefore buying such machines is a risk. This is wrong. All of the refurbished laptops today come with a 6 month warranty period. Provided this is half as compared to the 1 year warranty that comes with new machines but 6 months is more than enough to determine the stability of a machine. If your laptop works for 6 months without any problems then most probably it will not have any problems in the future as well. So while buying a refurbished machine make sure that you get the 6 month warranty period.

A repaired laptop cannot be called a refurbished laptop. All companies have different methods of restoring their laptops. Having said that they also maintain a certain standard and have to strictly follow it. A laptop once returned to the company goes through multiple stages before it can be placed in the market again. Below I will explain each step of the repair process and after such a process it is very rare to find a defective refurbished laptop.

• Examination of All Hardware Components: The first thing the company does when they get a laptop back is to check all of the hardware components. They try to determine what caused the customer to send it back. Every component is carefully checked and when a faulty component is located they simply replace that component with a new one. Thus completely eliminating the problem.

• Diagnostics and Performance Tests: Once the laptop is up and running with the new hardware and replaced components they rigorously test the machine. During this time the laptop operates at maximum load for extended periods of time. A defective laptop will never be able to operate at full load for extended periods so through this test they confirm that the laptop is no longer defective.

• Cleanup and Scratch Repair: Before packing the laptop is cleaned up. They remove any dirt or fingerprints and bring the laptop to a new glossy condition. In this stage they also repair any scratches or marks that have been formed by the previous owner or during the repair process. Finally the laptop is sent to packaging where they box up the laptop and send it back to the market where it is sold as cheap refurbished laptop.
  

The problem with cheap laptops is that you never know what you are gonna get, like I mean the laptop may look perfect but after you bring it home you find yourself to be disappointed. So that is why you have to do your proper research before going out or online to buy from the huge variety of cheap laptops. That is why im just going to write some tips here for the very new shoppers, for the rest of you this post most probably will annoy you and will appear extremely lame.

List-a-Lot: Im sure not all of you are hardcore gamers and not all are casual browsers. So everyone's expectations from their laptops are different. So before buying a laptop make a list of the things you will need a laptop for. (This tip was so obvious that I dont even know why I mentioned this here.)

Game Much? Like I mentioned in the above tip you should buy the laptop according to your needs. If you are a gamer then obviously an Intel Celeron laptop will not work for you even if it is one of the cheapest laptops you could find, similarly for gaming purposes you will need a dedicated graphics chip and s whole lot of RAM.
If you don't play games on your laptop then yours will definitely be a cheap laptop, even the very basic specifications will be more than enough for you. For the non-gamers buying a core 2 duo laptop with 4GB RAM and a dedicated graphics chip will be a waste of money. (Reality Tip: If you are a gamer and are looking for cheap gaming laptops then you should stop right here because gaming laptops are not cheap, they're just not. If you do find an extremely cheap gaming laptop the chances are that its defective and might explode in your lap.)

Watch your Budget: Laptops are now available in different prices. So you should choose for a laptop that is within your low budget and not look at the skies when buying a laptop. It will only disappoint and hurt you. Seriously I've been through this before when you have a low budget dont even go to the expensive section. Just discretely note down the models of the expensive laptops and use Google to check them out. This method is tested and it keeps your self esteem high.

Use Online Shops: I've already mentioned the benefits of online shopping and I'm sure most of my readers are already aware of the other benefits ;) So I wont mention them here again.

Do Your Research: At this point I don't have anything else to write about and I'll just keep on repeating the same stuff I already mentioned in this article. So if you read till here then I believe that I have wasted quite a lot of your time and won't waste any more of it. If you want to read some actual cheap laptops or refurbished laptops articles then read the articles below. I wrote this because I had nothing else to write about the topic of this blog. Hope I didnt annoy you too much :)

After covering all the topics related to laptops Im now gonna dedicate some posts to netbooks only and how you can get cheap netbooks. Also in this short introductory post i'll point out some of the basic differences between netbooks and laptops.

Netbooks, also known as mini laptops or mini notebooks have rapidly gained popularity over the past few months. And one of the main reasons for this is the addition of Hybrid support in netbooks. Before netbooks used to come with only solid state drives (SSD) so the hard drive would be either 4 GB or 8GB but now with hybrid support netbooks can support SSD drives along with conventional 2.5" 160GB or 250GB drives.

Netbooks or refurbished netbooks are smaller, inexpensive and lighter versions of their laptop versions. Some of the main differences of are:

Weight and Size: These are basically the main selling factors for netbooks, light weight and small size. All cheap netbooks have to be light and small. It is because of this they fall in the netbook category. Netbooks are very light they usually weigh around just 3 pounds. And their size is determined by their screen dimensions. Screen dimensions vary from 8.9" to 10.1". The 10.1" is more popular because it can support higher desktop resolutions.

Minimal Hardware: Netbooks are not meant to be powerful processing machines. They only have the bare minimum hardware. Just enough to get the job done or they are just enough for regular daily applications. Don't expect any netbook to support any of the latest games. Netbooks don't come with optical drives, the reason for this is that in such a small casing there is no space to fit the optical drive. There are also no internal modems or any expansion slots.

Weak Processor: Almost all netbooks come with an Intel Atom processor. This processor is very weak and is designed to handle all of the daily or regular applications such as firefox, thundebird, pidgin, etc.

Affordable: I wont say that netbooks are cheap their price tag has reached those of the budget line laptops. But for the benefits they give such as portability and longer battery life they are considered cheap and affordable.

Whether you want to buy a laptop or netbook that depends entirely on how you are going to use that machine. Will it be for heavy tasks and multi-tasking or do you want to have portability. Sadly you cant have both so you have to choose.

Jolicloud v1.0 is set to bring with it full touchscreen support, just in time for the mass number of tablets and convertible netbooks that are due to hit the market. There’s no release date for the latest version, but we’ve attached a video after the break that shows a demonstration of the touch-enabled Jolicloud OS running on a Samsung NB30 netbook with touchscreen display.








Here is a list of supported touchscreen technologies:
* ADS7846/TSC2046 and ADS7843 based touchscreens
* AD7877 based touchscreens
* AD7879 based touchscreens: AD7879-1 I2C Interface
* AD7879 based touchscreens: AD7879 SPI Interface
* Compaq iPAQ H3600 (Bitsy) touchscreen
* SharpSL (Corgi and Spitz series) touchscreen driver
* Touchscreen support for Dialog Semiconductor DA9034
* EETI touchscreen panel support
* Fujitsu serial touchscreen
* Gunze AHL-51S touchscreen
* Elo serial touchscreens
* Wacom W8001 penabled serial touchscreen
* MELFAS MCS-5000 touchscreen
* MicroTouch serial touchscreens
* iNexio serial touchscreens
* ICS MicroClock MK712 touchscreen
* HP Jornada 6xx touchscreen
* HP Jornada 7xx touchscreen
* HTC Shift X9500 touchscreen
* Penmount serial touchscreen
* Renesas MIGO-R touchscreen
* Touchright serial touchscreen
* Touchwin serial touchscreen
* Atmel Touchscreen Interface
* Philips UCB1400 touchscreen
* Support for WM97xx AC97 touchscreen controllers
* WM9705 Touchscreen interface support
* WM9712 Touchscreen interface support
* WM9713 Touchscreen interface support
* WM97xx Atmel accelerated touch
* WM97xx Mainstone/Palm accelerated touch
* Zylonite accelerated touch
* USB Touchscreen Driver
o eGalax Touchkit USB (also includes eTurboTouch CT-410/510/700)
o PanJit TouchSet USB
o 3M MicroTouch USB (EX II series)
o ITM
o Some other eTurboTouch
o Gunze AHL61
o DMC TSC-10/25
o IRTOUCHSYSTEMS/UNITOP
o IdealTEK URTC1000
o GoTop Super_Q2/GogoPen/PenPower tablets
o JASTEC USB Touch Controller/DigiTech DTR-02U
* Sahara TouchIT-213 touchscreen
* TSC2007 based touchscreens
* W90P910 touchscreen driver
* Motorola PCAP touchscreen

Toshiba is getting ready to launch the Mini NB250 10-inch netbook that will come with the DDR3-enabled N455 Atom processor. The design is a slight departure from previous designs coming with a glossy black finish and textured pattern.
The NB250 has a 10.1-inch (1024 x 600) display, 1GB RAM and up to 250GB HDD. The model will come with a 3-cell battery good for 4.5 hours or a 6-cell battery for 8 hours of runtime. No details of availability and pricing for now.
Update: It seems that this same netbook will be known as the Mini NB255 in the US.

The 11.6" T215 will come with AMD Athlon II Neo single or dual-core CPUs, integrated graphics from ATI, and up to a 320GB HDD and 2GB RAM. The ultraportable notebook will weigh a mere 3.3lbs. The larger 13.3" T235 will also come with AMD Athlon II Neo or Turion II Neo processors, though it will additionally have a choice of Intel Pentium dual-cores. It will pack up to a 320GB HDD and 4GB RAM, and weighs just 3.9lbs. Both notebooks will have an HD 1366x768 display. They will be available in the US on June 20th starting at $469.99.

Some predicted the downfall of Facebook a couple years ago. Some are predicting that it will happen any moment now. Others foresee the end in the distant future. Whether it comes fast or slow, Facebook will fade when the next best thing comes along. The question is: what will be the cause of Facebook's demise? Below are the things we foresee being the force that drives users away. Broadcast By Default, Hunt for the Off Switch A fairly universal understanding of life is that things should be opt IN, not opt OUT. For example, credit cards. You opt in when you get one. Imagine if banks could decide that, since you have a checking account with them, they'll automatically enroll you for credit cards, without publishing any sort of notice on your account when you log in, and if you don't want it, hey, you can simple opt out. That wouldn't fly so well, would it? Facebook doesn't seem to understand this little nugget of wisdom. The way they seem to see it, you're on their website—they can do with you what they wish. Never mind the entire fiasco over who owns photos placed on the website. Now Facebook is actively giving your information away by default, and you have to opt OUT of it. If that weren't bad enough, the ability to opt out isn't as easy as you'd think. A banner across the top of the screen saying something like "WE'RE GIVING YOUR INFORMATION AWAY, CLICK HERE TO STOP THE MADNESS" would be nice. Instead you have to hunt through three different sections, into the subsections of those sections, to find the little radio button you click to keep your online life private. That is not cool. In a world where home values can be looked up online, where probable salary numbers are just a click away, where your home can be zoomed in on via a web browser, where your cellphone can be beamed coupons based on your habits, where web advertisements target you in ways that are just a wee too familiar, how many users are going to happily maintain an account on a website that is actively trading pieces of their online lives to the highest bidder? Not many. Rogue Applications You have to authorize an application. This is a good security feature, in that it prevents applications you don't even know exist from plastering your wall with crap. The problem, in this case, is the people. Some people don't use a lot of common sense, much like when it comes to sending away banking information to phishers or opening an attachment on an email from someone they don't know. Individuals with less than proper intent recognize this security loophole—we'll call it the Human Authorized Annoyance Loophole—and create malicious applications that look appealing. Uninformed or clueless users access and authorize these applications, which then post odd, disgusting, vulgar, or otherwise eyebrow-raising things on their friend's walls from under the user's name. In some cases, these rogue applications even toss in the targeted friend's name. "Hey Jane Doe, check out this video I just saw! It's the most hilarious thing I've ever seen!" And if they (the victim) click on this video which, as far as they can tell, is from a trusted friend, their account then becomes infected with this rogue application. The result is the spread of this application like a virus. If you've any decently sized Facebook friends list, you've no doubt experienced at least one friend who has an account become so crippled by these annoying applications that you can't help but hide them, maybe even unfriend them. If these applications become so populous that wading through the junk on your Facebook page every morning makes you feel like you're stuck in a Hotmail inbox, what is the point of having an account? The Paradigm of 'Friendship' The thing about real life and friendship in the real world is that it has tiers. There is the tier of friends with whom you are closer to than family. There is the tier of friends that you see regularly, and who may be pleasant to be around, but for a variety of reasons, you just don't keep them this || close. Then there's family, which is scattered amongst different tiers. There are coworkers and bosses who rest on a different plane with their own tiers. Etc. Etc. Plainly spoken, some people are kept distant and out of the loop more than others. This is order amongst what would otherwise be chaos. On Facebook, it doesn't work like that. You're friends, or you're not friends. If you're friends in real life with someone you can tolerate only in certain places for certain durations, you might find them unbearable online, where they can post to anything you say, where they can poke you and post things on your wall for everyone to see. You can avoid friending these individuals…and then make them incredibly angry, or hurt, or whatever that particular friend feels like being. "Why did you friend so and so, but not me?" "Oh, I'm not good enough for your Facebook account?" "I commented, and you never replied. You must hate me!" So you can either friend them online and come to hate them in real life, or not friend them and have them hate you in real life. Options, options. Facebook turns friendship into an orchestrated dance of politics. In the real world: Mother doesn't have to know about your dating life. Grandma doesn't have to hear your bad language in the real world. You can avoid Annoying Friend #1, #3, and #27 in real life. You can carefully dictate who your boyfriend/girlfriend gets to meet during each phase of your relationship in real life. But on Facebook, everybody's mashed together. Professional Life As companies take to the Internet for evaluating current and prospective employees, the reality of needing to maintain online privacy is more imperative than ever. People have been fired from their jobs and suspended from their schools for things posted on Facebook. The need for private things to remain private clashes with Zuckerberg's idea for Facebook, which is to be "Open". Though they have implemented privacy features across the accounts, they are either difficult to find (ala, the first section of this article), or they fail. Facebook chat was recently down for a period of a couple hours after it was discovered that private chats could be viewed in real-time by friends. How about when Facebook implemented a privacy upgrade that left Zuckerberg's private photos visible to anyone who wanted to see them? These security breaches and unforeseen oopsies and unaccounted for changes may not be bothersome to some individuals, but for others, it could be a career-breaker. If Facebook continually proves that it is a liability due to its near-constant security holes and breaches and hiccups, can it truly expect uses to stick around and share their lives online while potentially putting their jobs on the line? Conclusion When the effort to maintain outweighs the benefits of the object being maintained, the object is no longer desirable. When your computer, car, or home has a small problem, you fix it. When that computer starts failing and the neighbors start breaking in at midnight and the car dies at every stop light, it is better to get rid of it/them and start over with something new. Can Facebook continue to thrive while users start to feel the burden of maintaining their account?

I recently came across a concept design by Yang Yongchang. It features a small design with a capacitive 6.5 inch multitouch screen but it comes with a full size fold-able keyboard. Due to the lack of space instead of using the touch pad it uses the trackpoint normally found in IBM laptops. The problem with this is that it is still a concept and it looks too good to be real. Scroll down to the bottom of this post to find the real "fold-able" netbook I found.






Now here is the interesting part, Such a netbook has been designed already and is already in production.. but it doesn't look nearly as good as this one.
Here it is : The Pomera DM 10

According to a french tech blog: PC Inpact Intel may be working on a dual core processor for netbooks, This will definitely be an upgrade to the single cor, weak processors we have today. The netbooks will no longer be a basics only machine but will be capable of running heavy applications. It is also stated that the the dual core processors will be using the Atom N500 naming structure.

Though this may appear to be a rumor only for now but if this were to be released. It will completely change the way netbooks are being marketed. It will definitely find its way on many people's wish list.. mine included ;)

4 moths ago MSI officially announced their new AMD powered netbooks, the MSI Wind12 U230, it's similar to their older U200/U210 but the U230 comes with Windows 7 and is powered by AMD’s new Congo 1.6GHz dual-core processor.

MSI claims that the AMD processors cosume 60% less power than standard notebooks offers 4 hours of battery life. It can also support HD and DX10 cards such as the ATI Radeon HD 3200.

The netbook is now available in the US and can be ordered from all major stores such as amazon and newegg. They are available in 2 different configurations;  The Wind12 U230-033 comes with an AMD Athlon Neo MV-40 processor and 250GB HDD, whilst the U230-040 comes with the dual-core Athlon X2 L335 processor and 320GB HDD.

All other specifications are the same for both models. Both have a 12.1-inch (1366 x 768) display , 2GB RAM, W7 Home Premium, ATI Radeon and HD3200 graphics, a 1.3MP webcam, 6-cell battery, Wi-Fi (b/g/n), HDMI and a card reader.

Last week the Times of India published a video with Rohan Sharavan Notion Ink co-founder who is showing off what is being called a “final” version of what-apples-ipad-should-have-been Adam tablet. This tablet can easily overcome any cheap laptops if marketed properly. The video has some nice close-ups of the unit, but it still doesn’t seem like the production version (and I hope not as part of the screen bezel comes off mid-interview). But this is what the final version should look like in terms of “look and feel” and that the device should launch first in the US in June. He also claims that the device will last for more than 10 hours doing 1080p video output.




Some of its specs are:

The Notion Ink device is due in late June 2010.

1) Pixel Qi screen: 160 hours of battery life in B/W mode.
2) Expansion slots: USB, HDMI and SD card slot.
3) 3.2 MP Swivel Auto Focus Camera.
4) Flash Acceleration
5) Multitouch
6) 3G/Wifi/Bluetooth - AGPS

Will run Android/ Ubuntu / Chrome

HP laptops using Jaz-Z for their next commercial.

The Taipei Times has reported that Acer Chairman Wang Jeng-Tang has told reporters Acer’s eReader plans have been put on indefinite hold while the company looks for a way to enter the market with a successful business model, and what it calls a total business solution (one has to assume he is referring to the ecosystem that any eReader needs surrounding the hardware, such as an online bookstore, and increasingly, app store). Im sure they would be having second thoughts after apple entered the market with the iPad.

The decision was made because the eReader market is not that big, and “has yet to reach its full potential” – something I'm sure amazon will not agree with.

This all comes less than a month after the computing giant told Bloomberg that eReaders formed a large part of their strategy this year – a strategy designed to boost the companies net income. Whether after further analysis they decided an eReader wasn’t the right way to go financially, or if they are simply biding their time given the glut or readers hitting the market right now is unclear.

Fellow manufacturers and countrymen Asus show no sign of abating – their DR-570 OLED eReader and 9″ DR-950 are both still apparently on track, so obviously they share none of Acer’s concerns.

I found a couple of videos on youtue.com that shows how to remove and replace your laptop's graphic card [provided you have one installed in your laptop]. If your laptop comes with a graphic chip then im afraid there is no way to change that.

So this is a 2 part video, 10 minutes each.. I will post both of them here. Hope this helped. If you guys still have questions ask in the comments section and ill try to help you out.




and now for part 2 of the video: