Cheap Laptops | Cheap Netbooks Blog

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.

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.

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: