INTRODUCTION for a
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GENERAL INTRODUCTION In early 2014, I decided to start recording computer bargains that I come across occasionally --- especially sales on netbook and laptop computers --- because I really like netbook computers --- as documented on my Netbook Love (Testimonials) web page. In 2014, it seemed that every few months Target came out with a particularly nice sale on netbooks or laptops. Often they were selling a netbook that was ordinarily $299 or $249 for about $199 (a savings of $50 to $100) --- or a laptop that was ordinarily $349 or $299 for about $269 (a savings of $30 to $80). Usually, it turned out that Target did not have enough of the advertised computers in stock to fill the demand. In fact, I suspect that most of their stores had zero units in stock ... and that they were only using the advertised bargain to lure people into their stores. I say this because I visited a local Target store about twice a week and checked their computers section --- and, after one of these (Sunday) ads appeared, I realized that just a day or two before the ad appeared, Target had none of the advertised computers on their shelves. Either the computers were delivered on a Friday or Saturday ... or there were none at all for sale in the store on Sunday morning. In any case, when I can't find a bargain at Target, there are occasionally some appealing low-end computers for sale at bargain prices at other stores in the area --- such as Walmart or BestBuy or OfficeDepot/OfficeMax. On these 'computer bargain' pages, I am generally restricting my attention to netbook and laptop computers selling in the $170 to $300 price range. Computers selling for more than this generally have
I would be wasting my money buying computers like that. My web development and Tcl-Tk script programming and e-mail checking do not require a computer that is that 'over-equipped'. Most of the computer 'offerings' that I was seeing in the 2012-2014 time frame were ridiculously overloaded. This was after Intel and the computer manufacturers decided that their profit margins on netbooks were too slim --- and started trying to convince people that they needed $800 to $1200 'ultra-books'. The over-loading:
Taking into account CPU performance In late 2013, I ran across the web site cpubenchmark.net which publishes benchmarks of a wide range of computer chips --- mostly Intel and AMD. Since I discovered their nice listings with CPU-chip model numbers --- sorted by performance (and performance relative to heat generation), I have decided to be more diligent in my comparison and evaluation of advertised computer bargains. That is, instead of just looking at the prices --- and checking some non-CPU items --- like how-many-inches-of-monitor, how-many-USB-ports, presence-of-wired-ethernet-port, presence-of-1-or-2-video-ports (VGA or HDMI), how-many-GB-of-memory, how-many-GB-of-disk-space, how-many-pounds-weight --- I should be paying a little more attention to the CPU performance I am getting for the money. I bought about 6 netbook computers (3 with 10.1" screens and 3 with 11.6" screens) in the 2009 to 2013 time frame. All of them were equipped with either Intel Atom or AMD C70 chips --- which show up near the very bottom of the CPU chip lists of cpubenchmark.net --- the lists sorted by CPU performance. The Intel Atom and AMD C70 chips are quite OK for my purposes --- with Ubuntu 9.10 or Linux Mint for the operating system --- and Gnome 2.28 (or its successor, MATE) for the desktop environment and Nautilus 2.28 (or its successor, Caja) for the file manager. All the (unenlightened) trash-talking about the poor performance of Atom chips is quite that --- unenlightened. Sure, those chips are generally not suited for high-end gaming or watching 1920x1080 high-definition videos. But if you do neither of those things, a netbook is probably sufficient for your purposes. That said, I may as well try to get the most CPU for the sub-$300 that I am paying. NOTE: Many of the complainers about netbook performance are probably dealing with a computer loaded with 'hidden' programs consuming a lot of resources --- and/or they are visiting web sites whose web pages are written horribly inefficiently --- and judging the netbook on those NON-netbook factors. Near the top of the cpubenchmark.net CPU performance list(s) were Intel i7 and Intel Xeon chips (in 2013-2014). In looking at the ('PassMark') performance numbers at the bottom and the top of the list, one could see that the Intel i7 chips were about 10 times faster than the early Intel Atom chips (when comparing single CPU-or-thread performance --- which I do because I am typically putting a significant load on only a single CPU, with a single, main thread of processing). For your/my convenience, on a separate CPU Benchmark Ratings Info page, there are links to various sorted performance lists of the cpubenchmark.net site.
Hey, Intel. In late-2012 and early-2013, many of the PC manufacturers --- HP, Dell, Asus, Toshiba, Sony, Fujitsu, Acer, Gateway, Lenovo, etc. --- started to offer more laptop computers in the 450-plus dollars range --- usually $800 to $1,200 and more --- rather than less-than-$450 laptops. And Intel was right there, helping them along, with all the Intel TV ads, proclaiming that everyone needed an 'ultrabook' --- with its solid-state-disk (SSD) allowing for faster startup (boot-up or login). Riiigght. (some sarcasm here) A regular old rotating disk drive is quite fast enough for all the computing most of us need to do after logging in. But we should spend an additional $500 to $800 just so that we login about 20 seconds faster, one or two times per day, some days??? Makes sense --- to those with money to waste. In 2013, most of the computer offerings of PC manufacturers were ridiculously overloaded --- apparently to help jack the prices up, even if you didn't buy a computer with a solid-state-disk drive:
No wonder the laptop and desktop PC industry was experiencing lower sales numbers for the first time. It wasn't just iPads and iPhones doing the damage. It was the elevated prices.
Hey, Google and Samsung. I get way too many ads on the cable TV that I am paying for each month. I do not want to run a 'gauntlet' of even more ads by using Google stuff --- Chromebooks, Android, Chrome browser, etc. None of the Chromebook nonsense for me (wasting my time --- waiting for web pages to fill-in with graphics-heavy ads, and navigating through a 'thicket' of popup ads, and having to read extra pages because each page is about 50%-or-more ads). And I certainly do not want to risk my data in 'the cloud'. I have witnessed too many cases of web sites going 'belly up', and people losing the files that they had 'out there'. Besides, the cloud data gatherers (like Facebook and Google and Twitter) are constantly changing the rules according to which they allow access to your data --- and the changes are usually not in your favor. The sellers of Chromebooks want you to do ALL of your computing on the web. To help assure that, they provide essentially no local storage --- and no USB ports by which to add more storage. Even if they ever DO offer a USB port or two --- they do not offer the convenience of a sufficient amount of built-in storage. That is not for me.
What I need (I don't need a 'touch screen' either. I do not want to put my oily fingers on the monitor glass.) All I really need (to augment my desktop computer) is a netbook. I define a netbook to be a computer with the following features:
The 'bargain computers' in the lists on these pages generally satisfy these requirements.
Not Dead Yet ! Around 2012, it was disconcerting to me to see that the iPad started adversely impacting the sales of netbooks. People --- who were apparently not bothered by the restrictive (and expensive) nature of that operating environment (an operating environment that seemed to be leading its users around by rings through their noses) --- started making statements on internet sites that 'the netbook is dead'. In early 2013, some of the main manufacturers of netbooks (Asus and Acer) announced that they were discontinuing manufacture of netbooks. At the same time, they started coming out with Chromebooks with similar hardware features --- smallish screens (11.6" or less), no CD/DVD drive, wireless internet connectability, a built-in (or attachable) keyboard as well as a built-in monitor, and weighing less than 3 pounds. Sounds suspiciously like a netbook. The Chromebooks were actually 'near-netbooks' with an Android operating system instead of a Microsoft Windows 7 or Windows 8 operating system. (From 2010 up to mid 2012, most netbooks shipped with Windows 7 on them.) Some netbooks appeared in late 2012 with Windows 8 on them. However, soon after that, most manufacturers indicated that they would not be making netbooks. This seemed to correspond with the fact that Microsoft was coming out with their 'Surface' computers with Windows 8 on them. Another netbook-like computer! I think the netbook manufacturers were probably concerned that the Microsoft 'Surface' computers were going to 'trash' their netbook sales. As evidence that manufacturers may start considering other operating systems (other than MS Windows and other than the internet-oriented Chrome OS): Around March 2013, I noticed that a new Asus X201E 11.6" notebook (netbook), with Ubuntu installed, was getting good reviews at bhphotovideo.com of New York City. I think it is not likely that such netbooks are going away soon. The computers of the 'One Laptop Per Child' (OLPC) project would probably come very close to fitting the definition of a netbook --- and that project had not folded as of 2013. And ... There will probably be other manufacturers who come out with netbooks like the Asus X201E (mentioned above) --- with a Linux (or Microsoft Windows) operating system installed. (In fact, in early 2014, Gateway was still offering netbooks, with Microsoft Windows 8 installed. Those netbooks were for sale in Walmart and Target stores.) If the appearance of netbooks with Linux (Ubuntu or Linux Mint or whatever) pre-installed fails to 'pan out', Linux netbooks will probably 'rise up from below' --- from the small, less-than-50-dollar Raspberry Pi and Beagleboard and other computer boards that are capturing the imagination of many experimenters and developers. In any case, the reason I find the phrase 'the netbook is dead; long live netbooks' so true is that we already (in early 2013) have multiple netbook-like examples that the netbook is far from dead:
So to all those people who have been declaring that netbooks are dead (in the 2010-2013 time frame), I say you are dead wrong. Long Live Netbooks! (in their current and future forms)
Intro to some Computer Bargains On the 'parent page' of this page --- a Computer Bargains MENU page --- are links to some of the computer sales bargains that I have encountered since early 2014 --- grouped into years when I first found them on sale --- most recent year first --- and with various models grouped by maker within each year. In other words, the sort order is maker-model within year --- with makers like Acer, HP, and Asus. Note that most of these computers come with CPU chips that are either Intel or AMD. And note that, among Intel-equipped computers, in the 2010-to-2020 decade, the computers that come with 'i3' or 'i5' or 'i7' chips are not in the sub-$300 bargain range. In fact, when you check advertised prices of computers with these Intel chips, you find that the prices are usually in the following ranges:
Occasionally you can find one of these Intel-equipped computers offered at a lower price. For example, you can occasionally find an 'i3' computer for $350. In that case, the computer is usually equipped with memory and storage space at the low end --- about 4GB of memory and about 500GB of 'disk' storage space (which is quite sufficient for most people's purposes if they do not play high-performance computer games nor store hundreds of lengthy movies). At the $350 price level, the 'i3' chip may be at the lower end of the 'i3' chips offered by Intel. You can get the specific model number of the chip and use the 'PassMark' performance numbers at cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html (for a single-thread on a CPU) to see the relative performance rating of that particular 'i3' chip. The performance ranges of the 'i3' and 'i5' and 'i7' chips may overlap. This is often because later generations of each of the chips may have some significant architecture changes that significantly improve the performance of the newer chips within each of these three model-categories. Here are Intel 'Passmark' performance ranges for Intel chip models --- from cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html in Sep 2015 :
There is a 400, 500, 600, or 700 percent difference between the low and the high values of the performance range of most of these chip 'families'. Hence you see that it is almost meaningless to say that a computer is equipped with, say, a 'Celeron' or a 'Pentium' or an 'i7' or 'i5' or 'i3' processor --- unless the model-number of the processor is specified. The sub-$300 bargain computers that are equipped with Intel chips usually use either 'Atom' or 'Celeron' or (occasionally) 'Pentium' chips. For AMD chips, the models and their performance do not follow quite as clear a pattern as the Intel pattern --- Atom, Celeron, Pentium, i3, i5, i7. But here is an attempt at an overview. Here are AMD 'Passmark' ranges from cpubenchmark.net/singleThread.html on 28 Sep 2015 :
OLD-AMD-chips NOTE:
The AMD 'A6', 'A8', and 'A10' series are ROUGHLY competing with the Intel 'i3', 'i5', and 'i7' series --- but their highest Passmark ratings are generally about 30 to 33% lower than these 'corresponding' Intel series. (The AMD 'FX' series also appears to be competing with the Intel 'i7' series.) The AMD 'A4' processors are ROUGHLY competing with the Intel 'Pentium' processors. The high-end A4 had a Passmark rating about 33% below that of the high-end Pentium. The AMD 'E2' processors are ROUGHLY competing with the Intel 'Celeron' processors. The high-end E2 had a Passmark rating about 50% below that of the high-end Celeron. (The high-end E1 had a Passmark rating about 70% below that of the high-end Celeron --- a total mis-match. The AMD E1 is roughly on par with Intel Atom processors.) The AMD 'C' series processors (like the C70) are ROUGHLY competing with the Intel 'Atom' processors. The high-end in the AMD 'C' series had a Passmark rating about 45% below that of the high-end Atom. Some makers of bargain computers: I have had good experiences with Acer netbooks --- and Acer bought Gateway --- and continued offering Gateway netbooks into 2014 --- after Acer and Asus quit offering netbooks around January 2013. (Asus and Acer 'netbook-type' computers started re-appearing in 2014.) Other PC manufacturers, besides Acer/Gateway, to consider: The computers offered by CyberpowerPC and iBuyPower, in computer magazines, are usually liquid-cooled computers oriented toward gaming --- and selling for over $600. So those (gaming) types of computers do not appear in these 'computer bargain' lists --- until they start selling sub-$300 computers. I have to hand it to Asus. During 2013, they were occasionally offering a netbook-type computer with Linux (Ubuntu) on it --- in the USA. So my favorite PC manufacturer, after Acer/Gateway, is Asus. Since Samsung is mostly offering Chromebooks (with the Android operating system, which tries to lead you through a gauntlet of Google ads, and offers no more than 32 GB of local storage), I do not often see Samsung computers that I like. I do not see very many HP or Dell or Lenovo computers (that I like) offered in the sub-$300 range. I have had disconcerting experiences in trying to go into the BIOS/UEFI boot system menus on HP and Dell computers. They seem to be co-operating with Microsoft in making it hard to install Linux on their computers. In 2015, it was reported that Lenovo was putting bloatware (adware and worse - 'malware') on their computers. So I regard Lenovo with much suspicion. Sony and Fujitsu (Japanese manufacturers) tend to be rather pricey --- and Toshiba (another Japanese manufacturer) seems unfriendly to Linux. Dell also seems to be unfriendly to Linux --- although they have made some half-hearted attempts to sell Linux computers in Europe. Almost certainly, HP, Dell, Toshiba, Sony, Lenovo, Asus, and Acer are afraid of getting 'unfavorable' treatment from Microsoft. In these lists of 'bargain computers', you will notice Acer, Gateway, and Asus computers --- along with some HP, Dell, Lenovo, and Toshiba computers. If Samsung ever starts offering non-Chromebook computers (with more than 160 GB of local storage space) --- in the under-$300 range, THEN some Samsung models may appear in these lists. After all, Samsung seems to make sturdy-looking, light-weight computers with 11.6" monitors. In the 'bargain computers' lists, I include info on
Although it may be that not all of this information is on the computer-bargain pages, a 'WEB SEARCH' link is offered, at each computer make and model-number --- to help find this info. I have split the 'computer bargain' lists into 3 groups of 'bargain' computers:
The 'PassMark' performance numbers at cpubenchmark.net, for a single-thread on a CPU, were ranging from about 200 to about 2,300 (2014mar) --- for ALL the chips on the list at 'cpubenchmark.net'. In other words, the Intel 'i7' chips at the top of that range were rated about 10 times higher than the Intel 'Atom' chips near the bottom of that range. I will be satisfied if I find some sub-$300 computers with PassMark performance ratings in the 500 to 800 range.
NOTE: Well, that's enough background. Return to the 'Computer Bargains MENU page' for links to lists of bargains --- starting around 2014. |
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