Best Buy and Asus Laptops

Here's the situation:

(1) I'm selling my old boring Dell Latitude and I've got $200 towards Best Buy in gift certificates. Hence, I want to buy a new laptop, preferably from Best Buy.

(2) In general, I want all of the usual good stuff: wireless-N on chip, some sort of Intel processor (it seems like Centrino 2 would be best, but I suppose Centrino or Core 2 Duo would be OK too, right?), 4 gigs of RAM, Vista, etc...e.g., all of the normal stuff that you'd want for a decent new laptop.

(3) After 4 years of never being able to play computer games (the Latitude was no good for that sort of thing), I'd kind of like to be able to play a few select games without slowdown - specifically, the D&D RPGs Neverwinter Nights and its sequel, Neverwinter Nights 2 (any of you guys ever play these?). I don't want a super-serious gaming rig to be able to play Crysis and Fallout and other insane stuff...I've got a ps3 for that sort of thing (minus Crysis, I suppose). NWN and NWN 2 are a few years old, but both were noted at the time of release to have really high system reqs.

Furthermore, I want to be able to play these games on my TV - I've got a nice Samsung 1080p LCD tv with HDMI input. So, I want the laptop to have a decent dedicated 3d card with an HDMI output so that I can play NWN and NWN 2 on my TV screen

It seems like Asus is a good manufacturer to go with to satisfy my requirements, considering they're one of the only companies I've seen that puts together sub-$1000 gaming laptops. Also, I'd prefer a 14 or 15 inch screen, rather than a 17".

Here are a few questions: I'd appreciate any input that you all care to offer!

Question 1: Is it just me, or does Best Buy seem to be offering more Asus laptops these days? Is this the start of a trend? Or are there just more sales of these Asus laptops relative to other brands, etc? A Best Buy rep in the store told me that they are going to stock more Asus laptops in the coming weeks, but I didn't know if I should take that with a grain of salt or not.

Question 2: Concerning the X83vb-X1 and the X83vm-X1 - each of these models has had $150 off at Best Buy over the past 2 weeks. What are the chances that similar sales pop up on Black Friday? I'm willing to wake up early/tackle old ladies to get to the laptop of my choosing.

Question 3: Would the X83vb-X1 meet my requirements, listed below? I'm sure that the X83vm-X1 would meet them. At the current moment, $700 for the first laptop is tough to beat...

Question 4: The main differences between the two laptops are that the m1 has a video card with double the RAM, and it has a Centrino 2 rather than an old Centrino. Is this worth the price difference?

Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

Here is something that I would consider, personally..

Take your money, and buy a better laptop than you can get from best buy at GenTechPC or XoticPC, or even Newegg. You will get better bang for your buck. Take the $200 gift card then, and upgrade that laptop. For instance, with GenTech or Xotic you can get Barebones and configure them the way you want it... then buy your RAM or a CPU with your best buy gift card. Or else, you could get yourself a bag with it.

Personally, I would really stay away from best buy's laptops ... they are over priced for what they are many times. If you are a typical consumer and don't really care about what is in the laptop and just need something that might function.. best buy might take care of it.

 

I partly disagree, i know my PC stuff and have worked in the IT for 10 years or so and am an avid gamer. I have the g50 from BB.......I just got i last week, and have thought and am still thinking of returning it for the newegg version, which is like 350.00 more with a better CPU and better resolution, and two HDs. Really the only motivator is the better screen, 1680x1050 is great.....my old asus ran at that res as does my desktop. After using this machine, and thinking it over im prob not going to do it, why? 1366x768 seems bad, but IN game its fine, i compared it to my desktop at 1680x1050 and really there was no diff, + FPS is going to be worse at that res on new games. And the ORANGE version is kind of fugly....BB gray is nice.

BB=less warranty, cheaper + 200,00 gift card, with SAME in game performance, dont let anyone here tell you other wise, BB has high performance ram and 7200 drive......yes 200mhz more CPU is good, but the bottle neck is the GPU.

Asus version= more disk space, you can run raid, 200mhz or so CPU boost and the key, better screen. If you are using this largely for office stuff, consider it for the work space, if your like me and using it for a gaming rig....think it over.....with youre gift card its a bad *** gaming rig for like 950.00

 

Before you buy from Best Buy, be aware that:

A) They may have special deals with the manufacturer and there is no "regular" manufacturers warranty.

B) If you do not buy "their" extended warranty, you may get screwed over.

C) Best Buy is notorious for being "expensive".

See this below:


DON'T buy this crap from BEST BUY
Submitted by TK on 10/14/2008 3:29:01 PM

Rating: 5/10

Pros: Large 15.4" screen. Crisp keyboard

Cons: Service/support from HELL. When I bought it from Best Buy, the floor clerk told me that the service/warranty should be same as buying directly from DELL. NOT! It broke only after 2.5 weeks (the touchpad stopped working), and DELL refused to support it because I bought it from Best Buy. I had to take it back to Best Buy, wait on the line for 15 minutes, have the moron squad agent fumble for 5 minutes and then pay shipping fee to ship it back to DELL. Turned out, they didn't even ship it back to DELL! It went to Best Buy service center wherever the heck it is. And for 3 weeks I'm out of computer, while Best Buy is telling me "don't call us, we'll call you when we have it back". Just freaking unbelievable. This reflects real badly on DELL. Why on earth would they have somebody else service their own product? This is last time I'm buying anything from Best Buy or DELL.

http://www.notebookreview.com/price...41&productFamilyID=1106&display=opinionDetail



Google Best Buy Dell Warranty to see lots more complaints.

 

All this stuff about BB's lack of a warranty is dumb. If you read the first sticky in the Asus category, you will see how to register your lappy for the Accidental Warranty. I did it with my BB G50Vm-X1 and just got the verification email from them, saying that I now have an extended 2-year warranty, free 2-way shipping, free tech support, as well as the 1-year accidental coverage.

 

However, no one has actually confirmed whether this is a glitch on Asus' part or an actual change in Asus' policy for their exclusive notebooks sold at BB - which in the past has excluded those units from Asus' 360 warranty coverage as part of the price differential.

 

Units purchased form BestBuy are NOT qualified for the Accidental Damage Warranty, they usually carry a 1-year warranty coverage but some may have 2-years depending on the arrangement by the Sale and Marketing department and BestBuy.

 

Interesting stuff about the warranties...but I'm mostly interested in your thoughts about Best Buy pricing trends, and whether I can expect to see some good Asus deals at Best Buy on or around Black Friday. Thoughts?

Thanks!

 

My tendency is to say no -- usually BB cuts deals with HP, Toshiba or Sony to have a fire sale on 1-2 models to get people into the store. I just don't see them doing that with Asus.....

 

I think it's pretty erratic. For example, within the first month of release, the X83Vb-X1 went from $850 to $700 for no particular reason that I could think of. You could see if BB would have any deals on black friday, but I wouldn't bet my bottom dollar on it

 

I agree 100% heh this looks like something i would have said.