where is the CHEAPEST place to get the S96J ??

right on

 

is... this forum... serious ???? HELP !

 

I would guess gentechpc.com or geared2play.com

 

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/DeepSearch.hmx?scriteria=s96j&ALL=y&TP=1

 

Honestly, "cheapest" is not the way to go with a laptop. Sure, you save maybe $100 on a $1500 computer. But then you lose $1500 when your computer fails and your reseller sucks, not to mention it is a pain to have to deal with most of the resellers out there, as well as the fact that going cheap will usually make everything take forever. It'll take a month to get the computer shipped to you in the first place, or two months to get it "repaired"- they might send it back still broken- instead of a reasonable week.

That $100 extra you pay going with a good reseller is definately worth it. Sure, paying $1400 for a laptop and getting bad service is better than paying $1500 for a laptop and getting bad service, but nothing is better than a reasonably priced laptop from a great reseller.

I would suggest www.btotech.com (formerly known as geared2play) or www.powernotebooks.com.

Whoever you buy from, be sure to research them thoroughly first. In the world of notebooks, your reseller is just as important if not more important than the laptop itself. Trust me, I learned the hard way.

 

Someone needs to switch to decaf...only thirty minutes between posts there, and even people who live on these forums need to go to the bathroom.

Anyhow, I bought my S96J from GenTech and I couldn't be happier. There are other sellers who have gotten just as good reviews, but I can only vouch for a company I've purchased from. Of course there are dealers who will sell cheaper, but be forewarned that if something looks too good to be true, it usually is. This means that they will usually stuff substandard parts into your beloved S96J, maybe a crappy hard drive (read the fine print carefully...these dealers will not specify the brand or condition of the drive, only size), or maybe they'll rush your unit out the door and forget to insert the RAM or screw down the heatsink. Or some other nonsense you'll want to hear only for shock value.

 

These are good points, but not quite what I was aiming at.

While those are true, atleast those things can be taken care of fairly easily. The big issues can be first of all time, I've ordered from crap companies before that claimed they ship out all notebooks in 5 days or less who took well over a month to ship mine out. I've also dealt with resellers who repeatedly held my laptop in RMA for 2 months, and when they sent it back to me, all they did was format the hard disk. Mind you I had to send this laptop back 5 times in a row for RMA, because my motherboard was faulty -not failed, it still worked about half the time-, and each time I sent it back I told the dealer what the problem was, explained it to them, wrote everything out, and explained why their usual "replace ram and wipe hard disk" routine won't work. Of course, they didn't listen until the 5th time. I spent well over $100 in shipping costs to send it back for a repair that should not have taken more than 3 days. And this series of RMA's took 11 months. Since the laptop took 1 month to initially ship, the 12 month warranty was now expired at this point, so I've got a year-old unused laptop with no warranty that could fail at any minute.

Get the idea now? Service and Support is VERY important in the world of laptop. You have no idea how frustrating it is to try to get someone who doesn't speak English to listen to what you have to say, and to get them to do their job properly.

The best way to save money on an S96J would be to put it together yourself. Buy a barebones from a respected company with a good warranty, and then buy your other parts perhaps on E-bay or find cheap new parts. You'll have a good warranty on the main system, you'll be able to fix any other minor problems, and you save money.

 

...and there's the shock value I was talking about

 

I think the point about buying from a respected reseller has been made. So now, I'm gonna answer the original question. If he/she doesn't listen, however, and has future problems, don't say we didn't warn you.

Of all the sites I looked at in my search, I found ibuypower.com to be the cheapest. Remember, you've been warned!

 

in those 30 minutes he probably could've gone through most of the resellers and found the lowest price himself.