best deal on a nc8430?

so after talking with my friend and bouncing some ideas off him, he decided he wants a nc8430 (i'm still undecided bouncing around between various 15" stuff probally a dell)

anyways, which e-tailers are gonna have the best deal on this thing? best prices i have seen are like $1400.

 

At most etailers I've seen, you sacrifice Customer Service for price. For example, the nx9420 I purchased at Page Computers is the cheapest ($1150, $100 below MSRP), but I am not allowed to return it, and their ratings have been low.

 

$1150 is a heck of a deal! BAH why's the 17" cheaper? How do you like it?

 

I'm still waiting for it. I ordered on Friday, and I'm expecting it this week. And 17" is probably cheaper because they probably have to worry less about cramming really hot components into a small case.

 

Mighty impressive hardware for the price that's for sure. Only other laptop I have heard of that is under $1200 that has a x1600 in it is the Acer 5672WLMi which comes free with all it's heat issues.

Any pictures/reviews of the nx9420 out there? I might consider that one for myself .. crazy good price.

 

Oh, and some basic Bargain Hunter Tools of the Trade...

Pricegrabber.com
Easy to use, and provides price including shipping and tax without going onto the etailer's site. However, they miss a few stores...

Froogle.com
Has the more obscure stores, but pulls in a lot of unrelated products.

Resellerratings.com
Check out reviews of a certain store to see if it's OK.

Google
For the people with the most time on their hands, gets EVERYTHING. Click on every single link that seems to be a store (since Froogle misses a few of these links)

Yahoo.com Shopping
Errr, almost the same as pricegrabber, just an alternative.

PriceWatch.com
Not really great for finding whole systems, but it's awesome for finding parts. Pretty disorganized though.

 

Oh, plenty of reviews, though most of them are the biased "professional" kind of reviews...

http://laptopmag.com/Review/HP-Compaq-nx9420.htm
http://notebookreview-cnet.com.com/...bj=fdba&part=notebookreview-cnet&tag=_Laptops

And here's a thread (very long) about the nx9420. Remember, if you get it from where I did, THERE'S NO TURNING BACK!!!

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=44243

 

Ohhh come on, there's always eBay
Thanks for the links!

 

nice price for your 17incher...

are there any other models with higher processor?

 

Well, there's a bunch of models. The one I really wanted had a Core Duo T2400, WSXGA+ BrightView, 1GB RAM, DVD-RW, Wi-Fi, BlueTooth, 100GB 5400RPM HDD all for $1420. The MSRP for that model is $1699.

 

WWW.LAPTOPSDIRECT.CO.UK IS THE BEST FOR UK but i dunno for usa.

 

Wow! So there is a BrightView nx9420 too? That's the glossy coating HP has on all their consumer laptops right?

$1450 ... I think I just found my new baby ..

Deffinately let us know when you get your nx9420, and be sure to post some pictures for us!

 

I wish I could have gotten that one. It was real nice one. I'm expecting mine this week, expect a full review with bechmarks and a bunch of pics. Also, note that the bad thing about HP is they use 533MHz RAM.

Also, don't expect to travel with that thing, from what I have seen in stores. Brightview is the glossy coating, and it looks real nice from what I can see on this HP Compaq V2000z that I'm using right now.

It's a good thing the nx9420 has a spill resistant keyboard, because I'm gonna be drooling all over mine. Add in a mouse and the Intel Realx Pack offer, and you have everything you need to use the computer (although I heard the case in the Relax Pack is way too small).

 

Not really a bad thing. 533mhz ram is basically the same as 667mhz right now, because the 533mhz has better timings than the 667. You'll see higher PCMark scores with the 533mhz actually. I've seen a few benchmarks and it ends up evening out between the two across a full benchmark suite. If 667mhz was available in lower latencies to match up with 533mhz then it'd be easy to see a difference, but yea, right now it's a wash.

 

It's really a shame I couldn't get the BrightView, it really is beautiful. I'm planning on doing a few upgrades to mine over it's lifetime...

Upgrade to 100GB HDD (supposedly, that's all it supports)
New Keyboard and TouchPad with pointing stick
BlueTooth Card
Upgrade to 2GB, then 4GB of RAM (Yep, it supports 4GB)
Upgrade to Merom (when prices drop)
Upgrade to BrightView (if I could afford)

 

When I bouht my nc8430, I chose the 3rd cheapest vendor which was Buy.com as listed on Pricegrabber. The first two, one of which was PageComputers, was soooo cheap that I decided to check out their ratings and saw in my opinion a pattern of buyers being told an item was in stock but in reality it was on backorder. They were also not a highly rated merchant and since I wanted my laptop ASAP, I decided to go with Buy.com and it cost me $100 more. I have better things to do than deal with this kind of hassle..

 

Buy.com worked out well for me, they even let me change the shipping option to 2 day after ordering.