Where to find the best holiday deals on a new laptop?

November 14, 2010 3:55 PM

I'm in the market for a new laptop. While I'd be happy to hear suggestions on what to get, what I'm really interested in is making sure I can take advantage of holiday sales to get a great deal. So where should I be looking? What websites should I keep an eye on? (Specifics inside)

I'm not horribly picky. This laptop will mainly be used for schoolwork (Office suite will suffice), wifi web-surfing and playing flash games, and music and photo storage. I'm not a huge gamer, so I don't need the fastest blaster out there. I'd like to stay in a budget of maybe $500-$700. Ideally, I'd like this new guy to last me for the next 5 years or so. So if you have recommendations, that's cool, but really, I'd just like to stay on top of holiday specials. Thanks!

posted by Ufez Jones to Computers & Internet (3 answers total)

If you're willing to be patient, Woot.com will likely have several woot offs in the next month. They often include laptops. Laptops, expensive kitchen knives, watches and electronic/computer accessories are mostly what they sell, plus some of everything else.

Their shtick is they have one deal every day. During woot-offs they have lots of items that they sell, back to back, until they're sold out. So, for instance, a 42in TV for $400 might have 20 in stock and they're gone in 10 seconds. They might have 300 disney princess coloring books, that stick around for an hour. Their prices aren't always rock bottom, but they are designed to move.

So, like I said, it'll take some patience. Subscribing to their woot off twitter with text or email notifications might pay off. I've bought items small and large from woot and they have good customer service, should you need it.
posted by fontophilic at 4:30 PM on November 14, 2010

I'd recommend BlackFriday info in general for the holiday sales. They've already put up scans of the ads coming up for Black Friday for many retailers, and alert readers to what they feel are the best deal each retailer has to offer.

For example, today's ad scan was Office Depot, with the notice the store will be offering, "a Lenovo 15.6" Laptop w/2GB RAM, 250GB HD with Windows 7 for $279.99".
posted by misha at 4:32 PM on November 14, 2010

BensBargains.net has a nicely collated listing of most all the deals found on most deal sites. What I like about bensbargains over say maybe fatwallet.com is that the information if more groomed, you can search by item or type of item, etc and etc.

Fatwallet and bensbargains.net are the only two I spend time nosing around, Fatwallet prtty much the grandaddy of them all, just not laid out as nice is all..

Good luck.
posted by dancestoblue at 2:39 AM on November 15, 2010