Budget laptop shopping adventures,cont.

:budget: How did I do? Brought back the $450 Staples Aspire within the 14 days, sorry screen just not good enough for DVD and videos. Purchased the Best buy $450 Compaq 2403 with brightscreen. Celeron 360 14in. wxga. Main problem a big 300 merchant rebate with tax on purchase. Best buy was terrible, an unrelenting sales pitch, and very discourteous and slow security exit. My last purchase there.

Very happy out of the box. Great keyboard and screen is outstanding. Lighterweight, by over a pound. WiFi good, but fan noise is a bit distracting.

 

Lies by BB salesperson; no anti-virus program included, no recovery disc. Just hope the rebate check is being processed is the truth. He started by saying there were no units left until he checked in the back. You have to go through two security guards the second was on the phone and got nasty when I told him to speed it up. Had to go to manager. Should start a worst retail experience thread outside of BF.

On a good note, tried the battery and got over three hours before I got a low battery message. This was with top bright setting and on broadband. Very good for celeron.

 

BestBuy is very good about rebates. I would recommend making copies of everything before sending it off.

 

I don't recall having any problem getting rebate from three major retailer such as Circuitcity, Compusa, Bestbuy...

However, I am getting tired of preparing all those forms, and copies etc etc... So that actually and very interestingly, I am getting away from those rebate items.... so, funny is that, whenever they offer any rebate, I try to find the alternative from other online retailer, which can offer me the same price/value without rebate....

Thus, those rebates things makes me getting more and more away from BB, CC, CU.....

 

It is surprisingly fast and easy through the Net. No things getting lost through the mail. Just a few ID numbers and address to punch in.
But I agree no rebates if possible is the way to go.

Thing that really bothers me is that they took out the brightscreen in order to budgetize and turned a very good machine into something sub-standard. The Acer was very well made and fast. What was that a $50 or less item?

 

I have heard that CompUSA is extremely awful with their rebates, that many times they'll reject your rebate application and will take forever to send you the rebate check, but its only things I've heard.