Good Time to Buy A Low-end Laptop

If you're willing to file those rebate papers, you can pay less than $500 at many major retailers this month.

Tom Krazit, IDG News Service

Good prices on low-end notebooks abound this month, if you're willing to file for rebates, according to research released this week from Current Analysis.

Individual vendors previously dipped below the $500 mark with low-end notebooks this year but currently four major retailers as well as PC market leader Dell all had sub-$500 laptops displayed prominently on store shelves and in circulars over the past weekend, said Sam Bhavnani, principal analyst at Current Analysis in San Diego.

PC prices in general have come down over the past few years, but desktop prices have largely stabilized, Bhavnani said. With the continuing demand for notebooks to replace aging desktops, retailers such as Best Buy and CompUSA are becoming more aggressive with notebook sales and promotion, he said. (For buying advice, check out PC World's Laptops InfoCenter.)

Vendors are following suit as they take advantage of decreases in the prices of components such as DRAM (dynamic RAM) chips and flat-panel displays, Bhavnani said.

Good Prices Expected to Stay

"Notebooks are reaching the maturity that desktops reached a few years ago," Bhavnani said. He predicted vendors and retailers will continue to push each other to lower prices in the second half of the year, which is usually the busiest shopping period for PCs.

For example, at Best Buy, Toshiba offered a $449 version of its Satellite A85-S1072 notebook with a 15-inch display, Intel's Celeron M 360 processor, 256 megabytes of DRAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive. Over at CompUSA, Acer had a $499 AS3502WLCi notebook on sale with a Celeron M 360 processor, a 15-inch widescreen display, 512MB of DRAM, a 40GB hard drive, and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive. Dell's $499 Inspiron 1200 came with a 14-inch display, a Celeron M 350 processor, 256MB of DRAM, a 30GB hard drive, and a DVD-ROM/CD-RW drive.

Those prices, however, are reached only after several rebates. To get the low price on the Toshiba laptop, customers needed to complete the paperwork on a $200 manufacturer's rebate and a separate $150 mail-in rebate offered by Best Buy. CompUSA required customers to mail in rebate forms for an additional $200 in savings on Acer's notebook, while Dell needed rebate paperwork to receive $150 in savings.

Rebates allow vendors and retailers to offer seemingly low prices but take advantage of the fact that only about half of all customers bother to fill out and send in rebate forms, Bhavnani said. Some retailers and vendors are moving toward instant rebates that are automatically deducted at the time of purchase, but those are naturally more expensive to implement, he said.

The recent promotions are geared around the pending start of the U.S. school year. They also allow companies to test promotional strategies for the fourth-quarter holiday shopping season, which is the busiest of the year.