BizNet OnLine Magazine, BizNet Goes Shopping On The Web

BizNet Goes Shopping On The Web
By: Mike Lipshultz
Mike@biznetonline.com

BizNet Goes Shopping On The Web

What happens when BizNet goes shopping on the web for a hot price on a laptop computer?

So, what happens when BizNet goes shopping on the web to buy a computer? Just what was the best deal found? First a little background.

One of our editors was getting tried of always switching from one "evaluation" LapTop to another (working here is just hell folks) and decided it was time to buy one of his own. As word processing and light databasing along with surfing the net were going to be the main needs, a state-of-the-art top-of-the-line machine was not needed. So we decided to see what could be found for about $1,000.00.

Why a grand? It is true that you can find some nice units for the above needs in the $600.00 range, put you would be lucky to find one at that price with even a hard drive of 1 gig. So why buy one. Look, in this day and age, a 3 gig drive is a minimum. It is pointless to get a unit that you know you are going to outgrow the hard drive on. So buy a $600.00 unit and throw in a bigger drive!. No dumb idea. A 3 gig drive for a Lap Top is going to be at lest a $300.00 upgrade job, so you’re now looking at $900.00 spent on a used LapTop running at best at 100 to 166 MHz. So we decided to set our price at a Grand and see how we would do.

We did pretty well. We found three systems for our consideration.

A $999.00 unit from Winbook

A $1159.00 unit from Compu-gig

A $1049.00 unit from Fujitsu.

The Winbook unit is a Pentium 300, 2.1 gig drive 16 meg, 12" display

The Unit from Compu-gig is a Compaq. 233 Pentium, 3.1 gig , 32 meg 12" display,

The Fujitsu is a Pentium 233, 3.1 gig 32 meg, 12" display

All of the above units have floppy and CD ROM drives. The Fujitsu has a Lithium Ion Battery, The others a Metal Hydride. The Fujitsu also comes with a Zip drive.

Any one of the above would be a good deal, but we chose the Fujitsu.

Reason... It fit our needs the best.

Look there is very little speed difference between a 300, and a 233, and this unit is going to be used for word processing and light database work. The hard drive size also counted against the Winbook unit as based on our needs it was more likely we would regret having a smaller drive, then the "slower" processor. Then you add in the value of the Lithium Ion battery (longer run time and usable life) and the value of having a Zip drive, and the choice was clear.

Based on spending only a grand, any one of the three would be a good buy. Which one would you have picked?

So, How was the hunting.

First we hit the auction sites. Found some great stuff. Made some nice bids, but all the actions we tried ended the same. The units went for more than we wanted to spend. The winning binds reflected a nice price. Not a great bargain, or a really hot deal, just a nice price. We wanted to do better.

So we then checked out about 25 manufacturer’s sites to look at Specials, Close-out, and Refurbished units. The hot find has a Fujitsu Life Book 280 dx for 1,049.00, listed as refurbished but really a brand new unit on close out. This became the unit to beat.

We then hit the on-line discount sellers. The best deal we found was at

Compu-Gig, on a 266 Compaq. This was a brand new unit. Very close to the Fujitsu unit. But as the Compaq did not have a Zip drive or a Lithium Ion Battery.

The Lithium Ion battery was worth at least $100.00 more then a Nickel Metal Hydride, Nicad. The built-in (modular) Zip drive was worth about $250.00. So, the Fujitsu looked like the winner.

Just to see how good this was, we gave the specs to five dealers we know. They could not even come close to this deal. So we got the Fujitsu unit.

Total time spent on this was about 3 to 4 hours of net surfing over a one week time span. Don’t forget we had to keep going back to the auction sites.

For more information check out:

WinBook : http://www.winbook.com/wbcommerce/webdeal.html

Fujitsu : http://onlineoutlet.fujitsu-pc.com/ic/external/index.asp

Compu Gig : http://www.compugig.com/

VST Technologies ( They make the Zip Drive for Fujitsu) : http://www.vsttech.com/

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