I found this link about the laptops at
Walmart for Black Friday because I wanted to buy one too, here's some food for thought from one user on another website (
http://forums.AnandTech.com)
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Originally posted by: hifi
the $398 laptop deal is not bad, can't believe laptop can get this cheap nowaday. but i wonder how's the design, it might be a no-branded laptop which if something goes wrong you have no one to turn to.
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Well, I don't think anyone here can comment on the laptop's build quality as it's not in Wal-Mart yet and probably will only be for BF or later.
What I can comment on is the HUGE build difference between HP/Compaq computer builds between Wal-Mart and CC/BB models.
Had a neighbor w/a problem with her HP she'd bought at Wal-mart.
It'd become so infested with viruses that I had to wipe the hard drive and reinstall Windows. She'd burned the "hidden" partition onto CD....was her backup copy of windows XP, but since lost it and the computer wouldn't reburn a second copy.
Luckily I had an OEM copy of WinXP which worked perfectly with her key.
But while I had it, I had to go download some drivers and specific programs and found out some interesting stuff......there were two different computers built with the same model number, just different suffixes. The Wal-Mart sold computer's model number ended in "W" while the BB/CC model was like an "N" or something.
The HP website was kind enough to provide the list of each computer's guts and the difference between the two was very surprising, to say the least.
The BB/CC's box had an Asus motherboard, twice the amt. of memory and was made by Samsung, the CDRW was a Sony unit, the hard drive was a Western Digital.........
The Wal-Mart model, on the other hand, had a TriGem motherboard, memory by some unknown company that sounded like had a Chinese origin, the CDRW was an off-brand of, again, a Chinese sounding-name, and the hard drive was an unknown brand with a Chinese locale (I pulled this out and looked at it......was from Shanghai.)
So, while the model number was ALMOST identical, the guts of each was vastly different and showed why there was such a difference in price between the two models.
In the end, I don't think I'd actually consider buying any computer from Wal-Mart, knowing their history of cost-cutting.......a motherboard is NOT a motherboard, memory is NOT memory, a hard drive is NOT a hard drive........we all know there are varying qualities of each type of component. So, you get exactly what you pay for in Wal-Mart....and in many cases, it's money poorly spent, IMHO.
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I saw a copy of the Wal Mart ad today & the HP computer is $488.00 for the the desktop or laptop. I made a copy of that page because I wanted to study the camera!
) But I can tell you that my DH works at a big chip manufacturer. They announced in the marketing meeting about this "great deal" at 
).
