Computer Deals for the Week of Oct. 11 thru Oct. 17, 2009 in the Cocoa, FL area
Each week Solis PC Doc review the ads in the Sunday edition of Florida Today. Listed below are the best deals for the current week. Please note that I only look at desktop computers that are on sale for $750 or less and laptops for $600 or less. This page will be updated every Sunday after we have had a chance to review the weekly ads. Please note that listing is sorted by Desktop and Laptop, then by CPU Rating (faster first), and then by price. If you have any questions, please call us at 321-355-1227.
I believe that the computers listed below are a good choice for frugal shoppers seeking a general purpose computer for Web surfing, light photo editing, basic home productivity tasks, and watching DVD movies. They lack the power to run resource hogging multimedia application or high end games. I've written a article that discusses what you need to know about purchasing a new computer. I've also provide shopping list that you can print and take with you when you go shopping.
Store Name | Product /
SKU No | Laptop Desktop | Product Description and Comments | CPU* Mark | CPU** Rating | Normal Price | Sale Price | Deal | Link |
| Staples | 801-630 | Desktop | Compaq Presario CQ5110F Desktop PC with AMD Athlon X2 7550 Dual Core Processor. No monitor is included, but it does come with a free HP Deskjet D4360 printer. | 1439 | 193 | 379.98 | 279.90 | Ok | Link |
| Office Depot | 494-028 | Desktop | Compaq® Presario Desktop with AMD Athlon™ X2 Dual-Core Processor 7550, 3 GB memory, and 320 GB hard drive. No monitor included with this price. This is a decent entry level computer. | 1434 | 200 | 359.99 | 296.99 | OK | Link |
| Staples | 801-627 | Desktop | Acer AM1202-U1850A Desktop PC with AMD Athlon LE 1640 Processor., 2 GB Memory, 320 GB hard drive. No monitor is included. | 697 | 394 | 319.98 | 249.90 | Poor | Link |
| Staples | | Laptop | HP Laptop with Intel Pentium 2.00 GHz T4200 Dual-Core, 3GB memory. Staples did not supply any details | 1218 | 244 | 629.98 | 449.98 | Poor | None |
| Staples | | Laptop | HP Laptop with AMD Turion X2 Ultra-ZM-82 Dual Core, with 4 Gb memory, and 500 GB hard drive. | 1046 | 291 | 799.98 | 599.98 | Very Poor | None |
| Office Depot | 410-364 | Laptop | Acer® Notebook Acer® AS4810-8480 14" Widescreen Notebook with Intel® Core™2 Solo Processor SU3500. This is a very slow computer. Do not waste your money. If you have to buy it, you should go to Staples where it is $50 less. | 472 | 474 | 699.99 | 549.99 | Very Poor | Link |
| Staples | | Laptop | Acer Laptop with Intel Core2 Solo Processor SU3500. Staples did not supply any details. | 472 | 474 | 699.98 | 499.99 | Very Poor | None |
What is the difference between a 32 bit and 64 bit computer?
Without getting into a whole technical discussion, the 64 bit computer can access more internal memory than a 32 bit system. A 32 bit computer is limited to accessing about 3.5 gigabytes where as a 64 bit computer can access up to a 128 gigabytes of memory. You can read Microsoft's article that describes the difference between the 32 bit and 64 bit version of Windows Vista. Or you can read Microsoft's list of frequently asked questions about 32 bit and 64 bit computers. Another good article, but much more technical, is Wikipedia's 64 articles that discusses 64 bit computers.
Should I get a 64 bit computer?
A 64 bit machine is best if you are doing a lot of number crunching, or serious video editing, or frequently switching between several running programs at the same time. For the average person doing some e-mail, word processing, and cruising the net, a 32 bit machine is just fine. If you want to read more about 32 bit versus 64 bit, type "32 bit vs 64 bit" in a search bar. Also, please be aware that a lot of older peripherals (printer, scanners, etc.) will not work with 64 bit computers! Before you buy a 64 bit computer you should determine if there are 64 bit drivers for your older peripherals.
CPU RATINGS
The CPU ratings are developed by PassMark Software. They have delved into the thousands of benchmarks results that Performance Test users have posted to its web site. The have produced five Intel vs AMD CPU charts to help compare the relative speeds of the different processors. Click on PassMark CPU Benchmarks to view their homepage. To search their list of CPU, click on Searchable CPU List to search for a specific CPU.
* This measures how much "work" the CPU can process in a given amount of time. The higher the number the better. As of September 1, 2009, the fastest Passmark CPU Mark rating is 8,290for a Intel Core i7 9750 @ 3.30 GHz. The rankings for "normal" home use computers should fall between 1,200 and 2,000.
** This is the overall ranking of the CPU. A ranking of 1 is the best, so the lower the number the better. A ranking of 125 means the CPU is currently the 125th faster CPU made.
Normally, the higher the Passmark CPU Mark and the lower the CPU Rank, the higher the price of the computer.