Notebook Hunter

For $528 at The Good Guys, the eMachines EME732-372G32MN basic notebook is nearly as cheap as some netbooks, but with the cashback dropping the price to $449 it becomes cheaper than many netbooks. It has a fast Intel Core i3 under the hood that's far better than even the best Intel Atoms. For those going back to school or Uni, this is the cheapest way to get genuinely strong computing power for an amazingly low price. Act fast though, as the special expires this Sunday (tomorrow)!

The Intel Core i3-370M (2.4GHz) processor can juggle several moderately demanding productivity applications at once, but the 2GB of RAM does limit the multi-tasking somewhat - it will work well with one open application, maybe two. Such a low-priced Core i3 machine will come with some compromises, and in terms of performance, the 2GBs of RAM instead of 4GB is the main one. A 320GB hard drive is normally on the low-end of storage, but it will be sufficient as long as plenty of large files like movies aren’t crammed into it.

While not as portable as a netbook, the 2.6kg weight is still within normal ranges for a notebook with a 15.6in screen. That screen has a resolution of 1,366x768, which is standard. Much like the weight, physically the notebook’s pretty much on par for its class; it’s 37mm thick, 250mm deep and 383mm wide.

See the eMachines EME732-372G32MN in the Notebook Hunter database here.

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