Notebook Hunter

Retailer Dick Smith has been doing all the running in the $1,000-$1,099 price bracket recently, with aggressive deals that also upstage other retailers' bargains in higher price ranges. But Myer has responded with a killer deal of its own, on a 15.6in  HP Pavilion DV6-2120TX. A quick scan of the market shows that Myer's $1,099 price tag for the elegant Intel Core i5 430M -powered DV6-2120TX makes this notebook between $100 and $200 cheaper than at other retailers. It's definitely worth looking at if you're in the market for an excellent all-round family notebook designed to play HD video and DVDs comfortably. It has a smaller hard drive compared to the Acer AS5740G-434G64MN on special at Dick Smith (500 GB vs 640 GB) and a graphics card that's not as powerful (NVidia GeForce GT 230M vs ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5650) but it's way better looking and provides entertainment features such as as a remote control for watching movies and Altec Lansing speakers for good multimedia sound. As well, it has Bluetooth, 4 USB ports (one is a combined eSATA/USB port) and an HDMI port. In all, a great bag of features for the price. We wouldn't call it an Entertainment notebook, since it does not have the ability to play Blu-ray discs nor does it have a TV tuner, but otherwise if your entertainment consists of watching DVDs and high def web videos, it's quite the bomb for the price.

This special is not listed in the Myer catalogue for this month, but was announced in some newspaper ads this week. The ads say not all stores may have it but it can be put on order.