Notebook Hunter

 If you're looking for a good basic notebook, this ASUS from the Good Guys has pretty good specs for the price. In fact, it's rare to find the combo of 4GBs of RAM, 500GB hard disk and reasonable processor like a Pentium Dual Core T4400 under $800. This price bracket normally offers up machines with 2GBs of RAM and 320GB hard drives. The ASUS's Pentium Dual Core CPU was Intel's previous generation "value" processor, a role now taken over by the Core i3, which is now starting to dominate in notebooks in the $800-$1,000 price range, with a couple of Core i3 -powered notebooks even dropping into the $700-799 price band. What does this mean for consumers? In order for Pentium Dual Core-powered notebooks to remain attractive against the Core i3 onslaught, vendors are upgrading the other components, and this ASUS is a classic example, with its 4GBs of RAM and 500GB hard drive (and standard stuff like DVD writer and Windows 7 Home Premium).  It's almost an allrounder notebook, except that it does not have a discrete graphics card. Its Nvidia GeForce G 102M integrated card borrows memory from the main system but can help the main processor decode HD video and is able to play simple games at low detail. While this notebook won't run serious games or do serious HD video editing, it has the specs to do pretty much everything else in the home or office.

This deal is available until 15th Feb 2010.