The Dick Smith response to Harvey Norman's 2-for-1
Australia's major retailers have started a notebook price war. Dick Smith has launched a notebook sale that looks like a response to Harvey Norman's two for one AMD sale last week.
We knew that when Harvey Norman had its four-day "buy one and get one free" sale of AMD-powered notebooks last week, the other retailers would eventually hit back. And today, competitor Dick Smith has launched its own notebook sale. It's not a 2-for-1, but it's one of the most aggressive sales we've seen so far this year.
If you're in the market for a notebook, you need to take a serious look at the following bargains. At this point we should stress that APC's Notebook Hunter service makes independent assessments of what's good in the market and does not have a commercial or advertising relationship with Dick Smith. Below are our independent picks of what's best in the sale, which is expected to last till Monday (still waiting on Dick Smith to confirm when it ends):
- Low price barrier breaker: The first notebook powered by an Intel 2nd Gen Core i3 processor to go for less than AU$400. This is a notebook with a powerful, contemporary CPU but which costs the same as many netbooks.
- Great value allrounder: A Toshiba Satellite notebook powered by an Intel Core i5, with a good (discrete) graphics card and a 640GB hard drive, for $599. Again, at this price you normally get basic notebooks with a lesser processor and without a discrete graphics card.
- Relatively affordable gaming notebook: The ASUS G74SX is a dedicated gaming notebook that will let you run the most intensive games at the highest settings. In other words, theres' a serious gaming card and associated hardware inside it, including a Core i7 processor. But unlike comparable gaming notebooks, it comes in under $2,000.
- Powerful ultraportable: The Toshiba Satellite L730/018 is a powerful 13.3in ultraportable with an Intel Core i5 processor, 4GBs of RAM and a huge (for a 13in laptop) 640GB hard drive. Extremely well priced at $679.
- We'd listed the Toshiba Satellite P750/02Q notebook as a great special based on the price quoted on the Dick Smith website where it was $854. Since publication of this story Dick Smith now claim that the price listed on the website was an error and the notebook is actually $1,529. We originally wrote this about the special: "Insanely affordable powerful entertainment machine: A 3D-capable notebook powered by an Intel Core i7 processor, with a Blu-ray drive, TV tuner and 6GBs of RAM for $854. This kind of entertainment powerhouse normally sells for around $1,500."
