$400 laptops are the new $500 laptops!

We continue our survey of the brick and mortar market by looking at what Circuit City is promoting in their circular ad this week. And lo-and-behold, we find another $400 laptop. And this time, there are no rebates to mail.

$400 laptop
Who is the lucky manufacturer offering this? Why everyone's favorite, eMachines ;-) They have the eMachines EMD6205133 model at exactly $400 and without rebates. This is reasonably speced considering the price, with a 14.1" wide display, 2gb memory, 160gb hard disk. Is there a catch though? Well, the processor is the AMD 64 2650E. The OS is the more moderate Vista Basic.

14.1" gets more affordable
While neither one can match the $500 Gateway, HP at $700 offers the dv4-1120us, which has the T5800 dual-core, 4gb memory, 250gb disk, 64-bit Vista, and things like that.

Like that as well is the Sony VGN NCS115J/R, yes "/R" means "red". While the above is "merely" a Core 2 Duo, the Sony is instead a Centrino. Viva Centrino if you are a Centrino fan :-)

General-purpose Sony for $600
Sony offers the Vaio VGN NS135E/S with the T3200 dual-core, with a solid 3gb of memory, 250gb of disk, 15.4" widescreen, and the usual assortment of features (webcam, wireless, etc).