Lenovo, Dell, and more: This week's best deals on laptops

It is among the best times of the year to buy a new laptop, Ramirez says. He shares the best deals on Lenovo, Hewlett-Packard, and Dell laptops of the week.

|
Jeff Chiu/AP/File
An Acer Aspire laptop, left, and a Lenovo IdeaPad U310 Touch are displayed at a demo table at a Microsoft event in San Francisco, Calif. in June 2013.

We are entering the best weeks of the year (besides Black Friday weekend) to buy a new laptop. As such, this week's top laptop sales include a desktop replacement showdown between HP and Lenovo and (point, Lenovo) a new price low on Lenovo's just-released "twist-and-rip" Helix laptop/tablet hybrid.

1. Lenovo Helix Intel Ivy Bridge Core i5 1.8GHz 11.6" LED-Backlit Convertible Ultrabook

Store: Lenovo
 Price: $1,477.52 via coupon code "THINKBTS" with free shipping
 Lowest By: $202
 Expires: August 14

Is It Worth It?: Announced at CES 2013, the Lenovo Helix is a laptop/tablet hybrid with a "flip-and-rip" system, meaning you can rotate the laptop's display 180 degrees and use it in "presentation mode" or remove the screen completely to use as an independent tablet. And because it's part of Lenovo's ThinkPad line, it's one of the few business hybrids we've seen. CNET calls it a "solidly built laptop-tablet hybrid with all the security features your IT department needs," though they also question the Helix's high price, especially since it's running last year's tech. However, this 3.7-lb. machine remains at an all time low price. Features an Ivy Bridge Core i5 dual-core 1.8GHz CPU, 4GB of RAM, and a 128GB SSD.

2. Lenovo G780 Intel Ivy Bridge Core i7 2.1GHz 17.3" LED-Backlit Laptop

Store: Lenovo
 Price: $629 via coupon code "BACKTOSCHOOLIDEA" with free shipping
 Lowest By: $370
 Expires: August 14

Is It Worth It?: At 6.6 lbs., the Lenovo G780 is the heaviest system in our roundup this week. However, this desktop replacement also packs some of the best hardware including a quad-core Ivy Bridge Core i7 2.1GHz CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive.

3. HP ENVY 17t-j000 Intel Haswell Core i7 2.4GHz 17.3" Laptop

Store: HP Home & Home Office
 Price: $866.14 via coupon code "MU4836" with $9.99 s&h
 Lowest By: $153
 Expires: August 18

Is It Worth It?: Need more horsepower than what the G780 offers? For about $15 more, the ENVY 17t-j000 trumps the G780 in every category. The 6.3-lb. desktop replacement features a 1080p display, a current-gen Haswell Core i7 quad-core 2.4GHz CPU, 8GB of RAM, and a 1TB hard drive with a 24GB SSD. Even better, the 17t-j000 also packs a Blu-ray/DVD combo drive, proving that desktop replacements are still alive and kicking.

4. ASUS Intel Celeron 1.5GHz 11.6" Touchscreen Laptop

Store: Best Buy
 Price: $329.99 with free shipping
 Lowest By: $20
 Expires: August 17

Is It Worth It?: With its 1.5GHz Celeron processor, the ASUS Q200E isn't going to break any speed barriers. However, this $330 laptop packs something few budget laptops do — a touchscreen display. The 3.1-lb. machine, which is the cheapest touch-capable ASUS laptop we've seen, features 4GB of RAM and a 320GB hard drive.

5. Lenovo IdeaPad U510 Intel Ivy Bridge Core i7 2GHz 15.6" Laptop

Store: Lenovo
 Price: $599 via coupon code "USPU564808" with free shipping
 Lowest By: $400

Is It Worth It?: A popular system in our weekly roundups, this Core i7-based IdeaPad U510 is tied with last week's mention as the cheapest price we've ever seen for this laptop. The 4.9-lb. notebook packs a dual-core 2GHz Ivy Bridge CPU, 6GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive.

6. Dell Inspiron 15R Intel Pentium 1.9GHz 15.6" Laptop

Store: Staples
 Price: $299.99 with free shipping
 Lowest By: $80
 Expires: August 17

Is It Worth It?: Dell's Inspiron 15 is one of the most ubiquitous machines in the industry and although we've listed it countless times, this configuration is particularly noteworthy as it's one of the cheapest we've seen. The 4.9-lb. laptop packs a Pentium 2127 dual-core CPU clocked at 1.9GHz, 4GB of RAM, and a 500GB hard drive.

Louis Ramirez is a senior features writer at dealnews.com, where this article first appeared. Original article: http://dealnews.com/features/best-laptop-deals/

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Lenovo, Dell, and more: This week's best deals on laptops
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Saving-Money/2013/0814/Lenovo-Dell-and-more-This-week-s-best-deals-on-laptops
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe