Laptops Arena

We have decided to write this article because each of us has had, at some point, the quality of being a consumer. When you are a consumer, you can be exposed to different fraud simply because people in our days come up with the most intelligent and illegal ways of making money. Frauds have been reported in numerous domains: police and FBI have dealt with credit card crimes, e-mail scams, phone scams, Green Card lottery scams and yes, there even are laptop sales consumer frauds.
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This is why there is an online Consumer Fraud Reporting system that has the role and responsibility to warn the masses about different types of financial scams or they even give us a chance to report if we have been victims or witness of any kind of consumer frauds. Pay attention to everything around you, read a contract 10 times if you have to before you sign it, do some research before buying products that look extremely cheap and be careful who you buy things from. Don’t trust just anyone that offers you a dream job and don’t enter your personal information on suspicious websites. Don’t trust e-mails from banks that are redirecting you to clone websites and you have to enter personal information like your credit card number. A trustworthy bank will never ask you to update your personal information online; they will require you to go the bank personally. This article is not meant to convert you into a paranoiac individual; we just want to inform you that there are lots of criminals out there who are looking for opportunities to get their hands on your money.

When it comes to laptop sales consumer frauds, we are talking about scam shopping deals that you definitely should refuse. One very suspicious website that may be coverage for a big fraud is www.getmyfreelaptop.com. This website tells you that you could win some free laptops or other gadgets if you complete certain requirements. If you read carefully what is written in small letters at the bottom of the page, you will see that there are some steps you have to follow. First you have to register with valid information and then complete some user surveys. And here comes the scam. In order to “receive” your so called prize, you have to complete certain offers that require you to buy some products which I’m sure that normally you would not consider buying. When a seller offers something for free, it’s supposed to be for free and it should not require any purchase unless it’s obviously presented in the offer. For instance, it’s one thing when HP has an offer that says “if you buy our new X laptop, you will receive this free laptop protection bag” because the free prize is cheaper for the company to give out and they don’t make any super financial sacrifices. But when someone offers you a free laptop for doing nothing at all, that is quite suspicious. Currently, this website seems to be under investigation so let’s wait and see what happens.



While searching on the internet to give you more information about laptop sales consumer frauds, we came across a post written by a very angry Walmart customer. This consumer said he waited for a laptop sale to begin on Walmart’s website at 3 a.m. at that particular hour, the website has an “out of stock” tag for the laptop our consumer wanted. He continued to refresh the page until 3:32 when the laptop finally appeared to be in their stock and available for purchase. After that, he added the laptop to his cart and when he wanted to pay for it, he got a new message from the website saying the laptop was out of stock at 3:30.



In our quest, we also found an article about Chinese sellers that commit laptop frauds on eBay. These sellers make eBay identities for themselves so they can sell counterfeit and fraudulent laptops from respectable manufacturers like Dell or Toshiba to the people in Europe or in the USA. Those of you that buy products from eBay may have noticed that every seller can receive feedback from the people that purchased products from them. These Chinese sellers have their own way of getting positive feedback. They have about 10 quick transactions where the buyers are also people from China and the objects of the transaction are cheap. This way, the buyers can give all positive ratings so when you visit one Chinese seller profile, it will show 100% positive feedback. This makes people trust that seller and buy expensive objects that are in fact, pieces of junk. But be careful, because these pieces of junk cost hundreds and even thousands of dollars. In most cases, these items are never delivered to the customer or you may get other items than the ones you paid for. Of course, when the transaction is complete, the profile of the seller disappears so it’s very difficult to get hold of the perpetrator.



Personally, I blame the website a lot more than I blame the sellers. They should have some kind of identification system that helps prevent any suspicious individual from making a seller account and then scam people using it. One idea could be the following: the website could send a letter to the address that sellers use when they make their accounts. The envelope could contain a validation code that needs to be typed in order to complete the making of the profile. That way, the websites could have a more accurate database with home addresses that are actually real so they can have some connection in case one of the sellers is reported as a fraud. Be careful, laptops are not the only expensive items that these people sell. If you find designer clothes or expensive perfumes, they could also be fake. Try to avoid buying any really expensive product from such websites and buy them from authorized dealers and manufacturers. Remember that it is your duty as a responsible citizen to report any kind of frauds to prevent other from being scammed as well.

As most of you may already know, an internet connection is a physical connection that you establish between the internet and you hosting provider. Generally, you need an internet cable which is plugged into the computer’s dedicated port but when it comes to laptops, we can also have a wireless connection.
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In this article we are going to explain how you hook up a laptop to the internet whether you want to establish a wireless connection or not. Let’s start with the wireless connection. Unlike regular internet connections where you have to plug in the internet cable into your laptop, a wireless connection uses radio frequency signals that are sent from the wireless router to your laptop using an antenna and no wires. Imagine your laptop is a cell phone and the router is your mobile telephone service antenna. The closer you are the antenna, the better signal you will have. It’s about the same with wireless routers. They have only a certain area that they can cover so just because you have a wireless connection at home, doesn’t mean you can use it anywhere you are. Depending on the brand and quality of the wireless router, the coverage areas may vary. A good router (one that you can use at home, I mean) can usually spread the signal around 100 meters.  Wireless internet (and free) is also available in coffee shops, restaurants and some public institutions, like hospitals, universities or train stations.

When you configure your wireless router for the first time, aside from choosing a username, it is also recommended you set up a password. Passwords are important to keep you protected because your internet connection can also be hijacked. This means that an outsider can access the internet using your wireless connection without you approval. It’s like stealing water from your fountain. Needless to say that the more people that use the same wireless connections, the slower the internet speed will become. This is because there is a general internet speed, for example 10 MB per second which is divided to the number of laptops that are using that connection. You also have to be careful when you connect to public wireless networks because the information on your computer may become visible to strangers.



The most popular form of internet connection is broadband. This is also the fastest way to get around the internet. While a wireless connection may be slow and a dial up connection is going to keep those phone lines busy, a broadband internet connection is simple to set up, it’s fast, it’s also rather cheap and most importantly, it’s available everywhere. Whether you are using it at home or at the office, broadband internet is a very good choice. The first thing you have to do to hook up a laptop to the internet using a broadband connection is getting the right Internet Service Provider (called ISP for short). When you sign a contract with an ISP, one of two things is going to happen next. The provider is going to send you a CD which contains all the instructions, step by step, on how to easily install and make all the necessary settings to use the internet on your laptop or they could send in a team of technicians that will install the connection for you.



One thing that people never worry about when they choose to set up a broadband internet connection is the age of their laptop. Computers and laptops that are older than 5 or 6 years may be too slow for a fast internet connection. Instead of upgrading, these users just blame the ISP because the connection is too slow. You must pay attention to this detail and ask someone who knows things about computers if your laptop is not by any chance too old for a broadband connection. When you choose your internet service provider, you also have to check if you get any kind of support if there is ever something wrong with your internet connection. Most people never consider this factor. If something goes wrong and the internet stops working, how fast can you get any help? Will they solve the problem in that same day or is it going to take a week? Can you survive one week without internet? Most broadband service providers will give you a paper with your username and password that you need to set up when establishing the internet connection. If your ISP will send technicians over, they will do this process for you the first time so you can learn from them how to do it. memorize the process because you need to set up this connection using the username and password every time you format your laptop. The technicians will not come and do this for you every time. Some ISPs have a special customer service line and if you are experiencing difficulties in setting up the connection, they can explain the steps by phone.



We are going to explain how to set up your broadband internet connection if you are using Windows XP. Click on the Start button -> Control Panel -> Network Connections. On the left of the window there is column where you select “Create a new connection”. The dedicated wizard will appear and you have to click “Next”. Click the first option (“Connect to the internet”) and click “Next” again. In the next window, choose “Set up my connection manually” and click “Next”. After that, you have to choose one of three ways to connect to the internet. If you have been provided with a user name and password, click the second option and click “Next” again. The next windows will require for you to type in the username and the password and that about does the job. Click “Next” and the last window will ask if you want to add a shortcut to the connection on your desktop. Now, every time you turn on your laptop and wish to use the internet, double click that shortcut on your desktop, press “Connect” and there you go: fresh and ready to use broadband internet connection.

We have spoken a lot about the advantages of buying a refurbished laptop. It’s an easy way that helps you get the laptop you have always wanted at a cheaper price than a brand new unit. If people were not convinced about the efficiency of this method, the warranty period was supposed to convince them that they are not buying just any piece of cheap junk, but a laptop that is backed up by the guarantee of the manufacturer that it has been reviewed and all errors and problems have been fixed. Well, another way for you to buy a laptop if you don’t have enough money to spend, is getting a laptop that you can pay monthly fees for.
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Laptop monthly payments mean you pay a fixed sum of money each month, for a predetermined period until you have fully covered the entire cost of the unit (plus some interest).  The advantage is that the sum of money you pay is smaller than the total cost of the laptop so it’s easier for the buyer to include the payment in their monthly budget. Finding a financing solution for a new laptop is easy. Even if it’s simpler to just pay the entire cost of the laptop when you buy rather that complicate your life with another bill, people with a low budget often consider monthly payments as a good option not only for a laptop, but even for a television, washing machine, other house hold items and even for a new car.

Even if you have a bad credit, in our days it is not that difficult to get financing for something. It is easy to find a lender thanks to the internet. Since the online environment has made our life much easier and we can pay our bills online using our credit cards, why shouldn’t be able to find some financing solutions using this very useful tool? Not only can you find a lender on the internet but there are different website that can take care of this entire process for you. Such websites give you the possibility to buy laptops from good and respected manufacturer like HP, Toshiba or Dell. When you find the model that suits you best, it’s only a matter of filling in some online forms and in the end you get everything in your mail. The prices for the laptops on these websites are very ok so basically anyone can afford a new laptop.



If you are the kind of person that likes to check out the merchandise before buying it, it’s easy to get credit though local retailers. You have to visit different stores that sell laptops on monthly payments and then choose which one has the best prices and policy for you. Since stores will do almost anything to sell their items, there are lots of perks even for people that don’t have the best financial situation. There are also stores and offers that give you the possibility to buy a laptop without having to pay anything for a couple of months and start paying later on. When you choose to buy a laptop with monthly payments, make sure your read the policy very carefully as some retailers have huge interest that are written in small letters at the bottom of the contract and you may end up paying lots of money without knowing why. This is why it’s very important to read any type of contract carefully before signing it.  Always be on the lookout for promotion especially now with all this holiday seasons fuss. Stores are offering really good laptop at very good prices and who knows? Maybe you can afford a new one without having to do any kind of monthly payments.  When you go into a store, make sure you consult a specialized sales person that can give you exact and accurate details about that store’s financial plans.



You may not know this, but your credit card is one important tool that helps you get some cheap monthly payments. You can get some useful and nice cash back rewards and some even help you get extensions to warranties. That’s why I love credit cards; they always give me so many possibilities. Some stores even offer discounts if you pay directly with your credit card. Getting a credit card is easy and depending on the emitting bank, it can also be free (anyway, the fee for getting a credit card is very low).



Another way of getting a laptop with monthly payments is the high risk loan. This type of loan is usually given to people with bad credit because it’s the most aggressive type of loan that should only be made in case of emergencies. This payday loan is very drastic and if you don’t make you payments on time, you are risking some very high penalties. The interest is also enormous compared to other types of loan so you had better think twice before adventuring yourself and making such a big step.



If you are a student looking for a laptop, the government offers different financing options that the ones stated above. In some cases, students even have a shot at getting free laptops depending on the school where they study. The corporate environment also gets some pretty good deals on laptop as they normally purchase a large number of units and this generates huge discount and certain advantages on monthly payments. If you have good credit, you shall have no problem in getting a laptop with monthly payments at an interest that isn’t out of this world.It’s up to you to decide if it’s easier for you to just pay all the money at once and not get too complicated with extra papers and interest or if it’s easier to add another small amount of money to your monthly bills. As you can see, monthly payments on laptops are a big area and there are lots of possibilities and option for you to choose from.

Christmas is a time for gifting. Aside from all the religious and spiritual feelings, this holiday is tons of fun when you think about all the gifts you can receive from your loved ones. Personally, I love giving gifts more than receiving them because I like to see my dear ones happy. And since I am writing this article for a laptop website, it’s fair to talk about laptops as a good gift for Christmas. I have browsed the internet to see if I could find sales on laptops since the holiday also bring some nice promotions and discounts for different electronics.
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First of all, you should know that there are website which offer discounts to certain groups of people all year long. For example, www.usanotebook.com offers 5%discount for the education and the military system and also for the senior citizens. They also have resellers discount and corporate discount. Corporate discounts are actually quite popular because big companies buy a large number of units and it is in the manufacturers and retailers best interest to lower the price if many units are sold to same company. It seems that all the laptops on this website are refurbished but they do offer some excellent prices even for these so called “second hand computers”.  On the left side of this web page there is column “Shop by Brand”. You will see that the list of brands is quite small as it only includes Acer, Dell, eMachines, Gateway, HP, IBM, Lenovo and Toshiba laptops. The prices are awesome and the most expensive laptop I saw a red Dell Inspiron 1525 available at a price of $650. Unfortunately, this model is all sold out so the next expensive laptop would be a red Gateway M7356U for $550.

Now, if you want a good website that offers tons of models to choose from and that can also give you a list of all the shops where that specific model is, try http://shopper.cnet.com. Shopping for laptops is now very easy since you have filter that allow you to refine and choices and narrow them down to the units you are particularly interested in. you can shop by price, by manufacturer, by the notebook type (budget or gaming laptop are some examples) and if you still a list too big for you to check out, you can choose the product line, screen size, weight, processor, RAM size, operating system, hard drive size, graphics card series and environmental standards.



For example, we have chosen Acer as the manufacturer. The website generated a list with 174 results for Acer laptops. For each of this laptop we get a picture, the model’s full name, the CNET Editor rating, the user rating, the quick specs and some brief information about the products and we get a list of websites that sell this product plus the price tags for each of these stores. The second name on our list was the Acer Aspire One D250 with a 1.6 GHz Intel Atom processor, 1 GB of RAM, 160 of available disk space and preinstalled Windows XP Home Edition operating system. We are shown that this laptop is available on the B&H Photo Video website and on Amazon.com. The first website sells this unit at a price of $289 and the second has a price tag of $315.



After you choose the manufacturer, you are still left with all the other options in case you want an Acer with a specific price or from a certain product line. I selected the $600 - $700 price interval. If I choose to filter my options further, I can choose the product line and the screen size. Let’s say I want a desktop replacement and I chick 16 – 17 inches. I know have 8 laptop results that are priced between 600 and 700 dollars and that have a screen size of approximately 16 or 17 inches. This is how you can also buy the perfect laptop to gift. You first have to establish the budget and try to find out what that person would use a laptop for. The possibilities are numerous.



www.laptopcloseout.com has some very attractive sales on laptops as well. If you access the website now, the first 3 things that are going to attract your looks are the $329, $339 and $429 price tags for 3 laptop models that are on sale. The $329 laptop which is on sale is a Lenovo ThinkPad T42 with a 15 inch display. It has a 1.73 GHz Intel Pentium M Centrino processor combined with 1 GB of RAM. The size of the hard disk is 40 GB. Other features are the CD writer and DVD reader, the built in microphone and the stereo speakers. As you can see, this laptop is pretty basic. The components plus the fact that it is refurbished are the 2 factors that contribute to the low price of this unit.



Even if it is refurbished, you still get the Windows XP Professional operating system preinstalled plus a 3 months warranty period. This is why I keep telling you that refurbished laptops are not equal to damaged or junk. For an extra fee of $39, you can extend the warranty period from 90 days to a full year. In my opinion, you should always take advantage of these warranty extension packaged because you never know when your laptop might crush down on you.  You can still add some extra features, just as you can in the case of a brand new laptop. Here, for instance, you can pay $29 and get a port replicator and for $19 you get a standard nylon case. Options are everywhere.

So, if you want to gift a laptop this Christmas or just one for yourself but your budget is limited, there are laptop promotions available this holiday so hurry up before retailers empty their stocks. And if you want a certain laptop which you believe is too expensive, do not be afraid to go refurbished. The warranty period will guarantee that you did not make a bad choice.

The other day, we spoke a bit about the best rated laptops, naming the Lenovo ThinkPad T400, the Acer Aspire One and the Apple MacBook Pro. We wrote about why these laptops are the best rated ones around and as I recall we had a couple of more names on that list. It’s time to continue with the best laptop ratings.
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The HP Pavilion tx2500z is not only a useful tablet PC but it also looks nice and we are just crazy about that display that you can rotate around as if it was some toy. We believe it’s a great laptop for students because it makes taking notes in class really easy. It has a solid design and very good features, all that for a reasonable price. The processor is an AMD Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology which can be combined with a maximum 4 GB of RAM memory. The 12.1 inch display is a beauty for ultra portables. Students and anyone who uses this laptop should be able to play some nice games, mainstream ones of course. Unfortunately, the battery will only last about 2 hours and 30 minutes so be prepared and equip yourself with the charger wherever you take your laptop. It is a highly ranked laptop because it’s the cheapest tablet notebook on the market. It has the best speed compared to all the laptop in the same category and the touch screen and the active digitizer are a couple of features that the users love. It also has some nice entertainment features considering the low price.

Next in line for best laptop ratings is the Dell Studio 15. It is a combination between a portable laptop and a multimedia notebook. It has a 15.4 inch display which is backed up by LED light and has a resolution of 1440 x 900 pixels. It has some cool features that will eventually come in handy like an Express Card slot, a couple of touch sensitive media control buttons and a HDMI output. It is one great choice and in one of our past article we even recommended it as one excellent choice for college students. The battery life is ok and it is also easy to upgrade if you even feel the need for more space, speed or power. The sad part is that the only option for a better graphics card is the ATI Radeon HD 3450 when Dell could have done much better. There are 23 expert reviews that give the Dell Studio some very high ratings. 205 out of 447 real users have given a 5 star rating to the Dell Studio 15 and it is ranked 3^rd as far as customer support service goes.



In a certain manner, I feel responsible to promote Toshiba since it is one of the brands I use every day. Except for some speed and battery issues, I love my Toshiba laptop. But it is not as cool as the Toshiba Portege M700. It has a Centrino Pro processor and combined with the 12.1 inch display you get all the power and portability you need from this beautiful laptop. This is a business tablet but that does not mean students can’t use it as well. The beautiful display has a 1280 x 800 resolution and some multi touch capabilities which are not only easy to use but they are also fun once you learn how to get along with the touch screen. The screen is easy to rotate and you can switch between landscape and portrait modes. You even have a built-in webcam right above the display which may come in handy for Skype conference calls or just for chatting with your friends on the internet. There is also a fingerprint reading which offers security and speed for logging on to Windows.



The hinge keeps the display steady in place. The stylus pen will come really in handy when the PC is in tablet mode. The speakers are weak but I guess this is quite a common feature for ultra portables. The battery life is not impressive either and this is one big minus for a laptop which has the right size to be carried around anywhere. However, Toshiba spoils its customers with a 3 year warranty which is three times the period of normal warranty.  We gave to say that the Toshiba Portege M700 offers some nice performance for a tablet PC. The display is easy to read under different light conditions and even if you plan on using this laptop outside. This means that students can now write projects in the school’s yard even on a sunny day.  There is also a number of 24 reviews that have rated this laptop with greats marks (Laptop Magazine and Good Gear Guide are just a couple of names).



Why is the Dell Mini 9 one of the best rated laptops? Well, it is small and portable and it has a very nice design. For an 8.9 inch mini laptop it is extremely functional. You can upgrade to a maximum 1 GB of RAM. The price of $400 is excellent and the battery life can reach almost 4 hours. The nasty part is that all the free storage space you get is provided thanks to the flash drive so you can only have a maximum of 16 GB of free disk space. The expert ratings for this netbook were very high, reaching even the impressive score of 97 out of a possible 100. CNet Editor Rating says this mini laptop is excellent. It is easier to configure than most similar subnotebooks and you can choose between Windows XP and Linux operating systems. The design is incredibly solid considering the very low price of this unit.

With these 4 models, we now have a total of 7 best rated laptops. We may come back and continue this list in the future but only if you readers found any of this information useful. We can assure you that you will find more models to write about in the future.