Walmart offers decently-spec'd Compaq laptop for $300

Not sold on the whole netbook craze? Then you might want to consider paying a visit to your local Walmart, which is set to offer a surprisingly well-spec'd Compaq Presario laptop for the low, low price of $298. As you might expect however, that model (the CQ60-419WM) isn't entirely new, but it did just debut in January of this year with a significantly higher $470 price tag, and packed enough features to make it a not terrible deal even at that price. That includes a 15.6-inch 1366x768 display, an AMD Sempron SI-42 processor, NVIDIA GeForce 8200M graphics, 3GB of RAM, a 160GB hard drive, a DVD burner and, of course, Windows Vista for an OS. Good enough for ya? Then look for it to hit Walmarts on July 26th and be available "while supplies last."

[Via FatWallet]

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 24th 2009 6:19AM]

Hey, that's not half bad to just be able to go across town and pick up. Of course this kind of stuff always happens when money's tight. grrr.

[Leindurstit Posted Jul 24th 2009 6:22AM]

Sempron? Yuck.

[Gad Get Posted Jul 24th 2009 7:12AM]

I know... it's a terrible name, isn't it?

[Kelemvor Posted Jul 24th 2009 8:14AM]

I stopped reading when I saw the word Sempron. Bah.

[Bourne Perfection Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:03AM]

And to think I had my hopes up for a new $300 hackint0sh. What a pity

[1 Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:13AM]

There isn't anything wrong with the sempron, I have one in my desktop and with 2gb of ram it is perfectly adequate for win7, and even a bit of light photoshoppery.

[One Love Posted Jul 24th 2009 10:06AM]

You had to be the "...there's nothing wrong with..." guy

[t1616 Posted Jul 24th 2009 11:23AM]

Yeah, I didn't think Sempron was still around. They should of put a Turion in it.

[Tsing Tao Posted Jul 24th 2009 12:24PM]

"there is nothing wrong with a sempron" It is not adequate for anything other than a toaster. This is a processor that AMD self labeled a "Celeron" killer. The celeron is the worst/slowest brand of x86 processors ever.... just ever. Sempron and Celery = 512k cache, core 2 duo 4MB minimum cache, up to 8MB per core.

[MarcO Posted Jul 24th 2009 6:33AM]

L053r

[Adamgs Posted Jul 24th 2009 6:38AM]

Manufacturers really are sneaky, and consumers really are stupid.

2 years ago in Australia you could routinly find 15" budget laptops for $499 and $599 but thanks to the netbook craze, manufacturers saw a way to offer less for more.

Today however while i was looking in a catalogue i saw a Compaq Presario laptop for $599 with decent specs, AMD processor, dvd burner, 14.1" screen (not a 15" behemoth) all for the nice price of $599, and on that VERY same page was a Eee pc 10" for the not so nice price of $800.

[a dark day Posted Jul 24th 2009 6:41AM]

hey, having money doesnt mean that you are smart. Just smarter than the people you planned on making money off of.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 24th 2009 6:48AM]

you pay for size, ssd and branding. in your case you'd pay $700 for the same specs but from hp, while Compaq = hp.

[Streetfights Posted Jul 24th 2009 12:16PM]

i like how they mention a dvd burner as some kind of selling point.

what a day we live in when man can create his own DVDs.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 24th 2009 6:41AM]

@Marc-O

WIN!

[ElNumbre Posted Jul 24th 2009 7:08AM]

Veh nice, and an ideal Linux lappy.
I suspect though that in UK Walmart's (ASDA) they'd simply replace the $ with a £ sign making it much less of a bargain.

[1 Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:15AM]

It's £350 from Dabs(Looks to be the same machine anyway)

[1 Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:19AM]

It's £306 before adding VAT , based on this the US price should be around $500 before taxes

[mikefletcher85 Posted Jul 24th 2009 7:18AM]

would this come with a free upgrade to windows 7?

[Chefgon Posted Jul 24th 2009 7:19AM]

I may pick one up to replace the old Celeron M with 1GB Ram I've been using for a work laptop. Running Vista on these specs can feel a little slow at times.

Any idea if this computer comes with a free Windows 7 upgrade?

[wilburX Posted Jul 24th 2009 7:38AM]

Vista Home Basic.... no upgrade for you.

[Level 5 Posted Jul 25th 2009 3:30AM]

As said, no upgrades for Home Basic. Personally I would try to give the RC1 a go, and then just buy a family pack of 7 Home Premium or Pro when it comes out (if you have multiple machines). I think that might help save a little loot for you.

[Level 5 Posted Jul 24th 2009 7:29AM]

Not bad by any means for the price. Of course, it's also not great, but hey for $300, I'd deem it a better option than a netbook for my needs.

[Dandmcd Posted Jul 24th 2009 7:57AM]

I agree, its got good specs for the price point, its great to see that casual computer users can get these kind of specs now for under $300.

[Martin C Posted Jul 24th 2009 10:46PM]

Agreed. Also, it'll have a keyboard that wasn't meant for a toddler.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 24th 2009 8:12AM]

Now I wont have to spend $2000 on a laptop to play GTA IV

[miquonranger03 Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:42AM]

Oh, yes you will.

[BarryBee Posted Jul 24th 2009 10:02AM]

Martin, I believe he was being sarcastic... I hope.

[Tsing Tao Posted Jul 24th 2009 12:27PM]

I really hope so also. See this is the problem with these bottom of the barrel PC's. Cause in pure numbers it looks like it matches the recommended specs for a bunch of kick ass games. But that celer i mean sempron will leave you rocking 1-2 fps combined with that craptastic video card. Looks like a lot of unhappy customers in the future.

[AwlAmericanDawg Posted Jul 28th 2009 12:27AM]

Please tell me you're joking haha.

[MorfiusX Posted Jul 24th 2009 8:25AM]

That's not a bad price for a basic system. My wife has been needing a new machine. I just might pick one up for her.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 24th 2009 8:29AM]

Might be worth picking up to replace my aging HP ZD7000, which I only use for work. This thing is indestructible.

[Weet Posted Jul 24th 2009 8:51AM]

Any idea how this processor would handle high resolution flash video?

[Level 5 Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:17AM]

It should do even HD on Youtube I would think. I wouldn't say you should try and run AVC H264 at 1080p and expect 4% CPU usage, but I think it'll be a little more than people think.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 24th 2009 8:57AM]

I know it doesn't.. but once a laptop like this comes out with HDMI I'm all over it.

I want a laptop to leave around the living room to download movies (torrents) and hook to the bigscreen via HDMI occasionally.

Can't wait.. prices keep dropping!!!!

This is a great deal for a college kid that just needs something for internet surfing / writing papers and no games. There are a whole host of people that actually only use their computers for Facebook / Email / Web / Homework and this would function perfect!

[Jorvay Posted Jul 24th 2009 1:08PM]

It seems like a great deal until you lose it to the repair shop for 8 weeks during your school term. In my experience, you get what you pay for with HP, unless you buy a more expensive model, then you don't even get what you pay for.

[gatorhwk Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:11AM]

It appears HP has an optional video card for this laptop that does HDMI.

[gatorhwk Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:11AM]

It appears HP has an optional video card for this laptop that does
HDMI.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:20AM]

Will it run Hulu?

[DJ Shizzle Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:22AM]

I wonder how Vista runs on it

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:28AM]

How does Sempron compare to Atom?

If it's even equal it's great since this laptop costs less than most netbooks.

[t1616 Posted Jul 24th 2009 11:33AM]

Sempron is basically the equivalent of Intel's Celeron. I doubt you would see that much difference in processing power between Sempron and Atom. Atom's are designed to be smaller and more power efficient than Celeron processors, but speed wise they are not that different.

[tampa03cobra Posted Jul 24th 2009 11:48AM]

Semperon, at least the desktop version blows the Atom out of the water.

I have a machine I threw together as a quickie using parts I had sitting around, Semperon 3000, 1 gig DDR ram, Sata 200 GB HD, ATX Radeon 7500 128mb video card, and a Hauppauge video capture card as a Beyond TV DVR box (it's hooked up to my direct TV box with a serial cable to change channels).

The machine captures raw MPEG2 and converts it to DIVX. Sometimes I will watch recorded shows while it captures another. I figure if it can do all that with those anemic specs then it's probably good enough to watch youtube.


In my opinion the computer will only be as good as it's setup. My 900mhz Althon /w 512MB SDRAM, Geforce 2 GT (32mb), and 40GB ata100 Hard drive still boots windows XP up faster then most people's dual core 2GB ram machines they buy retail, because they have a bunch of stuff running at startup ect.

[Marked Posted Jul 24th 2009 4:07PM]

yeah, a Sempron with the same clock frequency will smoke an Atom in performance. was just looking at some stats yesterday myself:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/intel-atom-cpu,1947-8.html

Atom was built pretty much entirely around it's low power consumption, and sacrifices quite a bit of performance for it.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 24th 2009 4:07PM]

Lower battery life for more power.

Excellent deal.

[miquonranger03 Posted Jul 24th 2009 9:43AM]

Discrete graphics=good. 8300M's not great (I'm buying a laptop today with a 9800M GTS for $699) but for the price it's not too bad.

[Hotrod Posted Jul 24th 2009 10:34AM]

The biggest mistake I've made a year was buying a netbook. There is literally no Screen real estate to do anything. I have to maximize every window to make it somewhat useable, and web browsing is joke, even using full screen on firefox. I can't believe I fell into to the craze...

I would gladly take this over my hp mini. I just have to figure out how to get rid of it.

[Hotrod Posted Jul 24th 2009 10:35AM]

Sorry for the fresh grammer, typed it on my iPhone.

[majortom1981 Posted Jul 24th 2009 10:40AM]

Your complaining about the screen real estate on a hp mini but typed your response out on an iphone? wow

[Hotrod Posted Jul 24th 2009 10:52AM]

I can actually view an entire article on iPhone in a single screen, as opposed to viewing just the article picture and a few sentences of text on the mini.

Oh I'm also at work taking a shit, typing on my iPhone.