According to research by warranty firm SquareTrade, you really get what you pay for, with premium-priced laptops lasting longer than their cheaper counterparts on average. Good news for those who’ve spent money for specs, bad for buyers trying to eke by on affordable netbooks; from the survey of 30,000 portables, netbooks have a 5.8% chance of failing within the first year.

Another notable trend becomes clear when comparing brands. Here’s the list of nine different brands, ranked from most reliable to least, in terms of malfunction rate:

Asus
Toshiba
Sony
Apple
Dell
Lenovo
Acer
Gateway
HP

Looks like Asus‘ marketing department have a new talking point to advertise, while Apple has …read more

HP Laptop and Desktop Promos

Based in the US? Here are some promos from HP:

Save up to $319 instantly on the NEW HP Pavilion dv6t Quad Edition Series Customizable Laptop PC!. Includes $200 instant rebate, FREE memory upgrade from 2GB to 3GB (-$30), FREE hard drive upgrade from 250GB to 320GB (-$40), and Save 50% on 4GB memory (-$20). From 10/25 to 10/28/2009.
Save up to $209 instantly on the HP Pavilion dm3t Series Customizable Laptop PC!. Includes $150 instant rebate, and FREE memory upgrade from 2GB to 3GB (-$30). From 10/25 to 10/28/2009.
Save up to $518 instantly on the NEW HP …read more

Seems Lenovo wants to move its laptop stocks in the UK—and it seems they’ve dropped prices to attract buyers.

To be quite honest, the so-called “promos” for the IdeaPad U Series are a bit pathetic, so let’s not waste words on that.

Discounts for the ThinkPad X Series look more promising however, featuring price cuts as high as £377.20!

Lenovo doesn’t promise as much generosity with its supremely high-end W700 series—known for the W700ds, a 17″ gargantuan featuring a slide-out 10.6″ secondary screen. And W700 mobile workstations aren’t really known for their affordability. Still, the highest discount of £223.42 is still pretty significant.
Another …read more

Or say the folks over at Lenovo. In any case, fans of the original Lenovo IdeaPad S10 netbook might be interested.
The S10-2 will come in two variants: The $349 one features a 89%-sized keyboard, an Atom N270 processor, 1GB of DDR2 RAM, a 160GB hard disk, an integrated 1.3 megapixel webcam, WiFi up to 802.11g, and a 6-cell battery, all running on Windows XP Home. The $399 variant has the same specs, but is 3G capable through an Ericsson transceiver. And yes, no Bluetooth is available on either build, if Lenovo’s publicity materials are correct.
Both variants will also feature a …read more

If you live in the UK or got a friend living, make sure to check out Lenovo UK’s Easter promo. Available at a discount are the ThinkPad T400, X200s, and W700, with mark downs of £203.03, £258.98, and £549.77 respectively.
I’d probably take advantage of the promo if I needed a new laptop now, thanks to the 500+ discount on the W700, a really full-featured 17-inch desktop replacement). You know, the one with integrated tablet, and the quad-core processor, and if I’m not mistaken, a secondary display that slides out from behind the primary one.
To recap, you can get up to …read more

Here’s our own special Star Trek related promo, as promised yesterday: get a chance to win the Star Trek Messenger bag pictured above!
So how can you enter?

For Intel and Lenovo, the Star Trek franchise represents an opportunity to reach the geeky people. You know, the type who give a damn about CPUs and computing equipment. That’s why they’re raffling off access to:

A trip for four to the Hollywood Premiere of the new Star Trek movie.
A “zero gravity flight” for a group of four. That’s the trip where you all fly in a plane that climbs up then descends quickly, creating zero gravity conditions for you and friends to play around in.

The so-called New Frontiers Sweepstakes is only open to US residents, age 18 and above. Visit …read more

Crave is right on the money: if your laptop already has two screens and jaw-dropping specs, what’s the point of being really really corny?

The manufacturer is promising at least 25% off on its laptops, setting an expiry for this September 15 to add some urgency to the offer. Check out the discount line-up here. ThinkPads may now sport a different brand, but the Chinese company has done a decent job of upholding the rugged business tradition of IBM, at least in our opinion. The X Series remains on the top of our list, thanks to its good mix of portability and power.
Now if only Lenovo can do away with that damn eraserhead.

Let’s just get the Lenovo ThinkPad W700’s awesome specs out of the way, shall we?