Ok, so I thought I'd kick things off as far as Thanksgiving and Black Friday deals that I'm gonna take advantage of this year. The first purchase I just made is this $199 Windows 8 laptop from the Microsoft Store, the
HP Stream 13 Signature Edition Laptop for only $199.. I've been wanting an inexpensive almost 'disposable' level laptop that I could use to do some writing and web surfing at the local Starbucks without having to take either my expensive Thinkpad or Macbook with me. I wanted something I didn't have to worry too much about if I spilled some coffee on or perhaps banged around in my backpack but I also didn't want one of those absolute crap cheap laptops that is almost unusable. I also wanted a Windows machine...not a Chromebook as I want to be able to install some screenwriting software as well as Microsoft Office on it.
Presto...this HP laptop should do the job perfectly. It runs full Windows 8.1 and comes with Office 365 free pre-installed. It has a 13.3 inch display and gets over 9 hours of battery life according to
PCMAG IN THIS REVIEW and even wins an Editor's Choice Award from the popular tech magazine. It starts up super fast thanks to its 32GB eMMC solid state drive (easily expandable via MicroSD or USB stick) and the screen gets good marks for brightness and quality as does the keyboard, trackpad and overall design of the unit. It'll basically run any Windows software you have perfectly fine except for perhaps the most graphically taxing games. But hey, I have my primary pc for that. It's great as a secondary pc/laptop, for the kids or as a gift and Microsoft has it for $30 off today for only $199 and that includes Free Shipping plus a free $25 Microsoft Windows Store Gift Card which effectively brings the price down to only $174!. That's a great deal. I just grabbed two just now...one for myself and another for my nephew who's always using his father's (my brother's) PC. Here's the link:
Don't forget to post your cool Black Friday online deals here as well so others can take advantage of them and don't forget to paste a link to the product page! Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!
