HP Pavilion dv6-6110us AMD Llano Notebook 499.99 - $50 MIR = 449.99 AR @ Staples

[DynamiteMatt]

http://www.staples.com/product-nr_332942

Also at Amazon for 499.99, but no rebate. Down from $625.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0051OLQNU

AMD Quad-Core A6-3400M Accelerated Processor (2.3GHz)
4GB installed memory
640GB hard drive
SuperMulti DVD Burner
15.6" diagonal High-Definition HP BrightView LED Display (1366 x 768)
HP TrueVision Webcam with integrated digital microphone
Digital Media Card Reader for Secure Digital and Multimedia cards
Wireless LAN 802.11b/g/n WLAN
Textured HP Imprint finish with the lattice design in espresso black
Full-Size Island-Style Keyboard with Integrated Numeric Keypad

 

[Roland00Address]

I highly recommend A6 and A8 llano notebooks

That said this seems to be more or less the going price for these notebooks. AMD is trying to price the A6 at $500 and the A8 at $600. If you check out slickdeals and use the search function you see that you can get an A6-3400m for 480 to 530 before MIR and the A8-3500m for $550 to 600 before MIR. Right now it seems only HP, Acer/Gateway, and Toshiba have the a6 and a8 laptops out yet (make sense for they are the #1, #3, and #5 notebook oems on quantity shipped), and Lenovo has an a4 dual core out (lenovo is #4 notebook oem). If you wait a little while you will see more vendors having a greater selection and probably lower prices.

Also pay attention to the amount of dimms and memory speed with these notebooks. For example on the HP spec page it states this laptop only has a single 4gb dimm, with no speed listed. If the laptop only has 1 single dimm than you are running in single channel mode and are starving the gpu this laptop has, you will want to upgrade this laptop to either 1600mhz 2x2gb sticks or 2x4gb sticks.

The Gateway NV75S02u has a similar problem, it has 1066mhz 2x2gb sticks and thus are starving the gpu which really wants 1333mhz or 1600mhz.

You can get 2x4 1333mhz memory for about $55 and 2x4 1600mhz memory for about $65 to $80.

 

[Pardus]

staples gives out these coupon codes all the time, but they are never good on electronics. how does this laptop compare to a quad-core intel ?

 

[Roland00Address]

staples gives out these coupon codes all the time, but they are never good on electronics. how does this laptop compare to a quad-core intel ?

The intel i7 kicks its ass. The a6 is similar to an i3/i5. In anything single threaded the i3/i5 is faster, in multithreaded apps these a6/a8 are similar to the i3/i5.

Pretty much the i5 dual core is equal to the a8 quad core. Anything that only sees 1 or 2 cpu cores is going to be much faster on the i5.

That said most things that really need cpu speed are perfectly fine on the a6/a8 and the ones that need the most are often able to use 4 threads at once.