Bargin Laptop, $498 or $598 available at Big W, Heads Up

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

Just a heads up.

Big W are selling Lenovo 3000 N200 Laptops for $498 (celeron version..not sure which CPU, called Lenovo 3000 C200) or $598 (T2310, 1.46Ghz called Lenovo 3000 N200).

Specs for each are (apart from differing CPUs):

Intel Pentium Core Duo Core 1.46ghz ($598) or Celeron version ($498)
1gb DDR2 667mhz RAM in Ram slot 1. Ram slot 2 empty.
120gb Seagate HDD
Wireless, 802.11bg
Gigabit LAN
Ricoh 5 in 1 Memory card reader
Blue tooth ...I think??? Not sure.
14.1" screen
Firewire..... , amended again..there is a mini IEEE1394 mini fire wire slot.
PC Express Card slot on the side....edit: Its defiantly an Express card slot, successor to PCMCIA.
Windows Vista Home Basic OS

Forgot to mention it also has:
Inbuilt modem
12X DVDRW (says it can read DVDRAM..not tested by me yet)
4 USB ports
SVideo out
VGA out




see lenovo site: http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-67691

More info at overclockers Australia post 1138 onwards (you need to be a member to see, sorry):
http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...558801&page=76

Sorry no link to Big W..they are on a managers special and will only be on sale till end of February! They were originally $598 for the C200 and $798 for the N200. But they are now $498 for the C200 and $598 for the N200...did I mention the price!

These laptops are excellent value and have quality parts..the best sub $1000 bar none. Excellent for "astronomy" .....of course. I got one and it is very fast (faster with XP installed..see below) and runs like a dream.

The only draw back is they have Vista Home Basic! installed. Which I think is but a virus and needs to removed and XP installed...as I have already done!

Did I mention the price!

edit;
alot of them come with a 9 cell battery pack which all I know is bigger than the std 6 cell pack and thus lasts longer on battery. The 9 cell pack sticks about 1 cm out the rear...about as much as the power connector.

XP is fully supported by this Laptop, Drivers are here (just check your type is the 0687 type before downloading):
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-68016



edit:

fixed some errors on inclusions

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

A couple of pics attached.

This Laptop will take a T7xxx series CPU (core 2duo) which makes it an outstanding platform to build upon.

Lets say $250 for a T7100 CPU..the battery life should be about the same but it will have quite alot more grunt!

Thus with new CPU all up cost $848 you would have a flyer worth at least $1200.

[Starkler (Geoff)]

Heres is a review of the N200

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

Yep, well there is a deafening silence in responses. I don't know why...this is an absolute "stellar" bargain for a good performer. I thought there would be a stampede!

Anyway, I like it so much I'm going to get another one...this time put it on Lay-by so I can pay it off. Lay-by period is 10 weeks.

Forgot to mention it also has:
Inbuilt modem
12X DVDRW Dl (says it can read DVDRAM..not tested by me yet)
4 USB ports
an extra mini USB port...edit actually it is a mini 1394 port or mini firewire.
SVideo out
VGA out
and another slot ...edit: Its defiantly an Express card slot, successor to PCMCIA.

Still plenty left in some Big W stores but the sale ends on the 29th Feb.

If'n your considering a cheap lappy then this is the one.

[iceman (Mike)]

That's pretty cheap! If I needed another laptop i'd snap it up!

[coldspace]

Thanks for the heads up, I was looking at getting a secondhand one for se in the field but this looks like the go.

Cheers,
Matt

[netwolf]

A friend of mine and I grabbed one today for his wife who is needs it for uni work. A very nice unit it has the right stuff inside for your average student users and then some. And the price is unbeatable. Thanks for the heads up.

Regards

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

I found that these Lappys come with Vista Home Basic and lots of Bloatware.

The original Vista Home Basic install left around 91Gb free of 120Gb...That also including a hidden partition or rescue partition...as well as all the drivers that were still sitting there for later re-use and lots of good old Lenovo Shxxware.

Even with all this it was still a very quick lappy.

I mucked around for 2 days with Vista nag screens and networking woes....I gave up and installed XP. I made an Nlite install CD with all the N200 XP drivers rolled into it.

I wiped the HDD and the XP install only consumed around 4.3 Gb...nothing spared on full install. Even now with office XP, Cartes Du Ceil, AVG antivirus and other Internet essentials and must have's I have only used 5.34Gb

The best part..."it really flys under XP"....and wireless networking is also much easier and it never "forgets" itself like in Vista.

Its not a high end power machine but it is a good "Students" or typical user machine. I also have no doubts it will run all the Astronomy Apps and hardware no problems.

[madtuna (Steve)]

okay..just went and bought one of the little beasties..what is this Nlite install disc you speak of?

[tornado33]

Its a way of making a custom Windows install CD or DVD
http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html
Ive made a CD for XP that has SP2 on it, my original XP Cd didnt have any service packs, its a lot faster loading the custom CD then the original then SP2, and yes you can put custom drivers onto it if you wish.
Vista is a slug, I wouldnt touch it unless I had a Core Quad with 3 gb ram and a top end video card

[madtuna (Steve)]

thanks.. so I can't just format the hard drive then stick in my XP disk?
I need to find the hardware drivers and create some sort of a disc with that program?

Sorry comp dummy here

[astroron (Ron)]

I just went to buy one at woolies and they told me the C2000 was the loweer of the two and was $598 and the N2000 was the higher of the two at $698. they had lost the specs for the C2000 they had on display and couldn't bring it up on screen of the display model as someone had screwed the computer up.
They had also run out of stock of n2000 so the only computer they had left was the display model, at $598 so I wasn't able to get one.
Are the model numbers as in the first post?
The shop was at Nambour.
If they are correct I will ring Caloundra tomorrow and see if they have any left.
I took a print of the first post and showed it to the sales girl and she said it was wrong.
Ron

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

The Laptop is a Lenovo 3000 N200 (the Core duo), $598....see attached Big W Invoice. Note the Invoice where it states, regular $798 Special $598; and
The Lenovo 3000 C200 (the Celeron version), $498.

These are on managers Special Australia wide. People from Perth to QLD to SA to VIC are buying at those above prices.


As for Nlite:
http://www.nliteos.com/nlite.html

Nlite is a tool to make changes to your old XP install disc. Remember older XP discs (or even newer ones) won't have all the OEM drivers for Laptops like this one.

Nlite can do things like:
add newer drivers..in this case the Lenovo N200 XP drivers;
add MS hotfixes;
add your own files;
add or take away some of the "windows" install stuff;
customise to make your own install CD/DVD;
make an install DVD in lieu of a CD. Lots more can be put on this.

The Nlite site shows exactly how to do all this. Just remember the XP drivers for the lenovo N200 Nlite install have to be in ".inf" format. You can get the XP drivers here (edit: make sure your model is the N200 0687 to use these drivers):
http://www-307.ibm.com/pc/support/si...cid=MIGR-68016

Just remember that these drivers are ".exe's" or ".zip" so you need to extract them. I extracted them to a "Lenovo extracted drivers" folder so Nlite can conveniently be used later to install all these new drivers into the Nlite CD/DVD. Just make sure you delete any extracted 64 bits XP OS drivers if your installing 32 bits XP OS. The 64 bit drivers may interfere with your install.

One thing I did find is that the Lenovo Broadcom and Intel chipset 6 drivers had to be manually installed after XP install as these components show up in the device manager as "!" icons ...no driver installed. This is no major drama to install these after XP is installed. This happened because these drivers are ".msi" installers not ".infs" so nlite couldn't integrate them.

There is also another toy called Vlite: http://www.vlite.net/ which does for Vista what Nlite does for XP.

One thing you also need is "hotfixes". These can be downloaded as a "Hot fix" pack from: http://www.ryanvm.net/msfn/updatepack.html.

The Nlite site also has links for other downloads like: firefox; AVG blah blah...so you can install them on your custom CD/DVD.

Nlite can integrate all these into the install CD/DVD. Just note that this " Hotfix pack" is a little out of date so you'll need to do the windows update thing...or use Windiz: http://windowsupdate.62nds.com/


You do not need to do the "Nlite" thing but I would advise to do it as this makes an auto install CD/DVD that auto installs the Laptop drivers and hotfixes. This makes installs very easy.

One Last thing!

If you do install XP then you need to change the Bios Sata interface. Here is an extract re-post from the overclockerAust post regarding this:

....."Simply changing the SATA Controller Mode Option from AHCI to Compatibility in the BIOS fixed it" (...allowed XP to be installed). This is easy, just hit F1 on boot to get into bios. Refer:

http://forums.overclockers.com.au/sh...558801&page=75

http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/m...message.id=647

Finally...I got the last N200 Laptop from Big W Ringwood (VIC) and put it on lay by!

My precious!

[Deeno]

Went to purchase one of these puppies today but, missed out as both Big Ws on the Central Coast had sold out.

Thanks for the tip though

Any other suggestions?
I've no knowledge on what makes are reasonable quality laptops.

Deeno

[madtuna (Steve)]

Deeno, tell them the Warrawong store has a stack and ask them to transfer one down for you. They should, I've done it before with stuff that was sold out at one shop.



and thank WYO..will give those sites a look

[netwolf]

Another friend went to get one from the same store today at Warringa Mall and was told that the special was over. There system was scanning the price at 798. They told me yesterday that the offer would be open till stock ran out. Whats going on I wonder? My mate was not happy at all.
Has this been advertised anywhere in a catalogue or online, that could we could show them.

Regards
Fahim

[Deeno]

Originally Posted by madtuna

Deeno, tell them the Warrawong store has a stack and ask them to transfer one down for you. They should, I've done it before with stuff that was sold out at one shop.

Shows how helpfull staff are as I was told there is no way of checking other stores stock.

[madtuna (Steve)]

take in a photo of a telephone and ask them if they have one of those..you may need to show them how to dial it, and just make sure they have the hand set the right way up so they don't look silly talking into the ear piece

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

Yep that's right.

We telephoned our Big W and asked if they had stock...of course they checked and were helpful telling us stock levels.

But when we got there they had it wrong, they didn't know the difference between a C200 and N200.....anyway there are other stores

Edit:

I meant to also say that this appeared in an "on line" catalogue a few weeks ago but these are updated often and it is now gone. Big W have not really been pushing advertising of these puppies much...which is a pity for many..or maybe a bonus for me?

[wasyoungonce (Brendan)]

Unconfirmed as of yet ...but a user at O'clockersAust has said that these Laptops are selling at big W for even less, $550 (at BigW Cumberland Park SA store).

It would be reasonable to assume that they just want to get rid of what's left over.

Maybe worth a lookie for anyone wanting one?



edit:

Other users have called Big W and they report the price still being $598....false alarm