Where’s my $99 Black Friday Laptop???

I’m still holding onto hope that at least one retailer will bust out a last minute surprise and sell a notebook in the $100-range. It used to be big news when a store would have a $500 laptop for Black Friday, but now that everyone’s got them for around $300 or $400, it’s hard to get all worked up about a junker of a laptop being sold for $229, like the A135-S7403 at Best Buy.

Last year Circuit City had a $99 notebook, but it required users to sign up for a year of Vonage’s VOIP telephone service.
But spending $300 on phone service to fet a $99 isn’t that exciting of a proposition.

I’m not in the market for a $99 laptop and generally try to steer people away from computers that are grossly underpowered. But a $99 will surely spread some holiday cheer to those who absolutely can’t afford to spend a few hundred bucks on a computer. Best Buy, Circuit City and Wal-Mart (especially) all have deep enough pockets to pull this off, and one of them will sooner later. Whoever does this first is going to get enough attention to more than make up for the money lost by chopping the price of a Compaq or Toshiba down to $99.

It’s just a matter of time before one of the big-box stores does this.