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Asus Laptop 15.6 inch - Intel i5-430M 2GB RAM - $798 at Officeworks

270

Cheapest i5 laptop I have come across. Normally lucky to get an i3 for that price.

Warranty is 2 years worldwide.

According to this "Laptop reliability survey" Asus laptops are among the most reliable ones: http://www.engadget.com/2009/11/17/laptop-reliability-survey…

Myer also selling it for $799 ($1 more). I wouldn't expect Myer to have bargains on laptops, but I think the specs are very decent for this price.

Cheapest on staticice $907.35 from Wireless.

JB Hifi selling for $998 on special.

Specs from Officeworks website:

■CPU: Intel Core i5-430M (2.26GHz)
■MEMORY: 2GB RAM
■HARD DRIVE: 320GB
■SCREEN: 15.6" Wide
■GRAPHICS: Shared
■OPTICAL DRIVE: SuperMulti DVD
■COMMUNICATION: Wireless N
■WEBCAM: Yes
■OPERATING SYSTEM: Windows 7 Home Premium
■WARRANTY: 24 Months Manufacturers Warranty

Note: it has 1 x 2GB RAM, so there is a free slot for another module. 2GB of DDR3 RAM is typically $65-$69.

Related Stores

Officeworks
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closed Comments

  • good one but i think the one showed on mln this month is better wth the same price

    • the one on the cover of the catalogue is the i3 not the i5 - the other specs are better…

      • but you got 4gb ram and a graphic card and office as well

  • +4

    2GB of RAM? Jesus christ, with RAM being so cheap it should be illegal to put anything under 4.

    • +2

      obviously this is old model mate….it says 320gb…lol that was sooo last season

      • +2

        Can't be that old with the core i5. Big hard drives are so last season, haven't people heard of an SSD? Buy a big external drive or NAS for storage and use an SSD to actually have stuff load when you click it, not after you've had a shower and made a coffee (ride goes fast, make sure to do up your seatbelt).

        • +1

          SSDs are not even worth the money at this point in time. Had an X25-M G2 but sold it. Waste of money. Unless you're opening applications every 5 seconds, the speed increase doesn't justify the cost of buying one. An HDD is more than fast enough. Don't know what HDDs you use if loading applications are that slow.. If you're a gamer especially, SSDs are pointless since you can't even fit all your games on it (steam games in particular), which would benefit a lot.

          Have fun lugging around your external HDD with your laptop..

          • @manbearpig: I can't agree less.

            I got the same SSD and I love it in my laptop.

            Because the laptop is a ULV (UL30VT to be exact) the speed increases make it appear faster than my gaming desktop, which is stuck in the stone age with a HDD.

            Bootup to desktop is 25 seconds, meaning I don't even both with using sleep/hibernate any more, and I can throw any task I want at it knowing its not going to crap itself on me.

            =
            80GB is plenty. Who games on a laptop?

            Even I got 3 games installed on my SSD (TF2, L4D2 and COD4) and I still have 20GB free.

            Games don't benefit much from an SSD anyway, its mainly sequential reads when loading levels, so you get a reduction in load times and not much else. Certainly not that much faster than HDD, since HDD's are still passable in sequential speeds.

            =
            I don't need to lug around an external HDD. I just plug it in when I'm home and need it.

            • @Shadowsfury: sounds to me you are just showing off.

              manbearpig made it very clear the speed increase doesnt justify the cost of buying one ssd at this point of time, which is the commonsense for most people who spend hours on computer everyday.

              • @aec: Sounds to me like you've got some connection with 'manbearpig'.

                ONE person says they're 'not that fast' and that must be the truth then? God, go on youtube and you'll find hundreds if not thousands of people with 2 computers side by side or "before and afters" which CLEARLY show the SSDs destroying conventional drives.

            • @Shadowsfury: Shadowsfury>
              Who games on a laptop? I have a gaming laptop so I do. It's my desktop replacement. Luckily for me, I have 2 hard drive bays so using an SSD for me isn't a problem, but most laptops only have one hard drive bay. Even so, I've still gone back to a 500GB Scorpio Black. Steam games in particular which have to all be on the same drive become problematic when using an SSD since it's not big enough (I had an 80gb). Game load times do benefit from SSDs. They benefit a lot especially when there are load times within the game. My games loaded faster when I had the SSD but the problem was that I couldn't have all my Steam games installed at the same time.

              Boot times are quicker yes, that's probably the main attraction of SSDs. But other than that, what else really benefits from the SSD if you can't put all your games on it? Like I said, unless your opening applications every 5 seconds I don't think an SSD is worth the money. Once the application is open, it's open. It's not like application performance improves with an SSD. I suppose it depends on the user, but for most people who run basic applications, there won't be a difference. Once I realised I was paying $250 for a quicker boot time and 80gb capacity, I sold the SSD as I just felt it wasn't worth it.

              rochow>
              I NEVER said SSDs aren't fast and neither did alwayseric (there are many out there that share the same view as I do you know). I just said the improvement isn't significant enough to justify the purchase. Yes, go on youtube and there are hundreds of videos comparing boot times and loading applications. But that's it. That's where it stops. And that's my point.

              • @manbearpig: Blanket statements all round. I freelance full-time and spend 40-50 hours a week with lots of programs open, having 8GB of RAM and an SSD is basically irreplaceable; it speeds up everything so much - someone sends me a big attachment then calls to discuss it, I can open it quickly, don't have to wait for a minute while photoshop takes it sweet ass time loading. The SSD made everything on my system much faster. I still have the old drive full of stuff that I don't need often. Especially on lower-end laptops, the SSD makes the whole thing so much snappier. I'd speculate your average user would not need more than 40GB of stuff, let alone 80GB (take away games & pirated media, your average user wouldn't use much space). Considering you can get some lower end SSDs for $100, IMO its worth that extra 10% for everything to be snappy and not forever lock and freeze up.

          • +3

            @manbearpig: hahaa you are too advance…you are like those people who spent 1k on a graphics card where there is no game that is even up to that standard for you to utilise your gear….

          • -3

            @manbearpig: Clearly something else in your computer was the bottleneck or you only use the computer for the 1 program all day.

            • @noyesmaybeok: T9600, 4GB RAM, 1GB GTX 260M. I don't think any of those are a bottleneck.

              • -1

                @manbearpig: i7 860 overclocked to 4Ghz, 8GB of DDR31600mhz RAM — doesn't get much faster than that and the SSD was a massive leap over the hard drive.

                • @noyesmaybeok: Well that still doesn't mean something in my laptop is a bottleneck. I suppose it just depends on what you do. If you're going to be doing some intensive work related stuff that you seem to be doing, I suppose an SSD would be worth the price, but a hard drive is in no way a bad thing for the average computer user that you seem to make it out to be. Maybe in 1-2 years when large capacity SSDs fall to a reasonable price, then I'll go back.

      • +13

        lol, ive never heard computer equiptment been described as "soooo last season"

        • +5

          i5 is the new i3, haven't you heard?! :p

          • @noyesmaybeok: about the Bird?
            That the bird is the Word!
            A-well-a everybody's heard about the bird
            Bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word

  • I bought the K52F from office works 3 months ago
    - came with i5 430M / 320G HD / 4gig ram / win 7
    bought it from an OW shop that only had the display model - got an extra 5% off….
    (it was listed at 798 then which was a great price for an i5)
    not all office works shops will do that - worth clarifying on the phone…
    i'm really happy with it!

  • Can this laptop plays 1080p?

    Is the Win7 32bit or 64bit?

  • Can OW beat mln by 5%?

  • Can get an Acer 5740G for the same price after cashback, plus is has HD5470 graphicsL

    $799 15.6" Acer 5740G i5-430M 2.26 2GB 320GB HD5470 W7HP
    http://www.onlinecomputer.com.au/product_info.php?products_i…

    • Much better deal, even if just for the video …

      • +1

        those specs sound good, but I would be hesitant to buy Acer. I had to buy a laptop a year ago and was hesitating between a Dell and an Acer. The officeworks guy told me I better not go for Acer, because they get a lot of those back in for repairs. The link I put above (in the description) about the reliability survey seems to also reflect this.

    • you should post that as a seperate deal, sounds like a good price.

    • got my acer the other day from HN 3 day sale

      i5 - 430, radeon HD5650, 4gb ram, 500gb hdd,wifi/bluetooth, LED LCD screen for $779

      havent had any troubles(so far) and havent heard anything too bad from friends about acer laptops…..

      there are always gonna be better/similar deals out there, its just a matter of finding them

      • which HN was this at? this looks like a pretty good deal

  • Not bad, keep in mind future ASUS entry level notebook warranty will change to 1 Year.

  • Can this be upgraded to 6GB by adding a 4GB DDR3 RAM module?

    (Must all RAM modules on a motherboard be the same make and model?)

    • Haven't tried it, but I do not believe they have to be (although having the same make is often desirable). I have added 2GB to the existing 2GB, using a different brand (Geil). This worked fine.

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