found a laptop I liked - HP4530s ($484)

[sluggo]

Dunno if it's a hot deal, but I found an HP business machine with a lot of the features that many folks here might find attractive:
- aluminum chassis and skin
- matte screen
- 7200 RPM drive
- Sandy Bridge processor
- 4GB DDR3
- USB3 ports
- fingerprint scanner

With a 15.6" screen for under $500. The drive is only 320GB and it's a TN panel, but if you can live with that (I can) it seems like a very good deal. Ordered one last night. Linky

[CaptTomato]

Do laptops come with 8 bit panels?....I guess some of the Dells must use IPS variants

[BlackStar]

15.6'' at 1366x768 is really not good enough. Other than that, it's cheap, so why not?

[sluggo]

Not good enough for what, I guess is the question. I see people who have to have 1600x900, even if it's on a 14" screen. Sorry, too small for my eyes. This setup happens to be perfect for me, but I understand others have different needs.

Anyway, I got the machine yesterday and found a couple of other interesting things. There's a small Linux build on it that you can boot quickly (via an alternate power button) for browsing or checking email or whatnot. The UI is configurable and it seems to support all the hardware (webcam, fingerprint scanner, etc). It also has Bluetooth and a UEFI BIOS, which includes hardware-based drive encryption. Very secure little machine.