Was taking a look at all these laptops the past few days.
The Dell 15R at Staples in-store for $300. The Toshiba Sandy Bridge for $300 shipped from Staples after email promo coupon+rebate and that Dell mentioned above at Best Buy For $280.
Amazing. That Dell mentioned above from Best Buy is Ivy Bridge based, however it is 1.5 GHZ and is BGA!!! Meaning you cannot upgrade it's processor, it is soldered. The Dell 15R at Staples is a little faster, 1.9 GHZ, Ivy Bridge based and is also BGA. The Toshiba seemed to be the best deal.
Unfortunately the shopper needed a laptop as a gift to bring out of country ASAP so they ended up with the Dell 15R from Staples and I was surprized with the screen quality. It's viewing angle blows beyond belief, but at least looking at it straight ahead at a black screen, the corners of the screen don't look like xrays. What surprized me was the calibration. It wasn't horrifyingly blue. Still a little blue, but I didn't need to nudge the Win8 screen color calibration too much.
It's barely worth the money as a throw away laptop to be used for 2 years, but I'm shocked these 2 of these baseline laptops are now BGA. Yikes, it's going to be harder now to pickup a baseline laptop and pimp it to the shininess that you want.
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