I believe Tiger is trying to say their stock won’t last. It is simply an issue of selling out, not an issue of poor reliability.

Well, TigerDirect is quite funny — I subscribe to their e-mail bombardment for two reasons: 1) Amusement; and 2) Because from time to time they do have a really good deal.

Of course this laptop is, to put it mildly, crap, and not worth hurrying for — but TD has had deals in the same price range which would have tempted me, did I not already have a cheap laptop [my memory tells me it is a Chinese knockoff called a “Great Computer” — I do not have it to hand as I write]. Interestingly enough, my cheapo laptop, which cost me %450 over a year ago, has done exactly what I want it to do, and has never caused me any problems [naturally, with this boast, when I go home, I will probably find it has self-destructed and set my place on fire].

TigerDirect has received some bad press, but I have to say I have done a fair bit of business with them, and found their prices competitive, their site easy to use, ordering to be quick and convenient, and they deliver stuff in a flash.

But there is no doubt, they hucksterize a lot, and you do have to be careful with their “deals” — some of which are good, and some of which are for the suckers born every minute.

Yes they are cheap. On the other hand, they actually do quite well. I buy through Tiger’s Distributor company and get low end as well as high end systems from them as I have customers that are willing to pay more and those that want the cheapest possible. The Everex laptops run surprisingly well. I sold some well over a year ago and still get good comments from the buyers on them. I have yet to have one returned. I DO NOT ever get any with Vista on them though. We don’t sell any name brand computers other than laptops and we reinstall all that we get. Any brand you buy these days including Dell, HP, Compaq, etc. come out with very cheap components that never last. We custom build desktops and refurbish name brands. First thing on any name brand is to replace the power supply. That is where they get you. I have seen brand new Compaq desktops with dual core processors, dvd burners two hard drives, and many other extras all with a huge 160W power supply? They know they will fail and customers will have to send them in for repair. The warranties won’t cover it. They will blame it on power surges, or failure to use properly protected surge protectors. They then charge the customer over a 100.00 for another power supply, 100.00+ labor, and shipping to and from and then will simply install another cheap PS so they end up doing it again in a few months. The whole industry makes all of us smaller honest stores look bad as well. Major dealers like WalMart, Office Depot, Circuit City, etc. in our area sends customers to us on a regular basis when they start questioning support, performance, etc. If they can take a customers money, they do. If they feel they have a smart customer they send them to us so we can sell them a truly good system that we stand behind 100%. Bottom line is Microsoft with their under hand dealings with major computer companies are dropping prices to get rid of these Vista systems to recoup as much as they can before relesing their next version based on XP.

Ok, we have a $399 laptop.
With Vista.
Running on a 1.46 Celery chip w/512 RAM

One of the many reasons for not using Vista is that it’s bloated eye candy. Looking at the laptop I let my wife use, it’s a 1.7g Celery that XP made run too slowly.

So if 1.7g is not enough for XP, what kind of math did they use to prove that 1.46g is ok for Vista? Microsoft Math, obviously. I believe it’s used for federal budgeting too.

If you purchase Vista, you deserve to use it.

I bought a really kick-a** laptop from compusa 2 years ago. I paid over 1200 for it. at the time it was rated as one of the best (a toshiba a75), it was so good it didn’t even come with a big hard drive or a lot of memory for that price. I upgraded the memory immediately, bringing the price up to almost 1300 before the tax. My wife hated it and barely used it for the first year. It had about 40 hours on it when it went in for its first warranty repair. Toshiba wouldn’t honor the warranty at first because it had it listed as sold 9 months earlier. After fighting with them, they had me fax my reciept to them and accepted it for warranty repair. They regreased the cpu. I bought my wife a new laptop (a super cheapie acer).
I used the toshiba after the 6 weeks to repair it. Her acer is still going strong and has a year of constant use on it. Its about 4 pounds lighter so she loves it. The toshiba is dead again. This time it’s got another year of minimal use ( I use my desktop most of the time.), and its a burnt out motherboard. I am now shopping for a cheapie acer for myself. Her acer has easily triple the use that the toshiba has, and I assumed that the best rating and higher price meant it was a good laptop !!! Damn was I wrong !! I’m just venting right now because I have a 1300 dollar paperweight here, but I won’t make that mistake again. The super cheap acer that my wife is using is a workhorse. (Its the acer Aspire 5610). Just my $0.02
Axe
(experience - computer tech working in the repair field for 9 years)
currently I own 3 laptops, and 4 self-built desktops)