Best Buy Asus X501A Ivy Bridge P-2020M $279.99+tax

And in sad about the pickup only. None in my area and my laptop crapped out on me tonight.

Just picked one in store yesterday for $299 minus some rewards and gift cards and the price went down to $289
Calling CS tomorrow for a price adjustment.
I intend to use this as an HTPC.

I went to BB on Wed and wanted to check this laptop out but there was no display. I went to the rep to ask and I asked 3 questions and he gave me all 1 word answers without a smile nor wanted any further conversation. I don't tolerate that kind of attitude toward customers so I walked away without getting it. Now BB decides to raise the price before their usually new pricing that comes up on Sunday. I hate BB!!!!

Performance wise it is halfway between a Core i3-2310M and i3-2350M, which typically still fetch $350-$400 USED on eBay and more like $400-$450 in stores and online. I found one for $309 though, and I'm curious if the smaller L2 cache in the Pentiums makes a huge difference vs the i3.

Very impressive spec for a basic laptop. I didn't even know a mobile Ivy Bridge Pentium existed before this thread, though the B9*0 series was all there was lately.

Relevant to this thread, it shows up as $289.99 for me, free store pickup when ordered online, but every store within 100 miles or so says UNAVAILABLE. I checked a few other zip codes I know and there is one in Marysville, OH about an hour west of Columbus. There is one in Richmond, IN halfway from Columbus to Indy. Plenty around San Diego. Several near Seattle. I could send my Dad to go get one in Marysville, maybe, he works in Hilliard west side of Columbus every day. I would if I wasn't so dead nuts set on 17 inch, quad core i7, and discrete graphics.

At least this laptop is way better than my current Acer. It has no optical drive, but that makes it lighter, cooler, and uses less battery power. It has USB 3.0, it has HDMI out, it's really a good deal to me. Passmark in the 2400s. My poor $249 BB BF sale Acer is barely 1300 according to the averages but mine only puts out 880-something in reality because of 667MHz FSB (most T4300s are put in 800MHz FSB laptops but I upgraded mine from a single core Celeron 900, which was in the 560 range when tested and very choppy)

EDIT UPDATE: incidentally I visited my local Wichita Falls BB to see what they might have open box or returns or clearance. They had nothing, tax refund ballers cleaned them out of everything except a few base models and all the high end stuff. This laptop could not be ordered through their system, and neither could a few Acers I was interested in (various V3s, Aspire 5750G, others). The sales guy was very knowledgable and friendly which is NOT common in my BB experiences. He let me know new laptops would be forthcoming this week and he expects a lot in the $400-$800 range in various flavors. I can only hope one of them meets my needs but at this point I've got a nice watchlist on eBay and plenty of refurbished 17 inch i7s with graphics to choose from anywhere from $625 to $750. And some of them are running 7, not 8. Wheeeeeee!

Quote from jugernot : Pretty awesome deal actually... perfect for a HTPC. Faster than my first gen i5 520! Benchmarks [cpubenchmark.net]

I also intended to use this as HTPC however there is a problem if you like me have a wireless TV tuner and wants to use WIndows Media Center to watch cable channels. This laptop comes wiht plain Win 8 not the Pro version so you cannot install Windows Media Center unless you buying the whole Win 8 Pro package + MC for $100 plus.

I did have a spare Win 8 Pro + media center license but I could not install it because this laptop have a Window 8 plain serial number embeded in the bios so when you try install a Win 8 Pro license it picks up the bios key and says that the key is no valid for Pro!
Seems like Microsoft has adopted this procedure with Win 8 and the license key is now embeded in every machine Bios so you cannot do a clean install with a different version than the one coming with the machine! Great job Microsoft!

After spending a lot of time and research I finally managed to install Windows 8 Pro + MC and it worked fine but than I did a Bios update and the machine is now stuck in the bios screen after the update.
So, DO NOT update your Bios with the newest bios available in the Asus page or you will brick it.
I am returning it!

Quote from Hawk600 : I also intended to use this as HTPC however there is a problem if you like me have a wireless TV tuner and wants to use WIndows Media Center to watch cable channels. This laptop comes wiht plain Win 8 not the Pro version so you cannot install Windows Media Center unless you buying the whole Win 8 Pro package + MC for $100 plus. I did have a spare Win 8 Pro + media center license but I could not install it because this laptop have a Window 8 plain serial number embeded in the bios so when you try install a Win 8 Pro license it picks up the bios key and says that the key is no valid for Pro! Seems like Microsoft has adopted this procedure with Win 8 and the license key is now embeded in every machine Bios so you cannot do a clean install with a different version than the one coming with the machine! Great job Microsoft! After spending a lot of time and research I finally managed to install Windows 8 Pro + MC and it worked fine but than I did a Bios update and the machine is now stuck in the bios screen after the update. So, DO NOT update your Bios with the newest bios available in the Asus page or you will brick it. I am returning it!

Wow, never heard of this before... good thing to note.