Another example of weird woot computer pricing. A 3050 laptop with 16GB RAM, non-existent storage, and a mediocre screen is maybe worth just shy of $500. Yes, I know that if you do a Google search you’re gonna get a bunch of results for $1,200 and up from various retailers, but no one is actually buying those, because you can get a 4060 laptop with a more modern CPU and double the RAM and storage for under $800. They’ll just gather dust on shelves somewhere until the retailers clear them out for pennies or send them to the dump, unless they get lucky and manage to sell them to the stereotypical grandmas trying to buy gifts for their grandkids without knowing anything about the industry.
I think a lot of these cases are actually Amazon mistakes/overstocks/dead inventory and automatically transferred over to Woot and priced by a standard percentage reduction of the Amazon price.
The very knowledgeable Woot computer team has zero input.
BUT, if someone provides a good live link to the exact same product at a better price from a valid competitor, they can case-by-case as time allows, investigate, confirm, and beg their overlords to permit a price drop.
I’m not exactly hunting for X050 laptops so I can’t quote good deals on the fly, but a cursory search yielded this 4050 (50% more VRAM and a 30%+ performance gain over the 3050) option for $600:
All you have to do is pop in another 8GB DDR5 5600 stick in there and you’re good to go. Total cost will be $620-$625.
Here’s another similar, a bit more expensive option:
Total cost is about $700.
And we’re in a sale dry spell period at the moment. You can have this level of performance for closer to $500 during sales (e.g. Prime Day a few weeks ago).
If you’re lucky enough to have a Micro Center near you, you can just walk in and get a 4070 laptop for $999 or a 4060 for $799 almost any time.
Not a snobby fan-boy or anything, but there is a flaw in your comparisons: 15.6" screen vs. 17" and with the Walmart version HP vs. Asus. The screen difference is worthy of some $$ but the tech difference between HP and Asus is night and day (Walmart HP used to be built with lesser spec PCB components than retail HP; not sure if that is still the case). That said, is it worth the $300 difference? That’s up to the user I suppose. This is a gamers rig and they command (rightly or not) a premium price.
It’s not a horrible price, but I agree there are other options if the 17" screen isn’t on your must-have list. Also, that screen size is going to drain a battery so keep your cord plugged in!
I realize that this sale is over (and that against all common sense, this item has somehow reached the top echelons of the best-seller list), but here’s another example of a properly-priced deal for this performance tier:
Basically the exact same specs. Just add $20 worth of RAM, and you’re set for $500.
Or you can pay double for the 17", 3ms, 62.5% sRGB screen attached to a machine that you’re probably going to keep plugged into an external monitor 99% of the time anyway (lol).
Here’s another one:
Performance is roughly equivalent to 4060, has a 16" screen, and comes with 16GB RAM already installed, all for $750. Also consider the fact that this one is 40-70% faster for gaming than the expired Woot deal.
I know I’m kind of beating a dead horse here, but I just want to show people what kind of deals can be had for this sort of performance deal on pretty much a weekly basis.