When you Google find free laptop or laptop finder.. there give away type deals for free laptops. Is it pulling my leg? Is there a catch to it? Or is it just really free?

Nothing in life is free!
If it sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
In this economical situation, people are trying to make money... your money. It may appear that you get something up front for free but you will be agreeing to a contract that requires you to pay more than the cost of the item at the end of that contract.

Also, nowadays completely usable new laptops, notebooks or netbooks are available at truly "steal" prices. I bought my sister-in-law a small netbook this week for $239, brand new, 160gb hd, 1gb ram, wireless, webcam/mic builtin, XP Home... too small for an optical drive so another $60 bought an external DVD writer, so barely $300 for the whole setup.

As good as free... IMO. This thing is cute as can be, too!

Also, nowadays completely usable new laptops, notebooks or netbooks are available at truly "steal" prices. I bought my sister-in-law a small netbook this week for $239, brand new, 160gb hd, 1gb ram, wireless, webcam/mic builtin, XP Home...too small for an optical drive so another $60 bought an external DVD writer, so barely $300 for the whole setup.

As good as free...IMO. This thing is cute as can be, too!

Where did you buy it?

TigerDirect.com sells a LOT of these Acer Netbooks. Go to this link and sort Price: Low to High... the best prices are on the ones marked "refurbished', but that just means it was owned briefly and whatever was wrong with it was already found and been fixed. To me, this is better than brand-spanking-new since it's still up in the air if there's anything wrong with. Every major piece of hardware (including my fridge (9 yrs old now) and my plasma screen TV (4 yrs old now) were bought at astronomical discount as "refurbished"...

Laptops & Notebooks Guided Search at TigerDirect.com (http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/Category/guidedSearch.asp?CatId=17&sel=Detail;175_1173_46444_46444)


EDIT: Apologies... the refurbs all had 120GB hd, so that is what "I" would have bought, but she went for the non-refurb at $299 because it had 160GB HD and included a small mini-mouse. Very cute.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4400143&CatId=3987

Only $10 more gets you an 1" bigger screen on these little puppies, but to me the total charm of these is that they are small enough to drop into a normal purse.

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4421682&CatId=3987