Recently I needed a new laptop and wanted to find the best one at the best possible price I could. I researched the brands and models that were available and after much thought and comparison, I settled on the HP Pavilion dv9700t series laptop from HP.com. It was a great deal, the best price available, by far the best way to buy a new laptop.

The 9700 had all the features I wanted. The ones that did not come standard with it, I could upgrade to. The base price was $999, which for what it had was a great deal. Carefully looking at the possible upgrades, I chose the 17..0" WSXGA+ High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1680x1050) upgrade, this upgrade has a brighter screen and the possibility for higher resolution. The laptop already came with 2GB of memory so I decided that would be good for now. The next upgrade I chose was the free imprint to make my laptop "mine." The 256mb video card was more than enough as was the included wireless network setup.

Lo and behold they were offering a free hard drive upgrade from 250GB to 320GB so naturally I selected that. The next step was the DVD drive option, so for $75 I upgraded from the standard LightScribe SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-RW with Double Layer Support to the HD DVD ROM with SuperMulti DVD+/-R/RW Double Layer.

One of my favorite upgrades was to the high capacity 8 cell lithium battery. Longer battery life on my laptop was definitely worth $39. I highly recommend doing this on any laptop purchase.

I next added a System Recovery DVD with Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium (32-bit) for $19. I like the ability to have access to the operating system and recovery on a disk instead of just the hard drive.

Personally I am not a big fan of extended warranties, however I did add the 1 year plan that covers pretty much everything including spills and accidents. I figure after a year, I might be looking for another laptop anyway. So, for $109 I figured it was good insurance.

I felt I didn't need anything else they offered and was ready to go. My total at this point was $1332.99 and they are including free shipping, a nice bonus. As I am ready to check out, I noticed a field for a coupon code. Now I was definitely getting excited. I have a great source for online coupons and I quickly headed to www.whatsyourdeal.com to check out their HP coupons.

I applied the coupon code to the cart and my total was now only $1032.99. Am I good or what? There is nothing like finding free money. I could have paid the price HP had listed for the laptop and been happy as it was a good deal already. I was able to get the same exact HP laptop from the same exact place for $300 less.