Are sub-$200 laptops too basic to be useful?

Some laptops touted in Black Friday and other holiday sales are priced at less than $200 from U.S. retailers like Best Buy and Wal-Mart. But what do you get in such inexpensive machines? For one, you can't play the latest games or run intense applications with these lightly configured laptops, and the machines are not the easiest to carry around. The laptops are adequate for basic Web surfing, word processing, or casual gaming; and one could replace an aging desktop or laptop at home. But these ...