Laptop advice

[Satch]

No 2 son needs a new lappy for college PDQ. Nothing mega, not a netbook but something reasonably compact, lightweight & with reasonable battery life.

Not looking to spend a fortune (£400/£450-ish) and seen a few possibles but if anyone is aware of something that stands out or knows of decent offers grateful for input.

 

[garystu1965]

Hi mate, go to the Dell website and look on there. They have good offers and good support. STAPLES office stationery outlets do some amazing laptop deals. Check them out as well.

You can't go wrong with any of these and don't be tempted to spend your maximum budget. I was an IT contractor for ten years and I didn't have the latest fangled top of the range stuff. Just a decent PC to enable me to use astronomy software, browse internet etc.

You may find that a £250 laptop is sufficient for your son. Unless as most people seem to do, play games and need massive processors and graphics cards which then costs a lot more.

Try this link...

http://www.staples.co.uk/technology...DW&ns_linkname=Netbooks_14_09_09&sec_type=int

 

[wemorgan]

I've been happy with Toshiba in the past:

Toshiba Satellite Pro L300-297 Laptop - Laptops at Ebuyer

 

[flango]

Another vote for Dell here, 3 of them in our house absolutely bullet proof never faulted and the oldest one is now coming up on 5 years old. That said for something a bit more modern I got my daughter a Fujitsu Siemens from Tesco on offer at £279 brilliant machine really high quality screen and everything you could want my only negative comment about it would be its size as its a big machine to lug around but also very light.

That said my Samsung NC10 Netbook does everything these do runs office 2007, microsoft project, technical drawing software, fantastic battery life, very light only negative is the small screen if you were to spend all day looking at it.

 

[ririsko]

5 DELL laptops in the company, without any problems for last 5 years, Vostro 1520 range starts now at 269GBP.

 

[w124coupe]

Have a think about how/where/for what it will be used - there's an argument for a small laptop with a large external monitor for Uni use.

My daughter is on an Architecture degree and has a 13" Dell XPS plus a 24" monitor - works very well for portability and CAD.
(we went with the XPS - from the Outlet at 40% off list - as it has next day onsite support.....useful for a non-techy living away).

What will he use it for?

 

[tlzeebub]

Check the gadget show website they did a test buying the best laptop for under £400, I think it was a samsung R519 that came out top.

 

[Sp!ke]

Check the gadget show website they did a test buying the best laptop for under £400, I think it was a samsung that came out top

Do you actually trust what the Gadget Show thinks?

Their tests are usually completely off the wall and bear no relevance to the products usage in the real world.

I'd buy a laptop from a dedicated computer manufacturer as this is their core business so they put a lot of R&D into getting the product right.

Samsung make alright fridges though.

 

[Dryce]

Do you actually trust what the Gadget Show thinks?

Their tests are usually completely off the wall and bear no relevance to the products usage in the real world.

Ironically .... I rate them more than most sources.

I'd buy a laptop from a dedicated computer manufacturer as this is their core business so they put a lot of R&D into getting the product right.

Samsung make alright fridges though.

LOL.

Samsung make their own stuff. Their own screens. Their own drives.

So maybe the argument is that Samsung make consumer products such as TVs and Fridges. Well Sony and Toshiba make consumer electronics - so they're not dedicated computer manufacturers. So much for the core business argument.

Dell traditionally subcontracted out manufacture to Asia. They don't actually make any of their own components. So which one is a dedicated computer manufacturer? Well Dell is a dedicated assembler.

If I was buying then Samsung and Acer would be top of my list of options.

 

[w124coupe]

Samsung support is a bit strange. I have a Samsung NC10 netbook which is exceptional except that 2 of the little rubber feet fell off and seem to have vapourised leaving the machine rocking irritatingly.

Calling them, I (apparently) have 2 options -

1. Samsung have the machine back for 10 working days for a free "repair".
2. I send it to their parts people (Telford I think) who charge £25 - their minimum charge - to fit the feet.

(re option 2, they have to fit them as they use "industrial glue" which I can't handle.....which presumably then falls off again?).

Its always the small stuff....the machine is now seated on B&Q kitchen door buffers, trimmed to fit, super-glued on.

 

[Ade B]

I have an Acer Aspire - crap screen, excellent battery life, bit unstable although after the latest round of Vista updates seems to be behaving itself.

I've also got an aging Toshiba which has been bullet proof and a dinky Sony Vaio which has a fragile case (so Mrs B has found) and is silly expensive.

I wouldn't buy another Acer, but I'd happily buy a Toshiba.

Ade

 

[crockers]

I have a Samsung X11 - one of the ram modules died - called John Lewis - they arranged for Samsung to pick it up (Telford) - was back on my desk 3 days later all fixed.

I rate the product. As for Samsung make fridges - made me smile - don't Mazda make light bulbs?

 

[MD5]

I've just bought an HP DV6 1215, but this 1210 was a close contender, perhaps better suited for your son in that budget. I use both Dell and Compaq/HP in my business, and can't really fault either. For the money though, check out the graphics card, and HP/Compaq are streets ahead of Dell at the moment, with the DV6 1210 having an ATI 512MB dedicated card, whereas Dells in that price range are shared.

 

[Frank O' Phile]

HP. Just say no.

They are having lots of issues with the sound disappearing after Vista updates.

 

[MD5]

HP. Just say no.

They are having lots of issues with the sound disappearing after Vista updates.

I've not heard that.

I did all the updating when I got it home, and no issues on mine so far. I've been reticent to use Vista from what I've heard, but it qualifies for free Windows 7 upgrade and I needed a new one.

 

[flango]

Yep HP and Vista not a good match at present. I personally think Vista is a crock of s*it anyway and won't use it, rolled my daughters new laptop back to XP and no issues at all. From what I've read about Windows 7 and what people have posted on here it seems it is like Vista without all the grief and resource intensity so should be OK. I'll eventually get round to swapping one of our machines over to 7 and give it a go.

 

[w124coupe]

The amount of "cr@pware" preinstalled on a new machine (especially if no OS disks are provided) is key in my opinion.

Sony are the worst for this and their freebies are often very hard to remove cleanly as they insist on proprietary sound, interfering with networking etc.

Lots of "Vista" issues comes down to this bloatware - most clean Vista installs, with all the updates and the correct drivers, are fine. Max memory (4GB for 32-bit Vista with about 3.5 effectively used) helps a lot and is cheap....

I like the way Dell (at least for the XPS) gives you a real OS disk plus a separate one for drivers and a 3rd for pre-installed apps - you can therefore install clean with just the software that is of use to you.

 

[Frank O' Phile]

Yep HP and Vista not a good match at present. I personally think Vista is a crock of s*it anyway and won't use it, rolled my daughters new laptop back to XP and no issues at all. From what I've read about Windows 7 and what people have posted on here it seems it is like Vista without all the grief and resource intensity so should be OK. I'll eventually get round to swapping one of our machines over to 7 and give it a go.

W7 is really good having tried the RC version. It uses a lot less RAM and looks good (visually). However it didn't fix my sound problem on my HP laptop, so using ubuntu which works.

On my main PC though (another HP product) I run Vista home Basic and it has been faultless these past few years.


When considering a laptop make sure you have at least a dual core processor. I bought a new laptop with a Celeron running vista premium and loaded with bundled stuff and the bl00dy thing would hardly move. I returned it after 2 days.

 

[Satch]

Thanks for all the suggestions. After extensive research..........got fed up and ordered a Dell Vostro 1220,

12.1 inch screen is bigger than a notebook but smaller than most laptops.

The Apps. he needs to run on it mean that many cheaper laptops would labour a bit so went for the Intel Core 2 Duo 2.2GHz processor and 4Gb of memory.

Price includes a free upgrade to Windows 7 as and when available (after the initial miseries have been worked through I think!)