What laptop

[glojo]

My daughter is thinking of buying a laptop computer for home use. She hasset the budget at £600

What would we recommend please?

At the moment we are looking at the Dell site

 

[bennesspipers]

Hi, i am a complete novice on computers,so i took a lot of advice from friends on whatb to buy, ended up with a dell 1545 from currys,better price than by buying direct from dell, & very good spec,£429 in march this year, john

 

[wemorgan]

£600 would buy a fairly high-end laptop
Do you know what type of applications she runs, whether they are graphic and/or processor intensive?

I bought a Dell Inspiron 6400 Intel Centrino Duo T7200 2GHz for ~£600. It's 2 years old now but the performance is still decent by today's standards........the x1400 Radeon onbaord graphics chip is rather average for more intensive applications.

edit: also do you know roughly how much data she needs to store?.....photos....videos....can add up to a lot.

 

[BaldGuy]

Private msge WhizzKid on here glojo as he always has plenty of bargains.....

 

[glojo]

£600 would buy a fairly high-end laptop
Do you know what type of applications she runs, whether they are graphic and/or processor intensive?

I bought a Dell Inspiron 6400 Intel Centrino Duo T7200 2GHz for ~£600. It's 2 years old now but the performance is still decent by today's standards........the x1400 Radeon onbaord graphics chip is rather average for more intensive applications.

edit: also do you know roughly how much data she needs to store?.....photos....videos....can add up to a lot.

Ask me one on sport I am a complete gallah when it comes to com-put-ahs but she watches her DVD's, logs onto the ipod type television pages to watch any TV programs she might have missed. Facebook, lots of photographs, games, you name it, it will be there

 

[wemorgan]

Ask me one on sport I am a complete gallah when it comes to com-put-ahs but she watches her DVD's, logs onto the ipod type television pages to watch any TV programs she might have missed. Facebook, lots of photographs, games, you name it, it will be there

If the games are those free ones on Windows like Solitaire and Hearts then I doubt she will need a fast graphics card. But if she installs her own games, driving, shoot-em-up etc then she'll need something with a bit more graphics power.

If she watches DVDs then a 17" screen would be preferred to the more common 15". The bigger screen adds a lot of cost. So if she could live with a 15", then she could either spend less, or get a high spec with regards to hard drive size and graphics card power.

This Toshiba looks good IMHO:
Toshiba Satellite Pro P300D-21F Laptop - Laptops at Ebuyer

or something like this from Dell
Dell Studio 17 Laptop | Dell UK

or this smaller screen but better spec
NEW! Dell Studio Laptop 15 Details

 

[grober]

The good thing about buying Dell on the net is you can upspec the laptop in the areas you feel important for your particular use. Their service and backup leaves lots to be desired but because they are such a big player they have such post-sales backup systems in place-unlike some others.

 

[purplegoddess]

ive just bought an acer one notebook does everything i need bought dvd/cd writer thingy seperatley

 

[crockers]

ive just bought an acer one notebook does everything i need bought dvd/cd writer thingy seperatley

Is that a notebook or a netbook ?

 

[flango]

I also echo the comments on Dell 4 in our house 3 x lattitude laptops A D400, D420 and D620 + Home Theatre PC. Absolutely bullet proof never fail. The 420 goes out on site with me and is pretty well in constant use had it 2 years and only had a wifi connection issue which was easily sorted. You can also get the Dells with in built GSM modem and with some great deals on vodafone 3G internet useage you can get on line any where.

Would recommend the lattitudes as opposed to the inspiron better build quality adn robustness IMHO.

Also have a Fujitu Siemens and that is a pretty goo machine never failed, but have had 2 complete failures of Toshiba satellite pro lap tops.

In fact benzed up has a Dell D420 for sale here and its a good bargain

http://www.mbclub.co.uk/forums/classifieds-sale/71377-sale.html

Hope that helps


Best regards
Ian

 

[timskemp]

My experience is the opposite of Flanaia, as a Tosh reseller I've got a loyalty to them that has been borne out in reliability and dependability. HP business notebooks are good too, but my advice always goes like this

customer: "I want a laptop"
me: "Get a tosh tecra"
c: "HFM"
me: "get something else then..."

To be honest, if it's gonna stay in one place then get a desktop with a mid spec graphics adaptor, at least you can kill zombies when bored then.

 

[Beetnik]

Have 4 Dell laptops at home and 3 at work plus 8 Dell desktops at work. Bought over the last 6 years. 1 laptop optical drive failure at 4 years, repaired at a cost of £70 and 1 hard drive failure on a desktop at 5 years.

You'll not go far wrong with a Dell.

 

[MrT]

Another vote for Dell. Got an XPS M1330, great machine, even better with SSD hard drive - very fast.

In the past, had Compaq, IBM, Toshiba, HP, Acer and now Dell laptops. Only problems I've had have been failed charging circuit on the Compaq and failed WLAN card on the HP. All the new machines I'm buying now have been Dell - the outlet store can produce some good bargains on occasion.

 

[Ade B]

There are some very knowledgeable IT bods on here who will be best placed to advise..

My vote goes to Toshiba (most reliable computer I own).

Don't buy an Acer - my current new one seems to grind to a halt too easily, has a screen like a mirror and came with far too much crap software pre installed. Does have a 7 hour battery life though...

For average use, all current pcs seem to do the job. You have to decide what you want it to do. Some of the larger laptops might as well be desktops they're so unwieldy..

Ade

 

[Kinky]

When is she looking to buy?

I ask as there's a new notebook coming out in the new few weeks; is within budget; and is going to kick some mega-ass :bannana:

K

 

[glojo]

When is she looking to buy?

I ask as there's a new notebook coming out in the new few weeks; is within budget; and is going to kick some mega-ass :bannana:

K

She is ready to buy and the money is burning a hole in her purse

(we do not believe in hire purchase) but now she has saved the money it is game on.

Thanks Ade B
By a sheer fluke she had found a very nice specc'd Assus.... I have suggested we wait to hear from our 'bods'

 

[stevieb15]

Personally I wouldn't look much further than Dell, seemingly like most respondents, however the only thing I query is why a laptop?
If its purely for home why not a static desktop, the are more reliable, robust and you get so much more form your money.
Of course if its instant messaging and web browsing whilst watching TV a Dell laptop gets my vote

 

[glojo]

Personally I wouldn't look much further than Dell, seemingly like most respondents, however the only thing I query is why a laptop?
If its purely for home why not a static desktop, the are more reliable, robust and you get so much more form your money.
Of course if its instant messaging and web browsing whilst watching TV a Dell laptop gets my vote

Hi guys,
She has a desktop computer, and wants a laptop...

Her money, her choice

 

[andy_k]

We've got one of these

ACER Aspire 6930G

it's been superb so far, powerful enough for me to work on, play most games. For a laptop it sounds great and it's got a Blu-Ray DVD drive as well so it's great for watching movies.

The only downside is that it eats power - battery life is only about two hours unless you turn everything down

 

[blondebier]

I'd echo what Mr T suggested. Get one with a SSD (Solid state drive) in it... they are the future!