Laptops (buying Help)

[sotal]

My Sony Vaio Celeron 600 Laptop is getting a bit old now and I've been trying to find a decent Laptop for not much money.

Any ideas or advice??

I set a budget of £500+VAT but I'll go a little bit above to get the right spec.

I want the following:

1GB RAM

DVD Writer

40GB HD (not fussed about amount of space)

15.4" Widescreen

Built in Wireless

Not a cut down processor - I don't want a sempron or celeron but I don't mind AMD or Intel

I've managed to find one at £570+VAT which has all the right specs:

Mobile Centrino Core Duo T2300

15.4" WXGA CrystalBrite Widescreen

1GB Ram

80GB HD

DVD Double Layer Writer

WLAN

The only down side is I think the make is a bit cheapy - It's an Acer Aspire 5612WLMi - has anyone had any experience with Acer Laptops??

I've had 4 laptops now, 2 dell laptops which fell apart at the hinges - so I don't fancy another Dell, 1 toshiba Libretto (tiny mini laptop thing) and the Sony Vaio.

The Sony has been the best by far - it's now just used as a portable internet station but it gets slung around and it's still like new - I had to replace the harddrive but that's it. So I want something with decent build quality

Any suggestions? Anybody know anywhere to get Laptops cheaper? Anyone know any trade places I could get one? Any other thoughts??

I know theres lots of questions but I just don't want to buy cheap and end up having to buy twice

[Fidgits]

you want a cheap laptop...

get on a flight to SFO, head to Fry's!

man they had some bargins on the laptop front the other week :D

[sotal]

I think the flight might cost more than the laptop :D

[Leeky]

HP nx8220

Intel Celeron M 360 1.4GHz

15.4 WXGA TFT (Active Matrix - V Cool)

512MB (Upgradable to 2GB)

60GB HD

DVD+/-RW (Does normal CDR/RW too of course)

802.11b/g Wireless

56k Modem

10/100/1000mb Ethernet

XP Home

1 x IEEE 1394 (FireWire)

3 x USB 2.0

£575.74 inc VAT

I know its a celeron but its still a pretty damn good price. And HP make great notebooks :)

Link To Laptop

They also do this NEC i-Select M5210 which is nice. Intel Celeron M 370 1.5GHz / 15 TFT / 512MB / 40GB / DVD+/-RW / XP Pro / Notebook PC

Link to Laptop

[Fidgits]

I think the flight might cost more than the laptop :D

more than likely...

[sotal]

Cheers Leeky but...

a - it's got a celeron

b - it's only got 512MB RAM

[Leeky]

Cheers Leeky but...

a - it's got a celeron

b - it's only got 512MB RAM

I think you'll really struggle to get a notebook with 1gb ram and a Pentium4/D/AMD Athlon for around the £500 mark :(

Most notebooks of that spec are around £650-700 at the least once you add the vat on :(

Edited -

Just noticed there is a special offer on that HP notebook, you can get 1gb upgrade for free :)

link

[Sooty]

Try ToysRus. They do good ones and at good prices

[sotal]

Cheers Leeky but...

a - it's got a celeron

b - it's only got 512MB RAM

I think you'll really struggle to get a notebook with 1gb ram and a Pentium4/D/AMD Athlon for around the £500 mark :(

Most notebooks of that spec are around £650-700 at the least once you add the vat on :(

Edited -

Just noticed there is a special offer on that HP notebook, you can get 1gb upgrade for free :)

link

Humm that's tempting, you actually get the 1GB aswell but it says they have to remove one of the 256, so you end up with 1280MB RAM

Still it's only got the Celeron - I've never actually used the Newer Celerons are they up to much? I want it to be comparable to my Desktop Machine which is an AMD 64 3000+, 1GB RAM. It needs to run Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop all concurrently. My desktop machine can tend to get bogged down with that aswell - could do with doubling the RAM really.

I want to spend 500+VAT so it's more like £600 inc VAT and I don't mind going a little over to get the right one I found the one in my first post which is only £70 over budget but I'm just not sure about going for an Acer

[XT2]

Gor for a Sony Vaio...

worth their money all day long.

I've had a Sony Vaio for the last 4 years... never went wrong... dropped a large glass of water on it once whilst working, after a week's rest, or coma, it began working again.

It's gone a bit old and slow for me now... so I just got me-self another... yep... Sony Vaio.

btw, try E-Bay, Amazon, Ebuyer or even Staples if you're looking for any make.

[sotal]

Sooty - Just looked at Toys R Us Website they seem to have a couple of Gateway ones which come close - might pop up to festival park and have a look at them

XT2 - I would like another Sony but they're just too expensive.

[jay dh]

sotal, the one u suggested by acer sounds fine...

acer is like LG for laptops, cheaper brand but still good quality IMO. my dad used to have an acer laptop, didnt fail him.

IMO, get an intel processor and get a centrino duo, they are class leading and you will not be dissapointed. if you want any more info on the centrino duo, just ask. dont get a celeron, i recon it will struggle to run what you want to run

[Leeky]

Acers are good laptops dude Very well made and robust

[sotal]

sotal, the one u suggested by acer sounds fine...

acer is like LG for laptops, cheaper brand but still good quality IMO. my dad used to have an acer laptop, didnt fail him.

IMO, get an intel processor and get a centrino duo, they are class leading and you will not be dissapointed. if you want any more info on the centrino duo, just ask. dont get a celeron, i recon it will struggle to run what you want to run

Cheers for the info. I thought a celeron would struggle - but I just wanted someone to confirm it.

Acers are good laptops dude Very well made and robust

I think that's what I wanted to hear - unless anyone comes up with anything different then it looks like the Acer it will be. If anyone else is interested they are on Special Offer at the moment at:

http://www.shopacer.co.uk/sess/utn;jsessio...fers.shopscript

They are the second one down - says this weekend only so may be finishing soon???

Free Delivery and a Free Vodaphone Datacard too, can't be bad

[jay dh]

that acer seems a good deal, also has a dual layer dvd drive, handy...

i would deff buy that acer one, its cheap as this one is the same laptop and much pricier

clicky

edit: pricegrabber cant find it cheaper than you did sotal either...

[reece]

Wait untill the next Bank Holiday (end of May) then there will be loads of deals at PC World etc

[sotal]

that acer seems a good deal, also has a dual layer dvd drive, handy...

i would deff buy that acer one, its cheap as this one is the same laptop and much pricier

clicky

edit: pricegrabber cant find it cheaper than you did sotal either...

That one at dabs has got a slightly bigger HD, but it is quite a bit more. It does make the one I found seem cheap. Thanks for looking

Wait untill the next Bank Holiday (end of May) then there will be loads of deals at PC World etc

I had a look at the bank holiday deals last week, and they all seemed to be 256MB RAM/Celeron ones that they were trying to shift

[jay dh]

tbh, centrino duo isnt cheap, and the fact that youhave found one for under £600 ex vat is good. even if u wait til bank hol, the prices arnt usually as good as online...

[dazwan]

If you ever fancied turning to the dark side, wait until Apple hopefully announces the new iBook replacement later today (if you beleive in rumour sites). It will be a bit more expensive than the £500 you're looking for (possibly around £700 for the lowest spec).

The new "Macbook" will be intel based (rumours are saying there'll be a single core version and a core-duo version possibly 13" widescreen) and it will be capable of running windows (using bootcamp) if that's your thing and will be so much nicer to look at than a boring black/grey slab that everyone else churns out.

go on, trust your feelings...

[sotal]

If you ever fancied turning to the dark side, wait until Apple hopefully announces the new iBook replacement later today (if you beleive in rumour sites). It will be a bit more expensive than the £500 you're looking for (possibly around £700 for the lowest spec).

The new "Macbook" will be intel based (rumours are saying there'll be a single core version and a core-duo version possibly 13" widescreen) and it will be capable of running windows (using bootcamp) if that's your thing and will be so much nicer to look at than a boring black/grey slab that everyone else churns out.

go on, trust your feelings...

Sorry mate, already got a Mac at Work and I wouldnt want another!!! Espicially not a tiny little 13" One! I would prefer to go the other way and get a 64bit PC and run the cracked version of the latest Apple OS on it

[jay dh]

If you ever fancied turning to the dark side, wait until Apple hopefully announces the new iBook replacement later today (if you beleive in rumour sites). It will be a bit more expensive than the £500 you're looking for (possibly around £700 for the lowest spec).

The new "Macbook" will be intel based (rumours are saying there'll be a single core version and a core-duo version possibly 13" widescreen) and it will be capable of running windows (using bootcamp) if that's your thing and will be so much nicer to look at than a boring black/grey slab that everyone else churns out.

go on, trust your feelings...

its called the macbook pro. there will be a dual core version, unsure about widescreen but a nice 14/15" screen. it will be a sweet machine but i recon out of budget. price comparrison sites say around £1400 but soon must be around the £900-1k mark for a good spec

[Al J]

I'm on my second Acer laptop. Work fine. No real probs. I think the first one's hard drive dying was more down to me stepping on it rather than a design fault.

The first one was a little flimsy around the screen area and a bit of the plastic covering its metal frame broke off due to flexing when opening and closing the lid. This one I'm using now seems much more robust.

Hard to get excited over it but it does the job.

The MacBook Pro is a gorgeous piece of kit and I'd have one like a shot but it certainly ain't cheap. clicky

[dazwan]

its called the macbook pro. there will be a dual core version, unsure about widescreen but a nice 14/15" screen. it will be a sweet machine but i recon out of budget. price comparrison sites say around £1400 but soon must be around the £900-1k mark for a good spec

The "MacBook Pro" is the Powerbook replacement, I'm talking about the iBook replacement, expected to be called the "MacBook".

Either way it looks like the launch is rumoured to have slipped to next week now.

[XT2]

btw... Acer are owned, designed, built by Samsung... another leading name in computing technology. Can't go wrong here.

[Demonic Angel]

Rich has an Acer laptop.... this one to be precise...

Acer Ferrari

Well, I think its that one.... its new and it looks similar!

Well anyway, he thinks its great and uses it to work (he works from home all day every day, using a multitude of different programmes)

So yeah, I'd buy an Acer personally, based on the fact Richs one is so good....