Need a laptop for £350 max - Any advice much appreciated!

[rjben]

Is this Laptop any good?



I'm not up with the latest specs and what have you. Looking for a home laptop for storing images and internet work. Is the following any good:

http://h40059.www4.hp.com/uk/homelaptops/product.p... =XZ466EA&experience=direct

Can anybody recommend anything better for £350 (max)?

Cheers,

Rob

[tinman0]

It's a cheap HP, so no. Buy anything but HP.

[james_tigerwoods]

If you're looking for a cheap laptop, try the likes of ebuyer or, if you can access it, the Dell Outlet site.

As for specs - I'm out of touch myself, but when I've looked, I always pass over anything that has a Celeron processor and I always look for as much memory as I can within my budget (but bear in mind that memory, when bought elsewhere, is cheap).

[gamefreaks]

tinman0 said:

It's a cheap HP, so no. Buy anything but HP.

This.

All of the HP/Compaq's I have seen recently have been of terrible build quality.

[Thorburn]

At the end of the day any competitor laptops will likely be being made in the same factory by the same people. At least an HP warranty is worth something, unlike Acer.

Bought an HP G72 recently for a relative and it seemed fine.

For £350 it could be worth looking at a few second hand options too, as you are right at the bottom of the price range for 'proper' (not netbook) systems.

[matt28]

Definitely dell factory outlet for that budget

[TonyRPH]

Plenty to choose from here

And here

Toshiba tend to be good workhorses.

HP are good business laptops (meaning probably not that good for gaming) (despite the comments above)

Dell are also recommended.

Sony look nice, but have a tendency to be fragile (and usually expensive)

Acer are ok - had a bad rep for overheating a few years back

Avoid any of the Comet / Currys / PC World 'budget' brands like EMachine / Packard Bell (or anything else that you don't instantly recognise!).

ETA: forgot to add that Fujitsu and Lenovo (formerly IBM) are good too.

[rjben]

Thanks gents.

[rjben]

Thank you Tony (and the rest of you), lots of good advice there!

TonyRPH said:

Plenty to choose from here

And here

Toshiba tend to be good workhorses.

HP are good business laptops (meaning probably not that good for gaming) (despite the comments above)

Dell are also recommended.

Sony look nice, but have a tendency to be fragile (and usually expensive)

Acer are ok - had a bad rep for overheating a few years back

Avoid any of the Comet / Currys / PC World 'budget' brands like EMachine / Packard Bell (or anything else that you don't instantly recognise!).

ETA: forgot to add that Fujitsu and Lenovo (formerly IBM) are good too.

[Or888t]

My gf's looking at geting a new one, so i've been looking at them resently, one think i have realised is that the difference between £350 and £400 can be huge. (even 350-380).
Few snipits of advice;
Stay way clear of "celeron" processors, they're terible.
The word 'cache' will be mensioned regarding the processor, look for anything that has more than 1mb of 'cache' i.e 2mb, 3mb etc.
This makes a huge difference in performance.

Also, currys are doing a offer at the moment that you get £50 off a new laptop when you trade in your old one( obviously if that is possible, and given that your current one isent worth a considerable amount more than £50). Clearly this links heavily to what i mensioned regarding price.