New laptop advice required please.........
Discussion
My son is after a preferably new (or nearly new) laptop with the following...........
Centrino.........
1.4ghz
ATI Mobility gfx........
As cheap as possible, as he is an inpoverished university student....
Any suggestions of where to try, and ideas of how much it might cost him??.....
Thanks in advance.........
>>> Edited by Wacky Racer on Saturday 18th December 13:57
Centrino.........
1.4ghz
ATI Mobility gfx........
As cheap as possible, as he is an inpoverished university student....
Any suggestions of where to try, and ideas of how much it might cost him??.....
Thanks in advance.........
>>> Edited by Wacky Racer on Saturday 18th December 13:57
Try places like www.dell.co.uk www.ebuyer.com www.dabs.com www.simply.co.uk
Not sure what they cost but probably around £500-£600
Not sure what they cost but probably around £500-£600
icamm said:
Try places like www.dell.co.uk www.ebuyer.com www.dabs.com www.simply.co.uk
Not sure what they cost but probably around £500-£600
Thanks for that.....
He has seen a Dell one he likes, which INCLUDES 3 years insurance for £1200, but seems a bit steep to me
, but I guess it depends on the spec.......Depending on what he actually needs (as opposed to what he wants), then you can't go too far wrong with a £200 IBM Thinkpad 240, with a modest Celeron 300Mhz and 10" screen.
Not very high specs, but only 1kg, virtually indestructible, very cheap, and mine is happily running Win2k, Office2k and Visual Studio .NET
They come up on eBay fairly regularly.
If you want to spend more then Thinkpad X31s are going on eBay between £700-£800.
Why pay £1200 for a brand new all-signing all-dancing machine when you are absolutely guaranteed not to need it?
(Again, please note the distinction between want and need - very easy to convince yourself that they are one and the same.)
>> Edited by JonRB on Friday 17th December 20:20
Not very high specs, but only 1kg, virtually indestructible, very cheap, and mine is happily running Win2k, Office2k and Visual Studio .NET
They come up on eBay fairly regularly.
If you want to spend more then Thinkpad X31s are going on eBay between £700-£800.
Why pay £1200 for a brand new all-signing all-dancing machine when you are absolutely guaranteed not to need it?
(Again, please note the distinction between want and need - very easy to convince yourself that they are one and the same.
) >> Edited by JonRB on Friday 17th December 20:20
JonRB said:
Why pay £1200 for a brand new all-signing all-dancing machine when you are absolutely guaranteed not to need it?
Hmmmm, well he is studying softwear engineering and has landed a job in Germany next year, for twelve months working for Hewlett Packard so I guess he needs a pretty up-spec machine.............(within his budget of course)
Hiya, Wacky's son here. As my Dad said, this will be my only PC whilst living in Germany since he doesn't fancy lugging mine to and fro in the car every few months. I'd like it to be able to play some of my (not too modern) games. I know a "gaming laptop" would be stonkingly expensive, but it doesn't have to look super pretty, just have the ability to play them. I specified a Radeon because I believe they are better for battery life.
Speaking of which, battery life is something else that's important to me. I don't want something that will die halfway through a DVD whilst watching on a train or plane. Because of this, i've specified a Centrino processor. As well as giving good battery life, the laptops come with wi-fi, also important. I'm told the Athlon XP-M are the worst for this. I have an AthlonXP in my desktop PC, but i'm told that while they are powerful, the XP-M's suck battery life like a vampire.
Apart from these two things, i'm pretty flexible when it comes to spec, as long as it has the above most other things will probably be ok. I don't need a shedload of RAM or a huge hard drive. If this was a second machine, i'd probably pick up a cheap one for £300 from eBay that could word process and browse the internet, but for my only PC, i'd rather spend the cash and get something I'm happy with.
I've been trawling the internet looking for likely PCs, and there's a Dell system i'm interested in which is pretty much what i'm after. Since warranty is a big thing for me, the fact that its 3 year accidental damage cover covers me when I go to Germany is a bonus. Most other places don't want to know about it if you leave the country for anything other than a short trip. That said, any advice or tips for the first time laptop buyer is appreciated, my Dad insisted that I tell him the spec so that he could ask for the advice of you fine people. I'm sure you won't let him down
Cheers
-Rob
>> Edited by Wacky Racer on Saturday 18th December 13:56
Speaking of which, battery life is something else that's important to me. I don't want something that will die halfway through a DVD whilst watching on a train or plane. Because of this, i've specified a Centrino processor. As well as giving good battery life, the laptops come with wi-fi, also important. I'm told the Athlon XP-M are the worst for this. I have an AthlonXP in my desktop PC, but i'm told that while they are powerful, the XP-M's suck battery life like a vampire.
Apart from these two things, i'm pretty flexible when it comes to spec, as long as it has the above most other things will probably be ok. I don't need a shedload of RAM or a huge hard drive. If this was a second machine, i'd probably pick up a cheap one for £300 from eBay that could word process and browse the internet, but for my only PC, i'd rather spend the cash and get something I'm happy with.
I've been trawling the internet looking for likely PCs, and there's a Dell system i'm interested in which is pretty much what i'm after. Since warranty is a big thing for me, the fact that its 3 year accidental damage cover covers me when I go to Germany is a bonus. Most other places don't want to know about it if you leave the country for anything other than a short trip. That said, any advice or tips for the first time laptop buyer is appreciated, my Dad insisted that I tell him the spec so that he could ask for the advice of you fine people. I'm sure you won't let him down
Cheers
-Rob
>> Edited by Wacky Racer on Saturday 18th December 13:56
Rob, if you are on a tight budget look at Acer. They do some pretty nice looking laptops (widescreen etc) for under £700. You can get a 3 year warranty on them for another £99. They might not be what you are after but they are worth looking at (claimed 3 hour battery life as well).
IBM are also very good.
IBM are also very good.
agent006 said:
Surely if you work for HP you'll get a nice shiny HP laptop the day you start?
Rob here again:
Hah, i'll be lucky! They've not said anything about it, neither have the people who did the same thing last year. I was going to get a HP laptop, but since HP.com (american) won't have anything to do with it if it leaves America, HP UK have a pretty dire choice, and Dell cover me in Germany anyway, it seems pointless to go with HP.
I've just bought this for a friend, and she's delighted with it.
Toshiba 2.8Ghz Celeron, 256MB RAM (cheaply upgradeable to 512MB), 30GB hard drive (I think?), 14" screen... for £609 all inclusive.
www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hardware/notebooksandtablets/productView.htm?quicklinx=3J15
Otherwise look through the other machines on Dabs, or try the Dell factory outlet shop (linked to from their website), which gives a decent discount on their machines and still the same warranty.
Toshiba 2.8Ghz Celeron, 256MB RAM (cheaply upgradeable to 512MB), 30GB hard drive (I think?), 14" screen... for £609 all inclusive.
www.dabs.com/uk/channels/hardware/notebooksandtablets/productView.htm?quicklinx=3J15
Otherwise look through the other machines on Dabs, or try the Dell factory outlet shop (linked to from their website), which gives a decent discount on their machines and still the same warranty.
OK, since you're going to be working in an IT environment, i'd stick with the usual suspects (IBM, Dell, HP, toshiba, possibly sony). If you turn up with a novatech or similar you'll be laughed out of the door, not to mention all the ones i've seen have been terribly designed (and i've never used one that's more than 2 years old, seen plenty but none work).
agent006 said:
OK, since you're going to be working in an IT environment, i'd stick with the usual suspects (IBM, Dell, HP, toshiba, possibly sony). If you turn up with a novatech or similar you'll be laughed out of the door, not to mention all the ones i've seen have been terribly designed (and i've never used one that's more than 2 years old, seen plenty but none work).
That is absolute cr4p!
The likes of a novatech laptops are, granted, cheaper than the main stream laptops but they are highly spec'd and as such do the work required!
I admittedly have a small sony vaio, and it is also a fantastic little laptop.
You dont need to fall at the feet of expensive marketing, it only pays vast wages and that in turn is added on to the top of the hardware price.
It's not absolute crap.
The comany i work for took over another company and hence their IT stock. We use exclusively Compaq laptops and inherited this company's novatech stuff.
They are well specced and work in a software sense, but they're made of cheap parts that are hard to get hold of spares and drivers for and they are physically cheap. Compaqs have metal casings, as most quality laptops. The main problems we have with novatechs is the screen hinges seizing and then the screen snapping off around the plastic mounts. Can't get them replaced under warranty as it's "wear and tear" apparently.
They're cheap for a reason, which is fine if all you do is surf PH in front of the telly, but they can't cut it as a business tool.
There, rant over.
The comany i work for took over another company and hence their IT stock. We use exclusively Compaq laptops and inherited this company's novatech stuff.
They are well specced and work in a software sense, but they're made of cheap parts that are hard to get hold of spares and drivers for and they are physically cheap. Compaqs have metal casings, as most quality laptops. The main problems we have with novatechs is the screen hinges seizing and then the screen snapping off around the plastic mounts. Can't get them replaced under warranty as it's "wear and tear" apparently.
They're cheap for a reason, which is fine if all you do is surf PH in front of the telly, but they can't cut it as a business tool.
There, rant over.
I agree novatech's stuff is quite cheap and cheerful. The odd thing is most of the laptops they sell they have nothing to do with other than getting some white box merchant to slap a novatech lable on the lid of the thing. 
I have one of their Crossfire's here as my laptop, yes it's got a Novatech logo (ten minutes with a scalpel will sort that) but is actually a Mitac... which was made by LG. Cheap yeah, but damn fine and thunders along. Not exactly portable though
I would, to be honest, avoid getting a cheap dell/compaq unit, you tend to end up arguing the toss with an indian support bod about the defenition of 'it's dead and smoke is pouring out of it'... just my opinion of course.
I have one of their Crossfire's here as my laptop, yes it's got a Novatech logo (ten minutes with a scalpel will sort that) but is actually a Mitac... which was made by LG. Cheap yeah, but damn fine and thunders along. Not exactly portable though
I would, to be honest, avoid getting a cheap dell/compaq unit, you tend to end up arguing the toss with an indian support bod about the defenition of 'it's dead and smoke is pouring out of it'... just my opinion of course.
sadako said:"Oh, good gracious, sir. That is terrible indeed. I will be needing to talk to my supervisor about that."
I would, to be honest, avoid getting a cheap dell/compaq unit, you tend to end up arguing the toss with an indian support bod about the defenition of 'it's dead and smoke is pouring out of it'... just my opinion of course.
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