Best balance of quality v cost for PC/laptop

[goodlife]

Considering getting my son a laptop for Xmas, but haven't looked at the market for years. I'd value any opinions on what are the best offers out there right now that balance good quality kit without paying over-the-top prices.

As for spec, I'm up for getting the latest kit so whatever has most of today's essential bells and whistles should do - plus it must have an 802g wireless card.

[Plotloss]

£350 PC World, Advent something or other.

Brand new thats going to be difficult to beat and I really do hate to sound like the advert...

[victormeldrew]

Dell were banging out something similar for £399 last month.

[agent006]

Plotloss said:

£350 PC World, Advent something or other. Brand new thats going to be difficult to beat and I really do hate to sound like the advert...

I'm quite tempted to go to PC world and have a good look at one of these. There must be something incredibly shit in them to be that cheap, it's just a question of what.

[goodlife]

Thanks for the replies.

Probably more interested in quality gear. If there was a league table for the 'top 5 for highest quality laptop manufacturers', what would it be? Sony? IBM? Toshiba? HP?

[page3]

Apple iBook

(well, someone had to say it... )

>> Edited by page3 on Monday 12th December 09:42

[fazz81]

I have just bought an HP Pavilion DV4152EA for £899, really good piece of kit for the price.

[agent006]

goodlife said:

If there was a league table for the 'top 5 for highest quality laptop manufacturers', what would it be?

IBM
HP
Dell
Toshiba
Apple

[Plotloss]

goodlife said:

Thanks for the replies. Probably more interested in quality gear. If there was a league table for the 'top 5 for highest quality laptop manufacturers', what would it be? Sony? IBM? Toshiba? HP?

IBM in that case...

That said though, any compelling reason to get him a laptop?

A desktop will perform better and last longer as you can upgrade the bits stage by stage, just a thought.

[LongQ]

I have never had any hardware issues with Dell kit and I'm very pleased with a notebook bought from them a year ago.

A pal of mine also had a good Dell unit some year back. At next upgrade (frequent for him) he bought HP and ended up with a series of woes. But that was about 3 years ago now iirc, things may have changed.

Really the decision (and price) is as much influenced by what your son is likely to be using it for as anything else. Is it to be a gaming machine? Does it have to perform especially well with DVD playback? Is battery life important? Does size and weight matter?

[_dobbo_]

Goodlife, you have what are essentially 4 choices with laptops these days.

Slow, big, heavy and very cheap.
Slow, small, light and not so cheap.
Fast, big heavy and expensive
Fast, small, light and very expensive.


If you are after out and out performance, you have to buy big and heavy, personally I'd stick with a desktop that being the case.

My money would go on the small light ones - something with a 12.1" screen that's about the size of a magazine and not much heavier. Reckon I'd buy a Dell Latitude D410 if I was shopping now, if memory serves it's a rebadged samsung.

In the recent PC Pro awards, winners on reliability and service for laptops were Lenovo (which seems to be part of IBM)

[neil_cardiff]

Dell, Dell, Dell, Dell, Dell, Dell, Dell, Dell, Dellllllll

Oh, did I say Dell out loud...

Just the easiest, cheapest, and most painless to support (i.e. rebuildwhen they go up in smoke.

Oh, anf ALWAYS pay for the three year on-site next day support if you get a laptop...it's an insurance policy...

And no I don't work for 'em...

[dern]

Plotloss said:

IBM in that case...

Must be better than when I worked there then. Personally I wouldn't touch IBM kit simply because while I worked for them for 2 years I went through 3 or 4 desktop systems (not laptops admitedly) through hardware failures. Also when I've been given IBM kit at work it has been consistently slower than similarly specced alternatives.

Mark

[goodlife]

Plotloss said:

That said though, any compelling reason to get him a laptop? A desktop will perform better and last longer as you can upgrade the bits stage by stage, just a thought.

He already has a desktop for gaming, etc at home. The laptop is because more and more of his mates are using them at school, and he's dyslexic so finds typing much easier than writing due to auto-correct and spell-checker. The school are happy these days for dyslexic kids to use PC's to create their homework and upload it directly to the teacher via the password protected school file server (not in my day!).

High spec is needed as he'll no doubt also want to put his iPod + music and latest games onto it as well.

[victormeldrew]

Inspiron 1300

[zcacogp]

agent006 said:

IBM HP Dell Toshiba Apple

I have an IBM thinkpad X31, and it's excellent. Would recommend it without batting an eyelid. (But bear in mind what it is - a very small very portable machine without a huge processor, so quite slow.)

I had a HP before that. And hated it. Customer Service was only good for shooting, although in fairness the machine was OK-ish.

I also have a Dell laptop from my company. I got through 3 in the first 5 weeks, and would never, ever recommend Dell laptops on this basis.


Oli.

[Plotloss]

dern said:

Plotloss said: IBM in that case... Must be better than when I worked there then. Personally I wouldn't touch IBM kit simply because while I worked for them for 2 years I went through 3 or 4 desktop systems (not laptops admitedly) through hardware failures. Also when I've been given IBM kit at work it has been consistently slower than similarly specced alternatives. Mark

I was always under the impression that they didnt make the desktop machines but did the laptops.

I've never really been a big fan of laptops but Thinkpads seem to be reliable and sturdy. That said though the next one I buy will probably be a ToughBook.

(This post was brought to you by an IBM X21)

[r988]

IBMs are generally the best PC Laptops you can get, their Desktops are crap though and should be avoided, it's only the laptops that are good. Bear in mind that you will pay dearly for it though, I wanted to get an IBM but couldn't justify paying almost TWICE the price of virtually the same spec HP model, so I went with the HP instead, it's been fine and stood up to a suprising amount of punishment. You can feel the quality isn't as good as an IBM though, especially on the keyboard which are excellent on the IBMs.

[dern]

Plotloss said:

I was always under the impression that they didnt make the desktop machines but did the laptops. I've never really been a big fan of laptops but Thinkpads seem to be reliable and sturdy. That said though the next one I buy will probably be a ToughBook. (This post was brought to you by an IBM X21)

You may well be right, the guys here seem to think that they are very strong and have survived to pretty demanding impromptu drop tests.

(This post was eventually bought to you by an IBM ThinkCentre once it finished picking its nose )