£1300 laptop
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Scooby_snax

Original Poster:

1,279 posts

284 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
I have a voucher for £1300 to buy a laptop from PC World. I need to spend all the voucher ie wont get cash refund so could include portable harddrive and wireless router if so desired So I guess we are talking a lappie from £1000- £1400
Prime requirements are lightweight preferably under 2Kg and 1MB RAM with DVD Writing capability.
Hard drive obviously as large as possible but this machine is only to be used whilst away from base and material (photos primarily) will subsequently be downloaded to backup remote harddrives and the lappie harddrive stuff deleted so lets say 50Mb plus
Having looked at the PC world website looks like options are limited but am also aware what they have in the stores is not necessarily what they have online.
Does anyone know if they can do specific order as was thinking about the Sony vaio with the carbon fibre body

chris.mapey

4,778 posts

297 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
I am using an IBM T43 laptop.

It's great - I've had Toshiba & HP prior to this. This is a different league altogether...

Hope PC World can oblige...

Chris

Scooby_snax

Original Poster:

1,279 posts

284 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
Would you buy a HP/Compaq over a Sony? I have always felt that Sony's are perhaps a little overpriced and you pay for their name
PS doesnt look like PC World do IBM

UpTheIron

4,058 posts

298 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
Does it have to be a Windows laptop? What about a Mac? Even if it is a voucher it would gall me to pay PC World prices for something Intel based. Their Mac prices look a bit closer to reasonable.

Scooby_snax

Original Poster:

1,279 posts

284 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
Yes as all my Desktop software is non-Apple

FourWheelDrift

92,344 posts

314 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
Scooby_snax said:
Yes as all my Desktop software is non-Apple


Can you get an Apple Mac laptop with all the software you need for £1300?

I'd think about it if I had vouchers to redeem, since you can get a perfectly good PC laptop for a lot less than £1300 (outside PC World) that'll do the business these days.

Scooby_snax

Original Poster:

1,279 posts

284 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
Well the prime software would be Adobe Photoshop CS and Nikon Capture so I guess those 2 together would be about £500?!?
I will have a look into it

BTW who are Lenovo is it IBM?

jimmyjimjim

8,314 posts

268 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
IBM sold their laptop business to Lenovo last year. All of the 'lenovo' laptops come IBM branded and are exactly the same as if they were made by IBM as previously.

chris.mapey

4,778 posts

297 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
This is the machine I'm using at the moment.

Lenovo ThinkPad T43 2668

Should be around your budget.

Excellent WiFi manager built in. Fingerprint scanner, bluetooth & WiFi (which can be on at the same time - something that seems to be incapable with Toshiba!!) Nice & quick, good battery life, and a really nice feel to it. It's also quite small. Lot thinner than my last HP. Shock sensor on hard drive, etc, etc.

I think you can tell that I'm a fan....

Chris

touchingcloth

11,706 posts

269 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
You need the PCWorld business section not the consumer pap to get to the IBM stuff.
There is quite a selection of T43's, Link to one of them here but are a variety of others.

www.pcwb.com/catalogue/item/IBMN059T

They also usually have a little corner of the store for the business stuff. Spec up the Ram to at least 1GB though if I was you, 512mb on the above is not great.

Scooby_snax

Original Poster:

1,279 posts

284 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
Thanks Chaps - yes have opened a Business Account today at PC World and yes the selection is far greater than the public bit. Re the recommended Lenovo ThinkPad T43 2668 I see the weight of it is 2.6Kg which is beyond what I was looking for. As mentioned above ideally I am looking for a sub 2Kg machine - moving into the 2-3 Kg category obviously opens it up to whole different range of machines

thebluemonkey

1,296 posts

270 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
Scooby_snax said:
Well the prime software would be Adobe Photoshop CS and Nikon Capture so I guess those 2 together would be about £500?!?
I will have a look into it

BTW who are Lenovo is it IBM?


Nikon capture on the mac is the worst piece of software I've ever used.

aranell

868 posts

254 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
Scooby_snax said:
Would you buy a HP/Compaq over a Sony? I have always felt that Sony's are perhaps a little overpriced and you pay for their name
PS doesnt look like PC World do IBM


Yes, because I've had endless trouble with every Sony laptop I've ever seen....

If you think the T43 is too heavy, what about the X40 (or whatever the latest model of this is?) It's a lot smaller, and without the docking station is really light (however the docking station holds the CD-ROM drive).

Kinky

39,944 posts

299 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
The X41 is the latest of the X series Lenovo Thinkpads, and from memory weigh about 1.3kg

K

chris.mapey

4,778 posts

297 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
Scooby_snax said:
Thanks Chaps - yes have opened a Business Account today at PC World and yes the selection is far greater than the public bit. Re the recommended Lenovo ThinkPad T43 2668 I see the weight of it is 2.6Kg which is beyond what I was looking for. As mentioned above ideally I am looking for a sub 2Kg machine - moving into the 2-3 Kg category obviously opens it up to whole different range of machines


Mine doesn't feel like 2.6kgs...

I'll stick on the scales, hang on...

(my wife now thinks I'm certifiable...)

Using a winning combination of bathroom scales & then the cake scales from the kitchen, I can deduce that a T43 weighs 2.3kgs.

Hope that helps. and I'd still recommend it BTW...

Chris

Scooby_snax

Original Poster:

1,279 posts

284 months

Sunday 19th March 2006
quotequote all
Chris
Which T43 do you have...there seems to be several variations on a theme

kneedowndeano

7,414 posts

283 months

Monday 20th March 2006
quotequote all
To make that £1300 go a bit further, take a look at the PCWorld website. The site prices are cheaper than that of the store. What's best is that you can order the laptop on the website and the collect at store. I've done this a few times now and it's worked a treat. Last one was a Netgear wireless router. In store price was £80 online £59.

jamieboy

5,929 posts

259 months

Monday 20th March 2006
quotequote all
aranell said:
I've had endless trouble with every Sony laptop I've ever seen....
For balance, I've used my Sony VAIO pretty much daily for two years and it's never missed a beat. It was villainously expensive new, though.

Previously had an IBM and I'd add my recommendation to everyone elses. Other manufacturers can give you the same spec for less cash, but in my experience, my Thinkpad ran quieter and cooler than comparative Dells, Compaqs, Toshibas.

zcacogp

11,239 posts

274 months

Monday 20th March 2006
quotequote all
I paid what I thought was a huge amount of money for an IBM X39 a couple of years ago, and it is a superb bit of kit. It won't fit your bill (now obsolete, no optical drives, quite slow processor) but it does lead me to add my voice to the endorsements for IBM Laptop PC's.


Oli.

chris.mapey

4,778 posts

297 months

Monday 20th March 2006
quotequote all
Scooby_snax said:
Chris
Which T43 do you have...there seems to be several variations on a theme


I have a 2668. Slightly smaller screen (14.something inches vs 15"

I have increased the memory to 1Gb, and it's great!!

Chris