A good, small laptop

[ehyouwhat]

Hi all,

I'm presently looking for a laptop to buy sometime in the next few weeks, although for the right one I'd possibly wait until just after xmas (the laptop actually isn't for me).

I'm wanting something reasonably small and light but with a screen of at least 11" and preferably over 12". RAM needs to be 1gb and hard disk needs to be at least 60gb. Exact processor speed and graphics cabability are not hugely important as the laptop won't be used for games, but it does need to be quick enough to run normal software easily (MS Office and Adobe Photoshop, etc). The unit does not have to include an internal CD/DVD drive, although I will require a separate one for it.

Budget-wise I'm obviously looking for the best deal possible. A friend recently showed me a Dell model he has just purchased which satisfies all the requirements (it's tiny and even has an inbuilt webcam and mic, as well as a Dual Core processor) but alas the £1,050 he paid is well over the budget for this particular purchase. I would probably say that anything well over the £600-£700 mark will be too high.

I've seen two reasonable deals so far:

Philips X56 Dual Core with 12.1" screen, 1gb RAM, 80gb HDD, DVD ReWriter, etc. £649

www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/803207

and a larger laptop, but a seemingly good deal:

Compaq C300EA Celeron M with 15.4" screen, 1gb RAM, 80gb HDD, DVD ReWriter, etc. £399

www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/143042

Are these two deals any good? Does anyone have any further recommendations?

Cheers for any help!

[ThePassenger]

Don't get the Compaq! It's cheap for a good reason. The Celeron isn't the worlds best mobile CPU, last I heard intel removed a lot of the power saving abilities from the chip as well as some of the cache memory.

You will get better battrey life from the Philips. It's also the one with the smallest screen which = lighter.

[ehyouwhat]

The Philips is definately my favourite of the two, although ultimately it might be the low price of the other that steers things for the person who's buying the laptop.

I originally set out looking for a Samsung as I had a small Samsung laptop a few years ago and it was very good, with the best keyboard I've ever used, but they do seem to be quite thin in the ground.

[krispy]

The entry level Macbook would seem to tick all the boxes and even runs Windows if you don't get on with OS X.... A VERY nice laptop with the latest Core 2 Duo chips (I wouldn't touch a Celeron with a bargepole), built-in webcam, slot-loading optical drive, 13.3" glossy widescreen. A friend of mine has just bought one to replace his old 11 or 12" windows laptop and is extremely happy.

Usually £749 but Apple have a special event on tomorrow online and instore and there may be some discounts.

[Zad]

Only Apple could call £749 an "entry level" machine...

[krispy]

Zad said:

Only Apple could call £749 an "entry level" machine...

Granted, but then (aside from the Integrated Graphics) the performance isn't exactly entry level either.....

[ThePassenger]

Zad said:

Only Apple could call £749 an "entry level" machine...

The price is actually very good. You get a well engineered machine with will engineered software, true you can replace OS X with Win-XP (or Vista if you wish) and indeed you can dual boot using BootCamp. But, the price includes fantastic telephone support and on-line support; also Apple tend to be the first to admit to a fault. They were bitten by Sony's bad battery packs but unlike Dell and HP admitted it without one of their units exploding.

Oddly enough, considering the prevelance of Sony's parts I wonder when Fujitsu, Mitac and the other lesser OEM's will announce a recall.

[ChriX]

What about this one www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119776/rb/23417327603

[_deano]

Take a look at the Toshiba U200 range. It fits what you are after.
The prices start from £800 for a dual core up to 1100 for the all singing all dancing version.

[mikeg996]

I have a Toshiba R100, now superseded by the R200, which is about the size, thickness and weight of an A4 notepad. 7 hour battery life, 12" screen, not sure on hard drive, it can be upgraded to 2gb of RAM and Toshiba laptop build quality is second to none. I love it.

EDIT: You might want to consider www.lenovo.co.uk/ Lenovo, they bought IBM's famous Thinkpad range.

Edited by mikeg996 on Friday 1st December 11:40

[JonRB]

I have an HP Compaq - I think it's an nx6110 from memory - and it has been a great success. Excellent battery life, good screen, very reasonable all round and only cost £500-odd (ex VAT) when I bought it new a year or so ago.

The Pentium M 740 processor and 512Mb RAM give it adequete performance and at 2.65kg it isn't too heavy either, especially given the PSU is very light too. Much better than the VAIO I had previously that was 4kg excluding the PSU that was the same size and weight of a brick.

Edited by JonRB on Friday 1st December 13:06

[ThePassenger]

JonRB said:

The Pentium M 740

Jon, OP's choices are a Philips with Core Duo or Compaq with Celeron M not a Penitium. I'd still avoid it like the plague

[blanc]

ThePassenger said:

Zad said:

Only Apple could call £749 an "entry level" machine...

The price is actually very good. You get a well engineered machine with will engineered software, true you can replace OS X with Win-XP (or Vista if you wish) and indeed you can dual boot using BootCamp. But, the price includes fantastic telephone support and on-line support; also Apple tend to be the first to admit to a fault. They were bitten by Sony's bad battery packs but unlike Dell and HP admitted it without one of their units exploding.

Oddly enough, considering the prevelance of Sony's parts I wonder when Fujitsu, Mitac and the other lesser OEM's will announce a recall.

I have a 12" iBook which I bought in New York in 2003 for about £550 and it's still going strong. I reckon it was pretty good value for money.