Laptop advice required!

[CommanderJameson]

I've been given a £500 budget with which to buy a wireless and DVD-writer-equipped laptop for the parents-in-law. This includes Office.

Requirement is for a laptop to use on the sofa, rather than on the road.

I'm lost in a morass of conflicting reviews and advice; I haven't bought a PC laptop for about 5 years and wouldn't know a good deal from a hole in the ground.

So, PH Hivemind, I appeal to your vast collective intelligence.

What's out there? What's to avoid?

[onlynik]

MS Office is about £330 retail, so that would leave you with £170 for a laptop.

However you could install Open office for free and then spend £500 on the laptop.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172300

[TheD]

OpenOffice is good advice but I really don't like Acers. I would go for an Asus or the new Samsung 530 is okay. Dell have never gave me problems and Toshiba are a good work tool. Then there is the HP pavillion. Where do you stop?

I've just bought a couple of Dell 1564s for a client and he loves them. It has the new i3 Cpu and DDR3 ram.

[anonymous-user]

onlynik said:

MS Office is about £330 retail, so that would leave you with £170 for a laptop.

However you could install Open office for free and then spend £500 on the laptop.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/172300

You can get office home edition for about £60

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-Office-2007-Stud...

[CommanderJameson]

Samsung R530 bought off Amazon. Office home/student bought for £59 from same.

[lestag]

CommanderJameson said:

I've been given a £500 budget with which to buy a wireless and DVD-writer-equipped laptop for the parents-in-law. This includes Office.

Requirement is for a laptop to use on the sofa, rather than on the road.

I'm lost in a morass of conflicting reviews and advice; I haven't bought a PC laptop for about 5 years and wouldn't know a good deal from a hole in the ground.

So, PH Hivemind, I appeal to your vast collective intelligence.

What's out there? What's to avoid?

erm scan the the postings for the past few weeks that have laptop in the tile

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/822770#pr...
something like this or tosh or HP
dual core, 3gb ram min, win7 premium
i just recommended something similar to this to a client - HP DV6-2114sa 15.6" Home Computing laptop
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.js...
if you use youtube or similar a lot or DVD video i'd punt for this

about 30 pounds over your budget but shop around

[TheD]

CommanderJameson said:

Samsung R530 bought off Amazon. Office home/student bought for £59 from same.

Good choice there. I've bought a couple and really like them.

[Scraggles]

open office is free and now works well with 2007 files

suspect all they want it for is letters and the odd spreadsheet

2007 is a right pain to use if used to 2003, OO is not

[Paul Drawmer]

Browse Dell Outlet, there's sometimes some bargains there. Remember to add on the VAT & Delivery though.

Very, very few users need full functionality of MS Office. Find out which bits they need, and I'll bet OO will suit them fine. (I say that as an ex Office user snob as well!)