Which 15.6" laptop?

[ln1234]

Looking for a new laptop, mainly to be used for light photo editing in photoshop, and normal browsing/email etc. Battery life isn't that important, but it should be reasonably thin and robust. Budget up to £500 if possible.

Any recommendations? I was looking at the Toshiba L500 but not sure how that fares against others.

Ta!

[Arese]

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/189888

I'll be ordering one of those at the end of the month. Good spec, well made.

[ln1234]

Arese said:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/189888

I'll be ordering one of those at the end of the month. Good spec, well made.

Looks good - but no HDMI port I believe?

[Arese]

ln1234 said:

Arese said:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/189888

I'll be ordering one of those at the end of the month. Good spec, well made.

Looks good - but no HDMI port I believe?

Nope, no HDMI. That's only a nice-to-have for me really.

[annodomini2]

Arese said:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/189888

I'll be ordering one of those at the end of the month. Good spec, well made.

Expensive in my opinion, Pentium D's are sllloooooowwwwww!

Crap screen, I'm sick of seeing low res screens on laptops, where 1920x1200 screens have been around for years and 1920x1080 are used in so many tv's now they must be so much cheaper.

ooh 4gb of ram even loaded up you'll struggle to use more than 3.

Integrated graphics, so slow I'm not going to even bother.

Hard drives over 320GB will only get filled with films in general use.

There were 2 Toshiba's posted in a thread earlier this week in a similar price range

An AMD dual core with external graphics and a Core I3 (graphics integrated into the processor, performance yet to be gauaged).

You can do better.

[Arese]

annodomini2 said:

Arese said:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/189888

I'll be ordering one of those at the end of the month. Good spec, well made.

Expensive in my opinion, Pentium D's are sllloooooowwwwww!

Crap screen, I'm sick of seeing low res screens on laptops, where 1920x1200 screens have been around for years and 1920x1080 are used in so many tv's now they must be so much cheaper.

ooh 4gb of ram even loaded up you'll struggle to use more than 3.

Integrated graphics, so slow I'm not going to even bother.

Hard drives over 320GB will only get filled with films in general use.

There were 2 Toshiba's posted in a thread earlier this week in a similar price range

An AMD dual core with external graphics and a Core I3 (graphics integrated into the processor, performance yet to be gauaged).

Pentium D? What are you talking about?

Is there much point in having a 1900x1200 resolution in a 15.6" screen? It's all well and good having that many pixels but if they're so small that you can hardly see them what's the point? And integrated graphics are fine for everyday use. I know OP said he uses Photoshop, but I don't think that he'll be hammering it 24/7. Happy to be corrected of course.

And what's wrong with 4gb of RAM? How do you know OP won't use it?

The hard drive is 250gb.

annodomini2 said:

You can do better.

Where are your recommendations?

[Tonsko]

Just bought one of these myself :

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/sm/WF06b/3219...

HP 4510S.

Nice screen, nice keyboard. Shade under 600 quid.

[Arese]

Tonsko said:

Just bought one of these myself :

http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/sm/WF06b/3219...

HP 4510S.

Nice screen, nice keyboard. Shade under 600 quid.

Looks good that. HDMI too.

[ln1234]

I had a really bad experience with a HP DV6000 laptop that kept overheating (graphics chip) and finally died.

Are the newer ones better built/designed?

[Tonsko]

I couldn't tell you I'm afraid, this is the first laptop I've ever owned, apart from a netbook. Not the first one I've ever used, mind. I'd say it is of average build quality - metal chassis, plastic covering.

It's not as nice as a MBP, although it has Mac design elements - spaced and flat keys for example. As I say, the screen is nice too. *shrug*

[annodomini2]

Arese said:

annodomini2 said:

Arese said:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/189888

I'll be ordering one of those at the end of the month. Good spec, well made.

Expensive in my opinion, Pentium D's are sllloooooowwwwww!

Crap screen, I'm sick of seeing low res screens on laptops, where 1920x1200 screens have been around for years and 1920x1080 are used in so many tv's now they must be so much cheaper.

ooh 4gb of ram even loaded up you'll struggle to use more than 3.

Integrated graphics, so slow I'm not going to even bother.

Hard drives over 320GB will only get filled with films in general use.

There were 2 Toshiba's posted in a thread earlier this week in a similar price range

An AMD dual core with external graphics and a Core I3 (graphics integrated into the processor, performance yet to be gauaged).

Pentium D? What are you talking about?

The processor in the laptop listed is a Pentium D, which are a pre Core2 architecture.

Arese said:

Is there much point in having a 1900x1200 resolution in a 15.6" screen? It's all well and good having that many pixels but if they're so small that you can hardly see them what's the point? And integrated graphics are fine for everyday use. I know OP said he uses Photoshop, but I don't think that he'll be hammering it 24/7. Happy to be corrected of course.

How would know if you haven't used one?

The difference is quite visible you get a lot more on the screen for a start, the main difference is the dpi detail is much finer, very useful for photo work.

Arese said:

And what's wrong with 4gb of RAM? How do you know OP won't use it?

The hard drive is 250gb.

Nothing against 4GB ram, more can be useful, just everyone's obsessed that you've got to have 4GB or 6GB of RAM, where 2GB will cover 99% of users needs.

Arese said:

annodomini2 said:

You can do better.

Where are your recommendations?

For a start I said there was a thread posted this week that listed 2.

Refurbished I know

Not 15.6" and Not under £500

[TheD]

ln1234 said:

I had a really bad experience with a HP DV6000 laptop that kept overheating (graphics chip) and finally died.

Are the newer ones better built/designed?

My Hp is on 16 hours a day and has been for 18 month now.

I like the Asus stuff and the one posted is a hundred under budget so I dare say there is one out there with Hdmi. Reliable as well.

Have you had a look at the Dells with the i3 Cpu?

[JulianHJ]

I'm also in the marke for something similar for my sister. She's visiting from the Cayman Islands so ordering from Dell will take too long. I use a Studio 15 and aside from an annoying media key fault it's been very good. I doubt I'd get anywhere near as good a deal from a high street outlet selling Dell as can be had direct wth discount codes.

Wih that in mind the Toshiba L500 has been top of my list so far, probably from PC World (unfortunately).

Are there any better options for a £400-£500 budget? She goes back in two weeks so fast online delivery is possibility...

[DrTre]

can't help with actual machines but laptopsdirect are very very quick on delivery.

[Zad]

Surely the Dell Outlet site would be able to deliver within a few days? You don't get the maximum selection but you do get a good discount. For £500 you should be able to get something with at least an i3 and external graphics card.

[JulianHJ]

Zad said:

Surely the Dell Outlet site would be able to deliver within a few days? You don't get the maximum selection but you do get a good discount. For £500 you should be able to get something with at least an i3 and external graphics card.

Good point, I'll have a chat with her tomorrow.

[annodomini2]

Sony very good spec for the price