laptop mix n match

TdC

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Hello all,

a friend (yes, really) is looking to get a reasonably cheap laptop. It seems he can get a HP 510 for little. As I know nothing of laptops, anyone know of reasons why he shouldn't? Or an alternative cheap lappy?

TIA!
 

MYstIC G

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Don't know about that HP but I just picked up a £250 Fujitsu Siemens lappy from Woolies and it does the job fine well. Nothing fancy but it works, it's nippy enough (runs rings around my aging desktop - 5 years and counting) and it's got everything you'd expect (WiFi, etc).
 

TdC

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what FS would that be then?
 

Overdriven

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Well, honestly - It's sort of the came criteria when looking at PCs and Laptops... Look at the CPU/Cache/RAM/HDDSpace/Monitor and what you can get around from the same price. I'm actually looking for a laptop aswell (Saving up for one) just because I've got no real need to buy another desktop machine.

If you're looking for something around £500 (Or less, depending how lucky you are) you can grab a decent Acer machine. Dual 1.6 (2mb L2 cache iirc), 60gb HDD, 1Gb RAM, some POS gfx card.

It's alright for the price, but without knowing how much you wanna spend it's sorta hard. Ebay/Wollies (As Mystic said) are good places to look.
 

MYstIC G

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Did you get the 15.4" one meg?
Think so C. Didn't pay that much attention cos I gave it to me lassie to replace her old one.
 

Ch3tan

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There were two versions at the same price, one had less memory and a smaller screen, may be worth checking, I still have the better one if you want to exchange it.


teeds - Without looking at any proper computing places, I found a Toshiba lappy for £430. Core2duo at 1.6ghz, 1gig ram, 80gig hdd, 15.4" screen, wifi, vista home and a ati200m gpu. For between the 500-600 mark the processers get better as does the gpu. So you should be able to get something of similar specs for around £400, or get a bargain system that runs XP as everyone clears old stocks.
 

MYstIC G

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Only spec I can remember off top of my head is it's got half a gig of ram in it.
 

Ch3tan

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Yeah thats the better one, was close to buying one myself till I realised I really did not need one :)

Battery life is a bit naff though, and tell suze to remove the battery when using the mains or she will wear it out in no time.
 

MYstIC G

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Yeah, she's been told to use it on battery once it's charged and charge it only when it needs it. She's also been told to order a spare battery now, while they're cheap, instead of later when they're expensive.

I'm sure she'll ignore me though :)
 

Ch3tan

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No no, tell her never to use the battery unless she is actually not hear a power point.
 

caLLous

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Is that a recommendation for all laptops or is there a specific problem with that one?
 

leggy

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It's advice for batteries in general. My battery doesn't hold near the capacity it used to after a year of continual charge/discharge.
 

DaGaffer

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The thing that´s missing from this thread is "what´s it being used for?" There are tons of dirt cheap lappys out there if you only want it for using in another room and the occasional trip elsewhere, but if you´re going to lug one around then its worth paying a bit more for something smaller and lighter. I´ve been travelling with a Samsung Q30 which only weighs 1KG has 9 hours of battery life (6+3 technically) and cost me 899 last August, so you can probably get one for 3 magic beans by now.
 

TdC

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hmm can't get the Q30 in Holland anymore Gaffer, cheers for the tip though.
 

djpringle

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I've had battery issues with all the laptops I've owned so it's a good recommendation to follow.

The one exception is my ancient company IBM Thinkpad T23, never had any battery problems and it's always plugged into the mains, have to do it as the power regularly goes off.
 

soze

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Another point of view on the battery thing we had a guy in work who did this every day after less than 18 months he ended up pushing the battery connectors back into the case and breaking the mother board.

Could have got him 4 or 5 new batteries for the price of the one motherboard ;)
 

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