Need a laptop

[Ch3tan]

Right, my sister and parents want a laptop. I would rather stay with brand names I know and trust to some degree. So Sony, Dell, HP and Toshiba.

If anyone has some suggestions, or can put up a good argument for some smaller firms it would be appreciated.

Looking to spend around £600, but get as much as possible for the dosh.

 

[Jonty]

Hi Ch3tan

Three that spring to mind are the Dell Inspiron 6000. You can configure it for £668 with a 1.5Ghz Dothan CPU (Centrino technology, 2MB Cache), 128MB Radeon X300 Graphics, Intel 802.11b wireless, 15.4" widescreen, DVD-RW drive, 256MB RAM (upgradable yourself later on) and 40GB HDD. And it looks the business too

The Dell Inspiron 5160 can be spec'ed similiar to the above with a Pentium 2.8Ghz, 15" screen and 64MB GeForce FX Go5200 for £591.

Even better value for money is the Aspire 1362WLMi. Mobile AMD Sempron 2800+ (1.6GHz), 15.4" display, 512MB DDR RAM, 40GB HDD, DVD-RW drive, 64MB GeForce FX Go5200 graphics, 802.11g wireless for £609.

On reflection, flash as the Dell is, the Acer represents very good value for money.

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. What will you be using it for? Also note that I'm sure there are plenty of other bargains out there, these are just a few I remember.

 

[Chilly]

as the only laptop I ever had I think Dell make good laptops - mine has had several bumps and only ever needed service once for a faulty soundcard. The good thing about Dell is the on-site maintenece or collet+return at the very least tht comes free or very cheap with their computers. Admittedly they are a bit pricier than most but from my pov it was worth the cash I spent on my Inspiron 8200.

 

[Jonty]

I can second the recommendation for Dell as well. I've been fortunate enough to have had two laptops from them and, whilst the casing craked on the first, everything has otherwise been fine.

My only complaint is their customer service, where you need to ring them up to get anything done half the time, as I've personally found their email and forums less than helpful, to put it politely. Otherwise, though, they've been great.

As for Acer, they've got a very good reputation two, and are the largest or second largest supplier of laptops last I heard.

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. WhatLaptop magazine has a review index in the bac which list the specs, prices and their review score of a large variety of different systems.

 

[Ch3tan]

I cant seem to configure the inspiron 6000 to £668 quid, it says starting at £900 ish for me.

 

[Jonty]

I cant seem to configure the inspiron 6000 to £668 quid, it says starting at £900 ish for me.

Knock the service down to one year's European collect and return, that knocks off £340.74. In an ideal world the extra service would be nice, but they say that if something is going to go wrong then it's likely to happen within the first year, or if happens after then you'll probably not want to spend the money getting it fixed anyway (how true that is depends on how long you keep computers, how you use them, how much cash you have free etc.).

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. I wouldn't buy RAM off Dell unless you're loaded It's usually far cheaper to add RAM yourself later on, Dell even provide detailed instructions and pictures on how to do it.

 

[Yaka]

Knock the service down to one year's European collect and return, that knocks off £340.74. In an ideal world the extra service would be nice, but they say that if something is going to go wrong then it's likely to happen within the first year, or if happens after then you'll probably not want to spend the money getting it fixed anyway (how true that is depends on how long you keep computers, how you use them, how much cash you have free etc.).

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. I wouldn't buy RAM off Dell unless you're loaded It's usually far cheaper to add RAM yourself later on, Dell even provide detailed instructions and pictures on how to do it.

spiffy been looking for a laptop me self

 

[.Wilier.]

We bought an Acer Aspire of the old breed (an XP2600 mobile) for roughly the same money for Mrs Wil's pre-school. Being as how it abused by a bunch of 3-5yr olds, its standing up for itself very well indeed. I seem to remember that the extended warrenty was very, very good value too.

 

[Ch3tan]

I'm leaning heavily towards the Acer models now, any recommend a good retailer to get one from?

Wish I had the money for a Vaio, but it's not primarly for me, so I guess its allowed to suck a little.

 

[.Wilier.]

I'm leaning heavily towards the Acer models now, any recommend a good retailer to get one from?

We got ours direct from Acer
with the 3yr accidental damage thingy for £100 (which has subsequently gone up slightly)

 

[Jonty]

Hi Ch3tan

Either direct from Acer as Wilier says or via ShopAcer (no experience with them, but they have quite a presence in the online laptop supply market). The latter offers free delivery, three warranty for £99, and interest free credit, the same as Acer Notebooks apart from the delivery.

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. I don't think Wilier's link is actually Acer themselves, just an official supplier/specialist, not that it matters

 

[Ch3tan]

Heh, yeah I read on the Acer site that they do no direct selling, Williers link is for a reseller.

Ta guys, will have a look through it all.

Any tips on the CPU's? It's all quite confusing.

 

[oblimov]

I have to recommend Dell as well, when i was in charge of a project in my old place i had to order a few hundred of these and the dudes at dell really were helpful and they also knew what they were talking about.

Also its been nearly 2 years and the same laptops are still out there with no problems at all, and if you knew who i worked for you would expect them to have been blew up by now by the users

The inspirion is a cracker its the one i get to use sometimes in here and its nice and comfy and can be used on planes or anywhere with a wee space easily, also i dunno if it matters much but it didnt seem to heat up as much as my compaq laptop

Neva tried acer although i did like the thing they did with their monitors and all the holes in them in the late 90s

 

[Jonty]

Hi Ch3tan

The best mobile CPU (in my personal opinion) is probably Intel's Pentium M processor which comes with all modern Centrino systems. It features 2MB cache (from the 'Dothan' codename onwards), low power consumption and optimal heat ratings, and yet still delivers a lot of processing power. Don't let the clock ratings fool you, a 2Ghz Pentium M will easily match a 3-3.5Ghz Pentium 4 depending on what you're doing (as a very rough approximation, multiply the Pentium M's clockspeed by 1.5 to 1.8 (depending on who you listen to) to get the rough equivalent in Pentium 4 terms). Expect Pentium M architecture to spread to desktops in the future.

If you're after pure processing power, then from Intel you have the Mobile Pentium 4, which I believe is pretty much a desktop 'Prescott' CPU plopped in a laptop. Whilst this offers great performance, it generates a lot of heat and eats power like nobody's business due its desktop origins. As such you'll usually find these processors in 'desktop replacement' systems which tend to be quite big in terms of size and have fairly low battery life (2hrs or so, if that).

AMD performance CPUs comes from their Athlon 64 for Desktop Replacement Notebooks (DTR) range which, as you would expect, is like an ordinary Athlon 64 in many respects, including 64bit support. Again, power consumption and heat are the trade offs for this kind of performance. They also offer a Mobile Athlon 64 which offers a better performance/mobility trade off.

In terms of the budget arena, you have the Intel Celeron M, which is a Celeron CPU compatible with Centrino chipsets, and the AMD Mobile Semperon. Of the two, I believe the Semperon offers the better performance, but on the otherhand I *think* you can you swap the Celeron M for a Pentium M on most systems should you wish to upgrade later on, something I'm not sure you can so with the Semperon and Athlon 64. The budget processors are fine for everyday use, but come to games and they may not be so good unless you have the most powerful variety coupled with a half-decent graphics card and adequate system RAM.

There is also something called the Pentium 4-M, just to confuse matters, which is basically a modified Pentium 4 designed for mobile performance. However, I believe Intel either are in the process of phasing them out or already have done because of the success of the Centrino-based CPUs. In terms of power, they occupy a solid mid-ground between performance and mobility, but given the choice I'd personally go for a Pentium M (or if you're a power junky, the Mobile Pentium 4-proper). AMD have a Mobile Athlon XP-M CPU, but I'm not sure how regularly these are used now, if at all. Like the desktop market, AMD is pushing to have Athlon 64s for performance systems and Semperons for budget systems.

Kind Regards

Jonty

P.S. Be advised that if you go with an Intel Centrino system that Intel have recently updated this family of products. The new version has a 533Mhz FSB (400Mhz FSB previously), 7.1 audio, PCI-Express support, DDR2 RAM support, 802.11g wireless as standard and improvements to power management and such. There's nothing wrong with the previous Centrino technology, but it's something to keep in mind.

Edit ~ Sorry for all the typos and such Below are the links to Intel's and AMD's mobile processor pages, which offer more detailed analysis of their product range ...

• Intel's Mobile Processors
• AMD's Mobile Processors

 

[Ch3tan]

Thanks for all the help guys. Was looking hard at the Acer ones, but we got a fujitsu siemens model in at work. After discount it was only £399. I'll post the stats later, but I've bagged a bargain