So you have £1k to spend on a laptop...

[nath]

Might you consider this: HP Pavilion DV6 Entertainment Laptop - Laptops at Ebuyer ?

A client of mine has about £1k inc VAT to get a nice new laptop and it needs to last a while. I checked out Dell and there's a very nice XPS I can build for that amount but bluetooth functionality and N level wireless were considered extras at 30 quid each - not really a major problem but it pissed me off :\.

Anyway, nerds! Gather! Whaddya think on this, and do any alternatives spring to mind? Grunt and reliability are important here, plus needs to be ~15" as it's an every day use machine but the 17" it's replacing is too bulky.

TIA!

 

[Zenith.UK]

A 15" laptop for £1k or less?
World's your oyster mate!

I'll have a proper look when I get back later.

 

[Yaka]

grunt and reliability = toughbook

still that hp seems like a not bad price

 

[dysfunction]

That HP does look quite good.

This one looks good too:
Acer Aspire 5940G Laptop LX.PFQ02.088 - Laptops Direct

 

[Ch3tan]

From when I was looking I remember Toshiba had very good high end laptops.

You know Dell will give you a better deal if you phone them up and haggle. "I'm spending a grand on a laptopn, I expect the bluetooth and wireless free". The thing is I despise dell since they screwed me over with their customer services before. So I'd rather you did not give them money.

 

[Cadelin]

Apple (United Kingdom) - MacBook Pro - Technical specifications of the 13-inch.

 

[nath]

Apple (United Kingdom) - MacBook Pro - Technical specifications of the 13-inch.

Ha ha.


Chet, yeah I got really pissy with the dell website and I've decided they're getting no dosh from me or my client.

Dys, that Acer looks pretty nice indeed. What are Acer's like though - well made? I've very little experience with them. Also, I know it's pretty safe to assume, but it doesn't confirm that it's Win 7 64bit, unless I'm missing something. On my search I've found a number of computers with 4gb of ram and 32bit Vista/7 - absolutely redonkulous.

 

[dysfunction]

I have an Acer Aspire One netbook and it is very well made indeed. It's a lovely little machine. Keyboard and screen and very good and solid.

I don't know about the Win7 thing. It may be worth giving them a ring. It would be pretty daft giving you 4GB Ram and then having a 32bit Win 7.

 

[Ch3tan]

I've seen very very few laptops with the 64bit versions of vista or windows, it's because of driver support.

 

[Zenith.UK]

My personal experience of Acer laptops is positive.
I have an Aspire 5920G 1st generation "gemstone" design from Aug 2007. It's still adequate to my needs 2.5 years later and I can play my main games at reasonable detail with good framerates (L4D, HL2, TF2, UTk4 etc).

This particular laptop ticks all your boxes...
Play.com (UK) : Acer Aspire 5942G - 524G64BN / Core i5 520M 2.4GHz / 4GB / 640GB / Blu-ray BD-ROM Combo / 15.6" / Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit / Laptop / Notebook (LX.PMT02.018) : Computing - Free Delivery

Here's some info about the gfx in it:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-5650.23697.0.html

Bluetooth, wifi-N, bluray/combo drive as well, and all for less than £1000 delivered.

 

[Cadelin]

Ha ha.

Why not, your only specifications were it needed to be < £1000, needed to last and needed to be portable. Macs are excellent laptops and fit your requirements.

 

[ST^]

Why not, your only specifications were it needed to be < £1000, needed to last and needed to be portable. Macs are excellent laptops and fit your requirements.

Macs are excellent if you want to waste your money.

 

[nath]

Why not, your only specifications were it needed to be < £1000, needed to last and needed to be portable. Macs are excellent laptops and fit your requirements.

Many reasons, primarily because I thought you were joking . It's unsuitable for her because she's a PC user and it's really not worth the time for her to learn all sorts of new crap. Plus there may be compatibility issues with her current setup/requirements. Plus you're paying a huge premium for macs because they're macs. You'll get much more bang per buck on a PC.

 

[nath]

Zenith that is a thoroughly lovely laptop. If it were HP I'd have it in a snap, but Acer really does phase me a bit - I'm sure they're fine but without having had experience with them I'm cautious about recommending my client £1k's worth.

 

[Cadelin]

Many reasons, primarily because I thought you were joking . It's unsuitable for her because she's a PC user and it's really not worth the time for her to learn all sorts of new crap. Plus there may be compatibility issues with her current setup/requirements. Plus you're paying a huge premium for macs because they're macs. You'll get much more bang per buck on a PC.

I don't want to appear a rabid mac fanboi so I won't keep presing the point after this, but I still don't feel that you have given a proper justification for discounting it.

I am a PC user too but I have a macbook, it really doesn't take along time to get used to it. You can buy microsoft office for Mac and the webmail/calendar do everything outlook does. Maybe she has some specific software which only runs on windows, fair enough but you haven't said that.

I know Mac are expensive if you just look at the hardware components, but the build design is very good (battery lifetime, magnetic charger, size+weight, case, avaliable ports) and you get OS X. You gave a budget at the start, which the mac falls within and you gave no particularly demanding requirements. If you had said, you need a high end gaminig laptop then obviously the mac would be crap.

 

[nath]

Oh man, you're massively understating how jarring it is for an average user to switch from PC to mac, especially if they've been using windows for a while. There's also a number of other downsides to macs that the benefits don't really make up for.

Aside from anything else, moving from PC to Mac is a fairly big deal (at least it would be in this case) and there really aren't that many benefits to doing so. Mac OS is pretty good, but Windows 7 is too and the same money gets you more on a PC. I've not given it masses of thought but I'm fairly confident that eventually something would come up that's not compatible with a mac, it's not worth the risk.

 

[Ch3tan]

Actually I think the hardware is the biggest factor, there are lots of companies that make laptops just as well designed as macs, if not better, and just as reliable. Paying almost double for a mac than a comparable PC makes no sense what so ever simply for OS X.

Why spend so much on a mac unless you have more many than sense?

 

[Yaka]

well he could just buy a lappy and run osx on it if he wants to, not that hard to do and prolly a fuck load cheaper

 

[Scouse]

I don't want to appear a rabid mac fanboi

But you do tho

 

[Bodhi]

Why is it hippies always buy Macs? This isn't aimed at anyone on this thread, but you always see em in coffee shops, clearly not having washed for weeks, going "Boo Capitalism!" "By the way do you like my shiny expensive Mac?".

Bloody lefty cock wombles!

 

[Zenith.UK]

Have you noticed in many American movies how the main character has an Apple computer of some sort?
8 times out of 10, it's an Apple.
1 time in 10, it's a Dell.
The other 1 in 10 is A.N.Other make.

 

[TdC]

ooh product placement, who'd have thought it was a sho' fing?

 

[Cadelin]

But you do tho

Fortunately that's still a thousand times better than coming across as a scouse.