This Week's Hot Purchases

[Fast]

I was looking at the Acer 5920g (without the blu-ray player) for about £450 at laptopsdirect.com, unfortunately i can't find it any more. Anyone know where I can get it or a decent alternative (4gb ram, 256mb dedicated graphics etc.) for around the same price?

Ok prices here Acer Aspire 5920 Series | Shop Acer

and here Asus Laptop - Laptops by price range, From £399-£599

Laptop gpu class list here Notebookcheck: Comparison of Graphic Cards

Games and notebook gpu list here Notebookcheck: Computer Games on Laptop Graphic Cards

 

[ciaphas2037]

Got any views on the Asus X59SL? It seems pretty similar, bigger hard drive but shorter battery life (not an issue).

 

[Fast]

Although its not as pretty as the gemstone range and some people would say Asus build quality isn't so great, personally it wouldn't bother me. Solid laptop for the price imo and reasonable stand alone gfx.

In the last 6months or so its nice to see laptop prices with stand alone graphics have come down considerably and are now affordable at under £500.

 

[soze]

Samsung 32GB 2.5" SATA-II SLC Solid State Hard Drive : novatech.co.uk : SAM-SSD30G

Not a bad price 32 gb SSD £80.49 delivered not long now till i will try one for my OS drive.

 

[dysfunction]

Thats not too bad a price!

Don't Solid state drives have a limited life though? (I mean a more limited life than a regular drive) Someone told me you can only write to them a certain number of times before they die. Is this true?

 

[GReaper]

Don't Solid state drives have a limited life though? (I mean a more limited life than a regular drive) Someone told me you can only write to them a certain number of times before they die. Is this true?

Solid state drives these days spread the usage over the entire storage to ensure that particular areas of the disk don't get overwritten constantly.

I think these days the technology of SSD drives has improved so much that constantly writing to the device means it would still take years to actually come close to the limits. I'm guessing that most decent solid state drives will last longer than the machine you're using, will you be wanting to use the same machine in 5 years time? Even if you were using the same machine I think you'd be wanting to replace the SSD by then, given that drive capacity keeps on increasing.

 

[Dark Orb Choir]

 

[inactionman]

It' just that not all solid state storage is equal. Some of it is basically a USB memory stick with a SATA interface (i.e. slow as hell, not something I'd want to run an OS from), and some of it is really fast and goes like stink! Generally the former is a lot cheaper than the later!

 

[Yaka]

i was sceptical when i got my solid state hdd for my atom based leech box. major difference i noticed was the sound a 200gb 2.5 lappy hdd makes compared to this.

 

[Starman]

Samsung 2494HS 24" TFT Monitor 1920 x 1080 HDMI, DVI-D, VGA, in-build Speaker £184.75 @ eBuyer

Specification:

• 
  Product Description: Samsung SyncMaster 2494HS - LCD display - TFT - 23.6"
• Device Type: LCD display / TFT active matrix
• Colour: Black
• Built-in Devices: Stereo speakers
• Dimensions: (WxDxH) 57.3 cm x 23 cm x 42 cm
• Weight: 6.2 kg
• Diagonal Size: 23.6" - widescreen
• Max Resolution: 1920 x 1200 (1080?)
• Display Positions: Adjustments - Swivel, tilt
• Colour support: 24-bit (16.7 million colours)
• Response Time: 5 ms
• Image Brightness: 400 cd/m2
• Image Contrast Ratio: 1000:1 / 50000:1 (dynamic)
• Digital Video Standard: Digital Visual Interface (DVI), High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI)
• Audio Output Speaker(s) - stereo - integrated
• Signal Input HDMI, DVI-D, VGA
• Compliant Standards TCO '03, CE
• Power Consumption Operational 48 Watt
• Environmental Standards EPA Energy Star , EPEAT Bronze

Searching around the internet also reveals that it has headphone jack, and red/white inputs.

Ordered myself one

 

[Ch3tan]

That is a steal.

And once you go 24", you never go back

 

[Uara]

Dammit, if I didnt have a skiing holiday to pay for that would be mine!

 

[Kryten]

Mentioned this before but Ebuyer have on offer again:

HP 6735s Laptop, AMD Turion X2 Dual Core RM-70 2Ghz, 3GB 800DDR2, 250GB 15.4" DVD RW LightScribe Writer, WLAN, 6 Cell Battery, Webcam, Bluetooth 2.0+, Onboard ATI Radeon HD3200 Windows Vista Home Premium, MSO rdy (60 day trial or 25 uses) - Ebuyer

Fairly decent machine for 400 notes.

I'd mention a 1TB hard drive they have for £69.99 but as it's a Maxtor it's about as recommendable as sand paper aided self-pleasure :/

 

[nath]

Yup, I got that one a few months ago, only it came with 4gb's of ram (despite being 32bit windows) and was 4 quid cheaper. It's jolly nice .

 

[Kryten]

Recommended them to one of my schools a while ago Nath, they went ahead and bought 40 of them. Ruddy quick little machines in their plain state, soon were just as fast as the pentium 4 mobiles they replaced as soon as the network software went anywhere near it

 

[Fast]

not bad not bad

Acer Aspire 5920G Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 2.00GHz 15.4" Blu-Ray Laptop - Vista Home Premium (LX.AQB0X.612)

 

[Ch3tan]

That laptop is cheap on a lot of sites. I am very tempted. Can someone tell me what is wrong with it? Why is it so cheap for so much?

 

[kirennia]

I've got one of these designs and I do have to say, the built quality is pretty spot on. The previous models by acer were cursed with falling apart but the 'tron' laptop is quite nice, even if it looks a bit weird

As for the spec, I'm still surprised that specs haven't risen in the last year for what you pay for. The graphics card itself looks to be very low on benchmarks so I wouldn't expect to play any games or do 3d modelling using it (if that's what you're after, if not, ignore this). It's also a relatively old CPU chipset but those are the only bad points I can see (they are quite big ones though, dependant on what you want to do with the thing...).

Having a blu-ray player is quite a nice selling point though.

 

[Ch3tan]

I'm out of touch with what tech is new and which is old. I only ever check when building a new PC. What on that laptop is out of date? I thought the graphics card was fairly good for a laptop (especially at that price), good amount of memory and a good cpu?

 

[kirennia]

I'm out of touch with what tech is new and which is old. I only ever check when building a new PC. What on that laptop is out of date? I thought the graphics card was fairly good for a laptop (especially at that price), good amount of memory and a good cpu?

I think my view is a little tainted by what I got last year. For the CPU, note that it's the 5 series which was created a long while back and the graphics card itself in benchmarks doesn't perform particularly well. The 8600M (a good few years old now iirc) in my laptop (bought february last year) outperforms it yet in games, I've noticed it's not a particularly strong card... so the 3470 is liable to be even slower according to benchmarks... which means it's even worse, limiting you to very few games made within the last couple or few years. 4GB ram will undoubtedly help the system, I wouldn't go for anything less these days but whether or not it's suitable for you is dependant on what you want it to do really.

Bought Feb 2008 for £500 -

T7300 2.33Ghz Intel chipset
NVidia 8600M
2gb ram
DVD drive instead of blu-ray

Other then that, they're the same machine. This is why I raised a concern, because over a year ago you could get a pretty similar machine for a pretty similar price. Around the time I bought this, the specs were going up hugely; I myself am far from in touch with laptop progression, I just presume they should be a little better by now, over a year on.

Also noteworthy is that unless you're looking to connect this laptop up to a large tele, blu-ray isn't really worth all that much as just a reader, you wont notice any difference on a 15" screen. If you have a big tele though, that's a big selling point (unless you have a blu-ray player already).

Anyonelse got any comments on it? As said, I'm not hugely clued up on the current market so would be nice to hear of what's actually improved in the last year and what to look for for that price.

 

[Kryten]

Don't normally look at paid for AV solutions but at this price it's hard to scoff:

Kaspersky Internet Security 2009 1User - Ebuyer

Again, the favoured 4gb OCZ ram for 40 quid:

OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) DDR2 800MHz/PC6400 Titanium Memory CL4(4-4-4-15) - Ebuyer

 

[Kryten]

Lovely cheap 1tb HDD - not hugely quick but rather ideal for a backup device, USB external or the likes:
1TB Western Digital Caviar - Green Power - SATA2 - 8MB - Aria Technology

Or, few a few quid more with the enclosure already :

1TB Toshiba PX1396U-3T01, Aluminium, USB 2.0, 7200rpm, 8MB, 8.5 ms, Fanless External Hard Drive - Scan.co.uk

 

[old.user4556]

Kryt, I hope you don't mind me posting in this thread, but it's sorta hardware related? (delete if not appropriate).

I saw this and thought it was worth a mention:

Canon EOS 450D Digital Camera with 18-55mm IS and 55-250mm IS Double Zoom Kit (2758B019AA) - Warehouse Express

 

[Kryten]

Feel absolutely free, plenty of photographers amongst us

 

[Morphius]

If you're hunting for a netbook, this blinding deal has just cropped up at eBuyer.

Lenovo IdeaPad S10E Laptop - Laptops at Ebuyer

 

[Fast]

I'm really tempted Morphius, ...<Looks at Credit Card>

 

[Bahumat]

Anyone know any places which sell nice shuttle pc's for gaming?

 

[Ch3tan]

There is a place in London that specialises in selling SFF Pc's, pre built. It is in Clapham, but I cannot for the life of me remember the name right now.

SFF is an expensive way to go, I have done it and they are also very loud and hot compared to a standard size case.

 

[Bahumat]

There is a place in London that specialises in selling SFF Pc's, pre built. It is in Clapham, but I cannot for the life of me remember the name right now.

SFF is an expensive way to go, I have done it and they are also very loud and hot compared to a standard size case.

ah ok, am limited for space so was thinking either shuttle pc or laptop. laptops kinda pricy for what you actually get

 

[Ch3tan]

Welcome

That's the place I was talking about.

If you want to build your own then check microdirect, ebuyer and overclockers