Sub-£350 powerful laptops discussion

stilltheone

JDPower wrote: »

I thought they must have been too, i3 processor, dedicated graphics and 4Gb RAM for £249?!?! I'd have two please

It looked too good to be true. That's why I checked. May have even bought one for no good reason myself.

cepheus

So how does this sound with additional 3% reduction from Topcashback?

Toshiba Satellite C660-155 Core i3 380M 2.53GHz 4GB 320GB 15.6" Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit laptop £339.00

http://www.dabs.com/products/toshiba-satellite-c660-155-core-i3-380m-2-53ghz-4gb-320gb-15-6--windows-7-home-premium-64-bit-laptop-7BH9.html?utm_source=kelkoo&utm_medium=price%20comparison&utm_content=KK00

grumpycrab

cepheus wrote: »

So how does this sound with additional 3% reduction from Topcashback?

Toshiba Satellite C660-155 Core i3 380M 2.53GHz 4GB 320GB 15.6" Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit laptop £339.00

http://www.dabs.com/products/toshiba-satellite-c660-155-core-i3-380m-2-53ghz-4gb-320gb-15-6--windows-7-home-premium-64-bit-laptop-7BH9.html?utm_source=kelkoo&utm_medium=price%20comparison&utm_content=KK00

Not bad with 4GB RAM. There are too many Toshiba C660 models around e.g.

£266 (Ebay 12 month warranty) thinks its a C660-1F1 http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/toshiba-c660-320gb-15-6in-core-i3-380-laptop-266-48-argos-ebay/944544
£295 (after Quidco) C660-173 http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/toshiba-c660-173-15-6-laptop-intel-core-i3-250gb-2gb-memory-319-95-delivered-bes/944364
£330 C660-1E2 http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Toshiba_Satellite_C660-1E2_1044806.html
£350 (inc 2 years warranty) C660-1F1 http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/toshiba-c660-320gb-15-6-inch-i3-laptop-349-99-argos-possibly-274-99-with-trade/910696

Note these don't have HDMI.

Sublime_2

Great thread. I'm after a good allrounder that I can use for games, browsing, and listening to music to. It needs to have a large capacity hard drive.

I'll check out some of your links.

grumpycrab

Sublime wrote: »

Great thread. I'm after a good allrounder that I can use for games, browsing, and listening to music to. It needs to have a large capacity hard drive.

I'll check out some of your links.

"games" is the difficult one. If you mean the latest 3D action games that could be a problem. If you mean SIMS3 or WOW then that's not so much of an issue. Then there's your budget...

Sublime_2

Not the latest games at all. I have a large collection of old games I'm slowly working my way through. The Sims 3 is one I play.

grumpycrab

Sublime wrote: »

Not the latest games at all. I have a large collection of old games I'm slowly working my way through. The Sims 3 is one I play.

This is one of the best value deals at the moment. http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/lenovo-edge-15-i3-4gb-500gb-3yr-onsite-warranty-479-99-379-99-after-cashback-sav/923628
Good :- 500GB disk, good processor, great warranty, HDMI
Not-so-good :- no dedicated graphics but for old games you should be fine (may be worth looking into this a bit more), cashback hastle (but this is with the manufacture rather than the retailer so SHOULD be ok).
Is this within budget?

Sublime_2

grumpycrab wrote: »

This is one of the best value deals at the moment. http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/lenovo-edge-15-i3-4gb-500gb-3yr-onsite-warranty-479-99-379-99-after-cashback-sav/923628
Good :- 500GB disk, good processor, great warranty, HDMI
Not-so-good :- no dedicated graphics but for old games you should be fine (may be worth looking into this a bit more), cashback hastle (but this is with the manufacture rather than the retailer so SHOULD be ok).
Is this within budget?

I could get one at a push, but I was looking for something under the £350 mark.

grumpycrab

***** Very cheap i3-380M. May not be the most reliable brand but brilliant bargain if you need a new laptop NOW. £339 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/259424

EDIT: sorry, I misread the price (I saw it as £339 but my brain treated it as £229). Its not bad for an i3-380M with 4GB memory and HDMI but unless you like the make, there are more reliable brands out there.

steve_Ferro

My favourite sub £350 laptop is the Acer Aspire 5551A.

(Argos order code 508/3345)


CPU and Memory:

• AMD Athlon X2 dual core P320.
• 2.1GHz processor speed.
• 3GB DDR3 RAM memory.
• 250GB SATA hard drive.

Display features:

• 15.6in display.
• Resolution 1366 x 768 pixels.

DVD optical drives:

• Dual layer.

Graphics:

• ATI Radeon HD 4250 graphics card with 256MB memory.

Interfaces and connectivity:

• Multi-Media Card (MMC) compatible.
• 3 USB ports.
• 1 HDMI port.
• B/g/n wireless/WiFi enabled.

Multi-media features:

• 1.3MP built-in webcam.
• Built-in mic.

Operating system and software:

• Microsoft Windows 7 Premium.

Reasonable specs, but the biggest single selling point over similar priced machines is

Manufacturer's 3 year guarantee

is included.


I have set up about 20 of these for teachers in my school now and once you remove all the dreadful trial softwares (that you get with most supermarket laptops) it's a pretty good laptop, and I have had no problems with them.