Sub-£350 powerful laptops discussion

Wannie_2

LallyPops wrote: »

The model is a Dell Inspiron 1501. It's very old and looks somewhat antiquated now but if it can help us through a sticky situation, that would be awesome!

I imagine the main problem with this laptop will be the amount of RAM installed. Possibly 1GB to run Vista Basic.

Downgrading to XP will work wonders, as will upgrading to 2GB RAM and sticking with Vista.

But, time is not on your side for either.

Wannie_2

LallyPops wrote: »

The model is a Dell Inspiron 1501. It's very old and looks somewhat antiquated now but if it can help us through a sticky situation, that would be awesome!

So, what is your pleasure? Downgrade for better performance? Upgrade for better performance and/or describe in more detail as to the performance issues that have arisen.

GT60

What is wrong with purchasing from pc world?
just seen some issus and acers for £350 with i3's and 3 gb memory 320gb HD

Wannie_2

GT60 wrote: »

What is wrong with purchasing from pc world?
just seen some issus and acers for £350 with i3's and 3 gb memory 320gb HD

Customer service issues.

bribrian

Wannie wrote: »

Customer service issues.

Agreed.... Awful service....

LallyPops

Wannie wrote: »

So, what is your pleasure? Downgrade for better performance? Upgrade for better performance and/or describe in more detail as to the performance issues that have arisen.

Sorry for delay...

I think installing XP would be best. I really like XP and use it at work, so that means I'd have some consistency at the very least! How do I go about getting it? I had thought that with the release of Vista and subsequently Windows 7, that it wasn't an option but it's great to hear that it's a viable option.:)

closed

If your old laptop works, the os will have no effect on his MA, backup your data and use the factory restore partition and it will run like new, add the free version of avast for virus protection. a dvd or external hard disk will allow him to backup his work as he goes along.

LallyPops

closed wrote: »

If your old laptop works, the os will have no effect on his ma, backup your data and use the factory restore partition and it will run like new, add the free version of avast for virus protection. a dvd or external hard disk will allow him to backup his work as he goes along.

Thanks for your response. I know this sounds silly, but is it a relatively straightforward process? I'm quite scared of doing this simply because I've never done it before!

closed

If it works, very straightforward.

You don't have to do a factory restore, instead there is a how to speedup guide above if that's the problem.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?c=us&l=en&s=gen&docid=DSN_336966&isLegacy=true

doing a factory restore will wipe all data, it takes about 10-15 minutes.

LallyPops

closed wrote: »

If it works, very straightforward.

You don't have to do a factory restore, instead there is a how to speedup guide above if that's the problem.

http://support.dell.com/support/topics/global.aspx/support/kcs/document?c=us&l=en&s=gen&docid=DSN_336966&isLegacy=true

doing a factory restore will wipe all data, it takes about 10-15 minutes.

Wish me luck! I think I'll do it tomorrow - when I'm more awake!:)