Sub-£350 powerful laptops discussion

truescot

abernathie wrote: »

Hi,

My laptop is 10 years old and is giving up the ghost as we speak! Good innings tho

So I want a new one......

I need it for my uni work, surfing, itunes, photos, iplayer, playing the odd game, downloading and storing bits and bobs!

Basically I want it to be able to run a few things at once and go faster than a snail :beer:

Top end is the 350 but would prefer something a bit cheaper......

Have bee offered a 3 month old Toshiba Satalite c660 i3 with 3gb and 350 hdd for 300. Is this a good price?

Thanks in advance!:D

Don't claim to be an expert but I picked up a Toshiba C660 refurb for £199 on the Argos e-Bay site. I use it for much the same as you. I love it!!

You say your current laptop is 10 yrs old so I am guessing anything on the market now would be immeasurably superior. My feeling is that 99% of people have machines which are way more than they need.

Good luck, this is a great forum...:)

organic_choc

abernathie wrote: »

Hi,

My laptop is 10 years old and is giving up the ghost as we speak! Good innings tho

So I want a new one......

I need it for my uni work, surfing, itunes, photos, iplayer, playing the odd game, downloading and storing bits and bobs!

Basically I want it to be able to run a few things at once and go faster than a snail :beer:

Top end is the 350 but would prefer something a bit cheaper......

Have bee offered a 3 month old Toshiba Satalite c660 i3 with 3gb and 350 hdd for 300. Is this a good price?

Thanks in advance!:D

I guess the one being offered to you is Satellite C660-1G3? Not many places sell it so price comparison is impossible. It's a previous generation i3 processor i3-380M. Latest is i3-2310m I think.

Rockman

organic_choc wrote: »

I guess the one being offered to you is Satellite C660-1G3? Not many places sell it so price comparison is impossible. It's a previous generation i3 processor i3-380M. Latest is i3-2310m I think.

What is the minimum spec I should be looking for in a laptop? It is not going to bE used for gaming. It will be used mainly for Word documents, surfing the net, and downloading music.

I do not want to spend over £250 if possible.

Thanks

closed

anything can do that, including the broken hinged one. £250 is bottom end of laptop market or refurbs, or netbooks http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/laptops/315_3226_30328_xx_xx/xx-criteria.html

check touchpad/keyboard/screen/weight suits before purchase - you should be able to sell the old one to boost the budget, as it is cheap to fix and should have plenty of life left in it.

Wannie_2

Rockman wrote: »

What is the minimum spec I should be looking for in a laptop? It is not going to bE used for gaming. It will be used mainly for Word documents, surfing the net, and downloading music.

I do not want to spend over £250 if possible.

Thanks

If you are in a hurry, you could do worse than this MSI CR630 for £259. It has a decent all round spec for the money, though it's not the one to choose if you need a long battery life, away from mains power.

There is also this eMachines E640-P322G25Mnks for £242 if you really don't want to go over £250.

organic_choc

Rockman wrote: »

What is the minimum spec I should be looking for in a laptop? It is not going to bE used for gaming. It will be used mainly for Word documents, surfing the net, and downloading music.

I do not want to spend over £250 if possible.

Thanks

Word documents can be v demanding - it depends what you stick in it... if it is only just words and no equations and graphs then going for the £250 budget is OK. If you are going to be editing documents with bells and whistles you may want to spend a bit more.

If you go to the argos outlet search "laptop" and sort the page by price+P&P you can roughly work out which ones you would want to buy. The PCs are priced keenly - if you want a better processor you have to pay more.

The only one that looks a bit worrying - and it's not from experience - simply by my rudimentary understanding of PC - is the £211.99 Toshiba which has a single core single thread processor. If what I've read on internet is right then doing multiple things on this PC may be difficult. Having said that we have used single core single thread PCs for decades and we still live, but then we now have more demanding softwares too. I'd rather pay an extra £18 for an older model C650-1CN.

Wannie_2

The MSI CR630 linked to above, is still available: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MSI-CR630-LAPTOP-320GB-15-6-INCH-AMD-ATHLON-X2-P320-4GB-RAM-BLACK-REFURB-/360395427279

eMachines E640-P322G25Mnks: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ACER-EMACHINES-E640-LAPTOP-250GB-15-6IN-AMD-ATHLON-DUAL-CORE-BLACK-REFURB-/330616527338

DaveG247

Almost forgot about this thread, just been having a look on argos outlet as my mums after a laptop to replace our old and slightly tried old pc. MSI CR610 &Toshiba Satellite C660-17J both seem to be a good price. It would only really be used for the web browsing, bit of music dvd / cd burning and the main thing for my mum to do her family tree. This would be my only worry as i cant seem to find out family tree maker 16 will work with the OS

TakeThis

DaveG247 wrote: »

Almost forgot about this thread, just been having a look on argos outlet as my mums after a laptop to replace our old and slightly tried old pc. MSI CR610 &Toshiba Satellite C660-17J both seem to be a good price. It would only really be used for the web browsing, bit of music dvd / cd burning and the main thing for my mum to do her family tree. This would be my only worry as i cant seem to find out family tree maker 16 will work with the OS

Forget about the MSI...too old. As to the whether the software will run...why not ask Nova Development?

sarah3585

What do people think of the Samsung RV510 for £290 from Argos Ebay Refurb Outlet?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/SAMSUNG-RV510-LAPTOP-320GB-15-6-INCH-INTEL-PENTIUM-3GB-RAM-BLACK-AND-SILVER-/350493190690?pt=UK_Computing_Laptops_EH&hash=item519b05aa22