Sub-£350 powerful laptops discussion

drunkmunkey6969

Take a look here: www.itcsales.co.uk

I bought a brand new laptop last week (to replace me finally deceased HP) for £250 inc delivery!!!

Spec:
Vostro 1000 AMD Sempron 3600 2GHz
1GB RAM
80GB HDD
DVD+/-RW
Wi-Fi
15.4" Screen
Vista Home
3 Year On site Dell Warranty

Its advertised for £199, but once you bang delivery and VAT on its £250....if you wanna go upto £300 you obviously get higher spec. But my £250 got me a perfectly good laptop, with a decent spec, and DELL 3 yr backup.

tr3mor

I presume the person writing the article knows nothing about computers.

The first laptop has the slowest chip. Definitely not a Core 2 Duo.

The only one of the ones in the article worth buying is the 2nd one. If you're going to market yourself as a consumer advice site then you should have someone knowledgeable giving the advice.

Riamac

My son's going to uni soon and needs a laptop but don't want to spend more than I need to on one as he's already cost me a fortune He says he needs (wants?) at least 2gb with a webcam. I know nothing about computers so have no idea where to start. Anyone suggest a suitable one? Thanks a bunch:beer:

Riamac

My son's going to uni soon and needs a laptop but don't want to spend more than I need to on one as he's already cost me a fortune He says he needs (wants?) at least 2gb with a webcam. I know nothing about computers so have no idea where to start. Anyone suggest a suitable one? Thanks a bunch:beer:

dreamypuma

Riamac wrote: »

My son's going to uni soon and needs a laptop but don't want to spend more than I need to on one as he's already cost me a fortune He says he needs (wants?) at least 2gb with a webcam. I know nothing about computers so have no idea where to start. Anyone suggest a suitable one? Thanks a bunch:beer:

See post #3. Dell Outlet will get you more laptop than most of the retailers. Don't confuse this with the standard Dell website (although they are the same company).http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/notebooks?c=uk&l=en&s=dfh

On the 2nd page after you have picked your PC , below the "Peripheral" heading they often have money off deals. There isn't one there today, however the recently had £59 off and free delivery or £95 off. Check it's there (it's not always, it was on 1st September) and make sure you select it. Don't select it and you'll just miss out.

What they have available changes by the hour.

A things to look for are:

Minimum 2GB RAM for Windows Vista (although this will run on less, I wouldn't)

Intel Core2Duo (aim high not Not Dual Core) processors, a 2ghz T5750 is easily possible for below the £400 mark and the higher FSB flavour is starting to creep into this price bracket.

Get the biggest Hard Drive you can at this spec, most will start at a minimum of 120GB

Minimum of a 6 cell battery, 9cell if possible (however these often stick out from the casing)

Note that the batteries on most of the big box brands, can't normally be specified so read up on what they really come with.

Don't be sold on the the speed of AMD processors, they are not the breed they used to be and to be fair AMD should be much cheaper than an Intel processor. (generally have a lower cache than Intels Core2Duos)

dreamypuma

Riamac wrote: »

My son's going to uni soon and needs a laptop but don't want to spend more than I need to on one as he's already cost me a fortune He says he needs (wants?) at least 2gb with a webcam. I know nothing about computers so have no idea where to start. Anyone suggest a suitable one? Thanks a bunch:beer:

Bang for your money, this is a nice machine and is the T7250 flavour of the core2duo, so slightlt faster that the standard more common 2ghz processor.

I'm not sure what the situation is on quidco with this company as they are showing 0% cashback.

gilesdavies

Guys my advice in getting an excellent priced laptop is to look at shops that sell refurbished laptops...

PC World and Currys (both owned by the same company), have some exellent deals... They are selling 17 inch screen laptops, from £269 (inc VAT) on their website, even the cheapest of these has 120GB harddisk, 2GB of memory and a decent specs Intel or AMD processor. They are all big brands like Toshiba, Hewlett Packard, Advent and Sony...

Some of the lower spec laptops, which are fine for internet and word processing etc, start from £199!

They all come with a 12 month warranty (same as if bought boxed) and are fully checked before sending out - can only be purchased from the website and not in store.

Just be warned the stock is constantly changing and only have limited numbers, so if you see one you like buy it straight away! I saw a HP laptop that was £549 in PC World two months ago and they had it for £299 as a refurbishment model, but I hesitated and went back later that evening and had sold out!

PC World - Laptops
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1059224846.1221078286@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdfadefdlgmfhgcflgceggdhhmdgmj.0&page=ProductList&category_oid=-28487&show_all=true

Currys - Laptops
http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0811717905.1221078649@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccecadefdlgmfffcflgceggdhhmdgmk.0&page=ProductList&category_oid=-27411&fm=1&sm=0&tm=4&show_all=true

nedmundo

Asda are doing Acer Gemstone laptops for £249 at the moment. Not the most powerful of beasts but more than capable for most peoples needs of a bit surfing and word processing! I've got 2 at work and they are excellent, if a bit bulky.

gezp

I've just bought an Acer Aspire 5920 (6A2G25) Laptop for £399.99 (just!!) from Comet. I think its a bargain sporting the following spec:
Intel core 2 duo processor (2 GHz)
2 Gig DDR 2 RAM
250 G Hard Drive (Yes, 250)
Web cam
Wi fi
Optical DVD
5 in 1 Card reader
Vista Home Premium
4 USB ports
15.4" Crystal Brite Screen and surrround sound. What do others think?

AlanUdale

Cheaper Laptops mostly have a short battery life and you should make sure it's an on site warrenty.

Sending a laptop back for repair can cost £70 with Insurance.

If you live on the south coast save money buy from jersey southeast france is cheap at the moment.