Sub-£350 powerful laptops discussion

Fruittea

Hi Everyone

Hope you don't mind me posting.
Just been given some Amazon vouchers and have around £300 to spend but can top up a bit.. I'm trying to understand what might be a good buy and noticed you talking about ASUS a lot. I saw the Asus X54H-SO180V 15.6 on Amazon and wondered if it might be right for me.

I'm not that techy, I use an Aspire 5630 which is really old and falling apart now - it constanly tells me it's run out of memory. I have slight hand disability when managing a key board and would prefer a clunkier keyboard so I can stamp on the keys - if you know what I mean, rather than a smooth keyboard. I mainy use it for surfing the net, but would like to sell on ebay and download some of their selling tools - I also write quite a bit and do some OU courses which can mean downloading different tools. I'd also like to get into some photography. Any opinions would really help and be very welcome.

Knarf44

Hi Fruittea,

The Asus mentioned by neilj203 is a decent laptop that should fulfil your needs. Keyboard feel is obviously a personal thing but if you did buy the Asus and then decided you didn't like the keyboard you could always plug any USB external keyboard (desktop type) into it and use that. This is assuming you would be mainly using the laptop in one place and not having to carry it around all the time.

Other than that the best advice I can give you is to visit your local Currys/Comet/Dixons and test the feel of the keyboards on their display models.

silvercar

Just seen this advertised

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/r/287098/0_0_0/

Toshiba 15.6" laptop, intel core i3-380M processor, 4GB memory and 640GB hard drive
. The Satellite C660-1LD includes an Intel® GMA HD graphics card for improved graphics processing
Graphics card is intel GMA HD.

Reduced from 399 to 349

TakeThis

silvercar wrote: »

Just seen this advertised

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/r/287098/0_0_0/

Toshiba 15.6" laptop, intel core i3-380M processor, 4GB memory and 640GB hard drive
. The Satellite C660-1LD includes an Intel® GMA HD graphics card for improved graphics processing
Graphics card is intel GMA HD.

Reduced from 399 to 349

and......? Are you posting it because you want an opinion before purchase?

'New for Spring'...What a joke. They are just flogging off some old inventory at too high a price.

silvercar

TakeThis wrote: »

and......? Are you posting it because you want an opinion before purchase?

'New for Spring'...What a joke. They are just flogging off some old inventory at too high a price.

Yes I want an opinion before purchase.

Googling that 349 price is standard, so is that good value or is there something better?

grumpycrab

silvercar wrote: »

Just seen this advertised

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/r/287098/0_0_0/

Toshiba 15.6" laptop, intel core i3-380M processor, 4GB memory and 640GB hard drive...

Just looking at Toshibas this is better value (same price)
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=270949090538
Note that many Toshibas in this price range don't have an HDMI connector.

EDIT: cheap 2nd year warranty is £30+VAT
http://uk.computers.toshiba-europe.com/innovation/product/Satellite-Pro-C660-2F8/1114851/toshibaShop/false/tab/2/#2
But have a look at John-Lewis first as they do 2 year warranties as standard.

AliceJenkins

Got to be wary of cheap laptops a lot are junk!

Bonking_Mad

AliceJenkins wrote: »

Got to be wary of cheap laptops a lot are junk!

Some have to go with what they can afford

Bonking_Mad

Need a laptop for browsing / itunes / odd download, have little money to spare, was looking at this;

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Advent-Modena-M200-Intel-Dual-Core-T3300-2GHz-Processor-15-6-LCD-Laptop-/130674679094?pt=UK_Computing_Laptops_EH&hash=item1e6cd15d36

I know nothing about computers, will it be OK for my requirements?

TIA

silvercar

What's better i3 or dual core?