Sub-£350 powerful laptops discussion

poppy10_2

fairyspirit wrote: »

Would someone mind just confirming whether this is an okay buy or not please? I have no one else I can ask.

(.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/compaq-presario-cq61-320sa-refurbished-laptop-03914983-pdt.html)

This has Windows 7 on it, Dual Core, 3GB Ram, 250GB harddrive. £339.99

Yep, that looks pretty good for the price. Just check what they mean by "refurbished", you don't want one that has been damaged.

fairyspirit

poppy10 wrote: »

Yep, that looks pretty good for the price. Just check what they mean by "refurbished", you don't want one that has been damaged.

Thank you! There doesn't seem to be a description in terms of what it's like - it just says they have all been professionally checked over and tested, and comes with a 12 month warrenty. I don't mind a couple of scratches or whatever, as long as it doesn't fall apart of course!

I think I will order it, or I will forever be searching!

Thanks for all help and suggestions!

Zanzibar

poppy10 wrote: »

Looks a bit rubbish, that. The T5870 processor is ancient, it only has a 160GB hard drive (smaller than a lot of netbooks), and 1gig RAM is a joke these days. You can get far better for £395.

You'd be hard pushed to find an average home user who would utilize the features of Win7 Pro over the standard Home Premium, which are mainly related to group policies and business networking

Its not if look. RAM is only a few pounds so how much it comes with isnt that important - the maximum allowed is more relevant - e.g. that refurb one is limited to 4 where 8 is standard these days.

Processor is fine - Its the exact same or faster than most mentioned here (e.g. t3100) and its not as ancient as yourself.

Disk space could be low but it depends entirely if you are a iTunes fan or just average apps user who never fills the disk in the lifetime of the machine.

The main reason for 7 Pro is the XP compatibility mode is worth having. If you never use anything that needs it then it may be of no use and not worth the extra. For me the fact is has real XP is best - no pointless Vista or 7. Yes I know, Windows 7 was your idea..

spud17

A bit off topic, but will people please stop recommending Linux as a cure for old machines.
A 2.3GHz processor and 256MB ram will run XP faster than most of the common Linux distros.
In fact Ubuntu requires 384MB ram to even install it.

How do I know?
I had to sort a bungled install of Ubuntu on just such a laptop, Ubuntu wouldn't install, but a clean install of XP plus Avira ticks along just fine for general browsing.

p.s. I'm a Linux + Win7 user.

poppy10_2

Zanzibar wrote: »

The main reason for 7 Pro is the XP compatibility mode is worth having

Even Windows 7 Home Basic has an 'XP compatibility mode' - if a program won't work in Windows7 but would work in XP, you just right click the program and set it to run as XP SP2 or XP SP3.

What you are talking about is the 'XP Mode' full virtualized XP environment, which only a few geeks would ever need - and they could just run XP in a free emulator like Virtualbox.

jaydeeuk1

spud17 wrote: »

A bit off topic, but will people please stop recommending Linux as a cure for old machines.
A 2.3GHz processor and 256MB ram will run XP faster than most of the common Linux distros.
In fact Ubuntu requires 384MB ram to even install it.

How do I know?
I had to sort a bungled install of Ubuntu on just such a laptop, Ubuntu wouldn't install, but a clean install of XP plus Avira ticks along just fine for general browsing.

p.s. I'm a Linux + Win7 user.

Careful, they'll be a jihad against you by the XP haters

XP will even install on 32mb ram, and boot up on less. Thats about all it will do though!

goggle

Iposted a separate thread as my budget is a little higher - but I'd really appreciate any help you techies can give me

ses6jwg

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002GYVF98/ref=nosim/?!!!!!hotukdeals-21

is this any good

System

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5070808/c_1/1%7Ccategory_root%7COffice%252C%2BPCs%2Band%2Bphones%7C14418968/Trail/searchtext%3ETOSHIBA.htm

Toshibas are excellent as well.

JDPower

ses6jwg wrote: »

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B002GYVF98/ref=nosim/?!!!!!hotukdeals-21

is this any good

Depends if you want a netbook (which that is) or laptop and what you want to use it for.