Sub-£350 powerful laptops discussion

PayUpMrBookie

CompletelyLost wrote: »

Just wondering if this is worth the money?

Hi CL Ive bought 2 dell inspiron 15s over the last year or so, One for myself and one for my brother, The laptop I bought for myself in Jan 2009 cost £399 instore at PC world (an impulse buy) and it came with...

250gb HDD
Intel core 2 duo T5800
vista 32bit
3gb of ram.
24WHR battery
Runs well had a problem with it about 4 months ago, Motherboard packed in, A Dell appointed engineer came and repaired it on site within 2 days. FOC.

Worth pointing out however that the 24whr battery is shocking, 45 minutes at a push without a charge. (i-player, youtube etc..) it'll run for 1.5-2 hours if you are only doing spreadsheets/typing.

Off the back of my own experiences of owning and dealing with Dell, I decided to grab a similar inspiron for the wee bros birthday.

I focused as much on bang for buck as possible and bagged him a £700+ inspiron 1545 for £340. Refurb from dell direct but with full warranties as you would new. (Looked brand new when delivered too)

320gb HDD
Intel core 2 duo T6600 2.2ghz
vista 64bit
4gb of ram
56whr battery (easy 4 hours off charge)
Dedicated ATI radeon 256mb graphics card
2 years free mcafee
DVD player burns labels onto disk
Red coloured lid.

That machine was bought January 2010.

If you are going to buy from Dell I would suggest the next 6 days as being a good time to move on it, There seems to be a culmination of deals soon to expire...

Little copy and paste from Dells site
Get Free Shipping Valid Until 07/04/2010167413

Special Offer - Expires: 07 April 2010
Save £149 (Inc Vat) until 07/04/2010168669

Lojack® for Laptops theft recovery and identity protection168115
Special Offer - Expires: 07 April 2010

Includes Antivirus Upgrade Valid until 07/04/2010167548
Special Offer - Expires: 07 April 2010

If I was shooting for a Dell machine right now and had say £350ish then I would go check out the Dell inspiron 15 priced at £399. Comes with a free upgrade to a 9 cell battery (i think they cost about £120 on their own) as well as all the above. Then go check out the cashback sites, I think TCB is doing 7% at the moment (not sure though).
If you only have sub 300 bucks and you want a good Dell machine, You will still be spoiled for choice at the refurb site, Not sure if theres cashback opportunities though.

I recommend yourself and ANYBODY reading this to upgrade the battery if buying a dell, At least a 6 cell battery or even the 9 cell if you can stretch to it. The bog standard 4 cell battery is feeble.

CompletelyLost

Thanks for the info (and for the advice on the laptop I posted!) - will steer clear of it.
I bought 2x Dell Vostro 1000s - one about a year ago for £220, and the other a couple of yrs ago for £208. Both are still going strong, which is why I'd prefer to get another Dell.

I have had an Acer, Toshiba and Compaq - had endless problems with all three.

Really can't afford to pay more than about £325 and am wary of buying a refurb (do Dell refurbs come with a guarantee?).

JDPower

CompletelyLost wrote: »

I bought 2x Dell Vostro 1000s - one about a year ago for £220, and the other a couple of yrs ago for £208. Both are still going strong, which is why I'd prefer to get another Dell.

I'm using a Vostro 1000 as well, for the most part a solid machine, still going strong, touch wood, and well specced for the price I paid at the time (£310 two and a half years ago - Athlon64 Dual core CPU, 2GB RAM, 120GB HD). Hell its not too shabby even by todays prices

dekh

Has anyone spotted a laptop with approx 13" screen?

Only other requirement would parobably be 2GB minimum memory.

Use would be internet, email and editing in Word. (Probably Office XP or 2003 Word).

Cheers

shaneym

Hi guys, Im looking for a laptop around the £400 price mark, and was wondering if any kind souls could give me some advise. Im not realy clued up on the realy techy side of computers so a lot of the technical descriptions are gobbledegook to me. Im looking for at leaset a 250gb hard drive, but is there much difference between 2GB and 3GB of memory ??

Im looking to use the computer mainly for entertainment purposes like internet, watching DVD's, listening to music, and playing games so a good screen and graphics and video card is a must.Can anyone tell me what the difference is between the following graphics cards :-

1) Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 4500M

2) ATI Mobility Radeon HD 4200 graphics processor

3) Intel integrated graphics processor

The reason I ask is that I was looking at the 3 laptops below so any advise would be greatly appreciated. Are these 3 worth buying or am I barking up the wrong tree. Many many thanks !!


http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/hp-g61-...27309-pdt.html


http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/hp-g61-...05730-pdt.html


http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/asus-x5...87937-pdt.html

JDPower

shaneym wrote: »

The reason I ask is that I was looking at the 3 laptops below so any advise would be greatly appreciated. Are these 3 worth buying or am I barking up the wrong tree. Many many thanks !!


http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/hp-g61-...27309-pdt.html


http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/hp-g61-...05730-pdt.html


http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/asus-x5...87937-pdt.html

Easy choice, the last one (the Asus) has the best spec

Shrimply

What do you guys think of this? I do have a post down below but its basically dead, and I thought it may be worth posting here anyway.

£389.99
Asus X5DIJ Laptop - Enhanced Multimedia Entertainment On-the-go

Intel Pentium Dual Core T4400 2.2GHz
4GB RAM
250GB HDD
15.6" WXGA
DVD-Supermulti
Webcam
Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit


http://www.ebuyer.com/product/189888

Kinda swithering between this and the Dell 1564 mentioned above which has went up to £429, not sure if its worth the extra. Only issue I have with the ASUS is the lack of a HDMI out, which seems slightly bizarre.

bloaty

Hi

We are looking for a decent laptop for use in church for Projection of our lyrics via Easy Slide (or similar) and Music for our songs.

We would be really grateful for any advice/information you could provide as to what is the best make/model/outlet etc to purchase please?

Many thanks.

RussJK

When looking for good laptops, it can be intimidating to see so many different numbers and names if you haven't been paying attention to computers for years (like me).

Laptops at the £250 mark can have widely varying performance, so it is important to check. It would be useful to be able to quickly and easily compare the power of laptops in terms of their graphics and processors.

Here are some reasonably comprehensive lists allowing just that:

Graphics benchmarks:
Notebookcheck: Mobile Graphics Cards - Benchmark List
Cpu benchmarks:
Notebookcheck: Mobile Processors - Benchmarklist (thanks Davidmt83)
PassMark Software - CPU Benchmarks - List of Benchmarked CPUs


Probably they aren't perfect, but they give a good indication of performance. It shows that most netbooks aren't greatly different for instance, with the old n270s being close enough to the performance of the n450s.

CompletelyLost

Hi,

I've been looking on Dell Outlet and just wondering exactly what I should be looking for? I see that some of the Inspiron 1545s have 'Intel® CoreTM 2 Duo Processor - 2200' and others have 'Celeron - 2200'... which is better/what's the difference?

Also, if I get one with Windows 7 how much memory would I need so that it runs properly (is 2gb enough?) For example, I was looking at this one... does it seem decent for the price? Can anyone point out what's wrong with it, if anything? Sorry, I really am a doof when it comes to stuff like this.

Inspiron 1545
(System Identifier: 0GR4DRJ3)

* Inspiron 1545 : Intel Core 2 Duo T6600(2.2GHz,800MHz,2MB)
* English Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)

System Price : £257.74

Operating System
English Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)Memory
2GB - 1X2GB DIMMHard Disk Drive
320GB HD 5400NoteBook Screen
Display 15.6in Widescreen WXGA with TrueLife WLEDSystem Color
LCD Back Cover Black Matte FinishScratch and Dent
Scratch and DentMISC
Grade 1 Scratch or Dent
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator X4500HD
Dell Wireless 1397 (802.11 b g)
Camera Not Included
Battery 48WHR 6CellBase
Inspiron 1545 : Intel Core 2 Duo T6600(2.2GHz,800MHz,2MB)Media Bay
DVD+/- RW

edit to add - I've just realied that price doesn't include VAT so it comes out at £303 delivered.