Sub-£350 powerful laptops discussion

Snooze

z1000000 wrote: »

I could do with some help please on new laptops.


I've been using the benchmark tool above. It seems the Intel T4400 has a CPU mark of around 1500, while and newer i3 330 has a CPU mark of 2000 so about a third faster.


Reading this thread and other stuff online, Toshiba and Lenovo seem to be reliable well regarded makes, although my old Dell has been a good tool over the years. I'm not so sure about HP though.


Pricerunner are showing laptops with the Intel T4400 for £375 and above, yet you can get laptops with the i3 330 for a few pounds more.


Amazon have the Toshiba L500 with the i3 for £409 and Pixmania have an HP for £385. The Dell is about £450 but Quidco may reduce that.


Should I go for something with the newer i3 chip or would a T4400 chip with extra RAM be about the same performance wise, and does anyone know which would be better out of these three?


Many thanks...


HP G62-107SA Intel Core i3, 2.13GHz / 2GB / 250GB / LED15.6 / DVDRW / Win 7 Home Premium
http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/pl/27-2612541/Laptop-Computers/HP-G62-107SA-Compare-Priceswww.pricerunner.co.uk




Toshiba Satellite L500-1XC Intel Core i3-330M 2.13GHz / 2GB / 320GB / LED15.6 / DVDRW / Win 7 Home Premium
http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/pl/27-2589651/Laptop-Computers/Toshiba-Satellite-L500-1XC-Intel-Core-i3-330M-2.13GHz-2GB-320GB-LED15.6-DVDRW-Win-7-Home-Premium-Compare-Priceswww.pricerunner.co.uk




Dell Inspiron 1564 Intel Core i3 330M 2.13GHz / 3GB / 250GB / LED15.6 / DVDRW / Win 7 Home Premium
http://www.pricerunner.co.uk/pl/27-2574737/Laptop-Computers/Dell-Inspiron-1564-Intel-Core-i3-330M-2.13GHz-3GB-250GB-LED15.6-DVDRW-Win-7-Home-Premium-Compare-Priceswww.pricerunner.co.uk

Personal choice really as there's nowt between them. I wouldn't go for any of them myself as the HP G series are a bag of bollox for reliability and I've never liked the shoddy build quality of Dell's (general plastic feel and the problems with the screen bezel always falling off because they're held together with double-sided tape!). Toshiba I can't comment on as I've never had one but the name just doesn't inspire me with confidence. That said, I used to say the same about Asus laptops and then I actually used one and did some research and discovered what brilliant machines they are, so Toshiba could be okay. Do your research - look at the customer reviews for them on ebuyer.com and amazon.co.uk.

Willeh

Is this a good choice?
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=50720

Snooze

Willeh wrote: »

Is this a good choice?
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?id=50720

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=33894689&postcount=491

micktwo

why don't you get the laptop you really want on finance. Then pay small amount each month till you settle all the payment. It will work out to be cheaper and you will have the high spec laptop you really wanted.:j is a win : win situation, think about it!

Premier_2

micktwo wrote: »

why don't you get the laptop you really want on finance. Then pay small amount each month till you settle all the payment. It will work out to be cheaper and you will have the high spec laptop you really wanted.:j is a win : win situation, think about it!

Because it will still have to be paid for eventually.

... and until it is, additional charges will accrue making it even more money to pay back. How on earth will it "work out cheaper"?. Such form of payment is referred to as the 'never, never' for very good reasons.

harz99

Premier wrote: »

Because it will still have to be paid for eventually.

... and until it is, additional charges will accrue making it even more money to pay back. How on earth will it "work out cheaper"?. Such form of payment is referred to as the 'never, never' for very good reasons.

I think he means it's a "win" for the laptop co., a "win" for the finance co. and a "win" for the retailer!!!!!!!!!!:rotfl:

Snooze

harz99 wrote: »

I think he means it's a "win" for the laptop co., a "win" for the finance co. and a "win" for the retailer!!!!!!!!!!:rotfl:

True, but some people are not in the fortunate position of having 300-400 quid on tap to buy a decent lappy. It's always an option but of course you pay dearly for it in the long run.

My personal opinion is that netbooks are a waste of money. When you consider their small screen size and low spec you really do get fleeced for the money you pay. Spend around another £100 and you can get yourself a 'full size' laptop with proper size screen and a decent spec (which is usually upgradeable too, if you wish), plus of course they hold their value a lot better if you choose to sell it on at a later date.

2p.

john-306

Always someone to say a deal is crap because thay had a bad experience, but I've just had delivered the HP G62-107SA Intel Core i3 for a total of £292 (£100 HP exchange and Quidco) I know quidco is hit and miss at times but I don't have any trouble to be honest.

This i3 deal is the cheapest I've found
http://www.hotukdeals.com/item/694707/hp-g62-105sa-laptop-i3-330m-3-gb-32?

CBPodge

Snooze wrote: »

Alright, stick your mouse over here <LINK REMOVED>

I'd probably buy either the Asus at the top (Asus are decent build quality and good reliability) or the Compaq CQ61-424SA. Personally I'd probably go for the Compaq as I've got two already (different models) and never had any trouble with them, but I'd happily take the Asus.

The Compaq is slightly better value for money as it has massive storage, but realistically unless you like to download the entire internet every day you're never going to come close to using 500 gig of storage. (I have an 80 gig HDD in my (XP) desktop PC here and like to do some movie & music downloading etc, but I'm only using 55% of its capacity).

I'd wouldn't touch Acer's personally. I've had two in the not too distant past and had problems with both (fan picking up, motherboard fault, power adapter socket pin snapped off on both). They are cheap components in shiny cases and that's why they're cheap. I've no doubt that this post will receive a ton of "I've got an Acer and never had any problems with it" replies but that's my personal opinion and I'm entitled to it

The Asus on there (X5DIJ) looks like a good deal, as does the Compaq you mentioned, although its difficult to tell the difference between them. I'm not too bothered about the size of the HDD really, because I'm happy to buy an external hard drive if necessary. Out of interest, how much does Windows 7 take up? Apart from HDD is there any real difference between the two? The reviews of the Asus make it very tempting.

One other question - I'm not really buying the laptop for gaming, apart from Football Manager, which doesn't really need much in the way of graphics. Certainly not looking to be playing Crysis 2 on it or anything, but it would be nice to be able to play some games on it. Nothing massively recent, but just how poor would the integrated graphics chip be? What would be the most recent game it would be able to run?

Been trying to find another forum to ask these sorts of questions in, anyone got any recommendations?

EDIT: Just noticed the speed of the hard drive is only 5400rpm on the Asus, while the Compaq is 7200rpm, and supports up to 8gb RAM, which is nice. And appears to have a DVDRW. And is now looking like the better deal. The Acer Aspire 5372Z looks quite good as well. Would post a link but can't as a newbie.

I think I'm just going to go to my default "buying something technical" position. Please can someone tell me what I should buy, because I'm fairly clueless!

loulou41

Clueless as well, going to decide between asus and acer, cannot make my mind yet. Let me know which one you will be going for? Thanks