Sub-£350 powerful laptops discussion

cyllau

Acer Aspire 7720 Santa Rosa T5450 2048MB 120GB DVD-SM 17" TFT is selling on ebuyer.com & laptopdirect.co.uk for £399.96

master_d_2

Hi,

I just bought a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Li 2735 for £349 at Comet with the following specs:

Intel Core 2 Duo T5750 processor (2Ghz)
3GB memory (1 x 2GB and 1 x 1GB)
160 GB hard drive

and it came with a free HP printer

check here for full details:
http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/product/501441/FUJITSU-SIEMENS-AMILO-LI-2735

smash

EBuyer have this Toshiba L300-153 for £299.99 http://www.ebuyer.com/product/147733

Dual Core T2390 1.86GHz
1GB
120GB
15.4" WXGA Trubrite GL960 DVD-SMDL WLAN
Vista Home Premium

Airwolf1

I got a Dell laptop for a friend for £300, but it is hard for them to match it again.

Vostro 1510 : Intel Core 2 Duo T5670 (1.8GHz,800Mhz,2MB) 1 S
Display : 15.4" Widescreen WXGA 1 S
Palmrest : Standard 1 S
Save £30 ex VAT 1 S
LCD Back Cover : Black with 1.3MP Camera 1 S
Documentation : EMEA 1 Shipping Docs (ENG, ARA, DUT, FRE, GER, ITA, CRO, SPA) 1 S
Resource DVD : Vostro 1510 Diagnostics & Drivers 1 S
Memory : 2048MB (1x2048) 667MHz DDR2 Single Channel 1 S
Hard Drive : 160GB Serial ATA (5400RPM) Single Hard Drive no.1 1 S
Optical Drive : 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software 1 S
Power DVD 8.0 - Vista & XP 1 S
Power Supply : Worldwide 65W AC Adapter (3 wire) 1 S
Power Cord : UK 1 meter (3 wire) 1 S
Battery : Primary 6-cell 58W/HR LI-ION 1 S
Carry Case : Dell Nylon Carry Case for 15" Laptops 1 S
Graphics : Intel Integrated GMA X3100 1 S
Wireless : Dell Bluetooth 360 Card (Vista) ROW 1 S
Wireless : Dell Wireless 1505 Wireless-N MiniPCI Card EUR 1 S
Keyboard : Internal English Qwerty Keyboard 1 S
Operating System : English Genuine Windows Vista Home Basic including Media 1 S
Software : English Microsoft Works 9.0 with Recovery CD 1 S
Dell Support Center 2.0 1 S
English - Adobe Reader 8.1 1 S
AntiVirus : No Anti-Virus Software included 1 S
Base Warranty 1 S

1Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day - Minimum Warranty 1 S

berrya1

I posted this in a different thread but thought it would be better placed in here.....

Hi I was wondering if someone could help... Im going to use the examples given in the sub £400 laptops page on the main site as benchmarks. This page was updated on 07/10/08, however I feel the deals got worse, not better.

To outline I am after a powerful/ speedy laptop for less than £400. I will use this laptop for internet, some gaming, work etc So I deem Speed as the most important factor.

I picked the following laptop as the best value for money, speedy laptop:

Acer TM5720 £339 - Dabs
Processor - 2 Ghz Dual Core (T7300)
Bus Size - 800 Mhz
Cache - 4mb
Hard Drive - 160gb
RAM - 1gb (max 4gb)
Battery - 6 cell (3 hr)

Whilst the new update shows the following laptop as the best solution for speed:

Fujitsu - Seimens Esprimo Mobile U5505 £377 - Ebuyer
Processor - 2 Ghz Dual Core (T7250)
Bus Size - 800 Mhz
Cache - 2mb
Hard Drive - 250gb
RAM - 2gb (max 4gb)
Battery - 6 cell (3 hr)


Now obviously the Fujitsu laptop has a bigger Hard drive, and bigger initial RAM. However, considering I want to upgrade RAM to 4gb anyway and 160 gb Hard drive is way too much anyway (let alone the 250gb!) I believe the Acer to be better value for money. Especially when the Cache is twice the size. This may not seem must but it adds that little bit of power when processing.

Now what I want to know is if anyone can use the above benchmark and find a more powerful/ faster laptop for less than £400? I don't think its possible!!

Given that processor & RAM I believe are the most important aspects that make a machine fast... these will be the judging factors.... can anyone help??

Also if anyone has any tips or disagrees please do not hesitate to say!

Thanks for the help.

Spendless_Dosh

Has anyone ever tried the Dell Outlet on ebay shops?

http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Dell-Outlet

The stock seems to be hit and miss, but prices seem very competitive.
Latitiude 1500's seem to be most common but specs seem to offer everything that op is looking for.

PS. RAM is very cheap to buy and easy to install so don't worry too much about how much a machine comes with, for less than £30 you can easily double it.

fungus13

I have recently spotted this machine from Laptops Direct

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_4920_Gemstone_Laptop_LX.AKU0X.063/version.asp

Its an Acer, with a Core 2 Duo and 2GB of ram, which is really good for the £349 it costs. Also its got a slightly smaller screen that the machines that tend to be in this price range, making it a bit more portable.

They also sell this one which is the same price with a bigger screen and hrd drive, again an Acer laptop, which I`ve found to be very good in the past ( I have an old 5024 from them)

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5720_Gemstone_Laptop_LX.AHE0X.161/version.asp

blod

for low priced lap tops try
www.buyit247.net
15.4 screen,t5750,160hd,3gb ram,vista £309.00
many more from little more than £200.00

JDPower

blod wrote: »

for low priced lap tops try
www.buyit247.net
15.4 screen,t5750,160hd,3gb ram,vista £309.00
many more from little more than £200.00

Nearly all refurbished laptops might I just point out, or as they rather deceptively (IMO) call them 'Grade 2' laptops.

(Also they claim you can get support from their forums, but their forum doesn't exist, the link is dead)

fedupnow

Well everybody.......... my son is a chip off the old block. We have dithered and dathered for so long that everything we had been seriously considering had long gone. However, one of his friends who live in the wealthier part of town has somehow ended up with 3 laptops all gifted to him by various more-money-than-sense relatives and has sold my boy this
http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_page.jsp?page=Product&source_id=aw&sku=403228&camp_id=Shops%20in%20UK%20-%20London&source_id=aw&camp_id=Shops%20in%20UK%20-%20London

(sorry - can't do the short link thingy)

for a mere £100.

It's all still boxed and disc is still sealed etc. I lurve his friend.

I want to have it up and running before he goes.

We haven't opened it yet. I wanted to ask some (probably stupid) questions...

Can I use the same security on it as my desktop pc?

I have comodo firewall, Antivira and since visiting here I also have an antimalware wotsit.

Can I just install these on the notebook/lappy before he logs on?

I could ask him as he is much more computer savvy than me but somewhat lazy when it comes to security whereas I am the opposite end of the spectrum and somewhat paranoid.

Thanks everybody.