Laptop for a technophobe

oldMcDonald

I've just tried to look through the 'cheapest laptop' thread and I'm now feeling rather lost, out of my depth and need some help - I hardly understood a word that I read on that thread:o

I want to replace my laptop (an IBM R50e) and have no idea what I need to buy, can anyone recommend a laptop for me, please?

I am at university and will use the laptop mainly for uni work, many hours surfing the web, and watching DVDs (as we don't own a telly!), so I would like a reasonable sized screen and reasonable sound quality. I would also like it pre-loaded with Windows and an Office package that includes Word, Excel and Powerpoint. I've around £550 to spend.

Any recommendations?

motorguy

Do you 'need' Office?

Its going to take up maybe £150 of your budget. Try openoffice instead. its a free alternative and actually quite good and pretty much office compatable.

Check out www.dmxdimension.com for the best dell deals on laptops.

Decide on the screen size that best suits your need - typically this will be 14.1, 15.4 or 17 inch.

Hard disk size - minimum 160GB and will be more than enough.

Memory - 2GB minimum, but 3GB if you can. 2GB will be fine though.

Processor - avoid anything with the words 'sempron' or 'celeron' in the description - not that they are bad, but a dual core (core duo) processor is much better and only a few £'s more.

For your budget there will be a myriad of combinations and models and makes, but i've just got a Dell Studio 15 for my brother in law and its very very nice. Well put together, decent price.

motorguy

If you *must* have office, i've just noticed Dell will pre install it for £80 which cant be bad...

Pssst

If you must have office then get it for free. Do a google for openoffice . Its just as good and it can deal with MS office docs.

Whats wrong with your current laptop?

Dell do some good lappys via their website.

oldMcDonald

Pssst wrote: »

If you must have office then get it for free. Do a google for openoffice . Its just as good and it can deal with MS office docs.

Whats wrong with your current laptop?

Dell do some good lappys via their website.

Off to google openoffice now, not heard of it before so thanks for the shout

Nothing is wrong with this laptop as such (aside from the annoying missing keyboard keys that the kids have managed to break off, but I can live with that!), but the kids need a PC for their use (this laptop is the only pc in the house and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to wrestle it off the kids!), and I thought that I would get me a new one and pass this one down to them