Buying a new laptop, buy now or after christmas?

Falc

Hi
I am thinking of buying a new laptop for around the £600-£700 range. But i am undecided about whether it is better to get one now, or in the January sales, i haven't bought many laptops before, so i can't remember if the January sales are any good for computers. What do you guys think?

The specs i am looking at are as follows:
intel core 2 duo P8600
3Gb ram
No operating system
250gb HD
geforce 9600 512mb

I am not sure if this is better off here or in the techie board, please move the thread if appropriate.
Thanks

MattLFC

I bought one last week; if you can get a good deal on one, take it as if it is bettered after Xmas, it wont be by much.

It all depends on the deal you get though; I managed to get a laptop worth £549 for £303 incl delivery and VAT, every comparable one I have seen since is around the £600+ mark as its a 12" 1.7kg ultra-portable with a C2D, 2GB etc...

And I am made up to see people selling lower specced versions of it on eBay for more than what I paid for mine lol.

If you can hold out though, probably best to wait for the Core i7, it should start coming down in price after Xmas, and the first i7 laptops should appear in Q1 2009.

10past6

MattLFC wrote: »

I managed to get a laptop worth £549 for £303 incl delivery and VAT

Do you have a link for where you purchased it from?

Although I've posted elsewhere on the forum, I'm after

14” or 15” notebook
XP or Vista
For internet / music no games though
Refurbished or new will do as long as it has a 12 month warranty
1 GB Ram minimum
Around £200 - £300 - £300.00 being my maximum.

MattLFC

It was at Dixons and they no longer sell it. Incdentally I used a few coupons to get it down to that price including two off here (made use of a special 1 hour only voucher) lol, although it was already heavily reduced.

I know I know, Dixons Group are crap, but they delivered the laptop next working day, and I have had absolutely no problems with it (yet) other than the usual Vista bugs lol. Even the Techguys website dont seem too crap. Just a bit hesitant about their after sales, although I am getting private breakdown and accidential damage cover for it, for 3 years, just incase.

Im waiting for 500GB HDD's to come down though, it only came with a 160GB and my old one had a 250GB in it and I needed more than that lol!! Once the 500's hit £80 ill buy one.

10past6

MattLFC wrote: »

I know I know, Dixons Group are crap

I'm trying to avoid places like Dixons / Currys/ Comet etc., etc., however, if they have what I'm looking for at the right price, I may well be tempted

Falc

MattLFC wrote: »

If you can hold out though, probably best to wait for the Core i7, it should start coming down in price after Xmas, and the first i7 laptops should appear in Q1 2009.

That would be good, how much will the laptops with i7 processors cost though?

Because like i said i don't want to pay above £700, and if it takes until Q3 2009 for i7 price to come down enough i won't bother.

10past6 wrote: »

Do you have a link for where you purchased it from?

Although I've posted elsewhere on the forum, I'm after

14” or 15” notebook
XP or Vista
For internet / music no games though
Refurbished or new will do as long as it has a 12 month warranty
1 GB Ram minimum
Around £200 - £300 - £300.00 being my maximum.

Have you considered Ubuntu, not having windows will shave off nearly £70 + having Open office instead of microsoft office shaving off another £60-120. Making savings of over £100 alread. If you can use ubuntu instead i am sure i can find something that fits the other requirements.

10past6

Falc wrote: »

Have you considered Ubuntu, not having windows will shave off nearly £70 + having Open office instead of microsoft office shaving off another £60-120. Making savings of over £100 alread. If you can use ubuntu instead i am sure i can find something that fits the other requirements.

I've never heard of Ubuntu

However, I've no idea about computers, this is going to be a Christmas present.

The lappy won't require MS works as Open office can be used, so I'm unsure about the advantage of windows.

And thanks for your help so far

Falc

10past6 wrote: »

I've never heard of Ubuntu

However, I've no idea about computers, this is going to be a Christmas present.

The lappy won't require MS works as Open office can be used, so I'm unsure about the advantage of windows.

And thanks for your help so far

If you have another computer i would recommend trying it out if you are interested, you can just download it, or order a cd for free (takes ages), then pop it it your machine, and try it out without making any changes to your computer.

Its what i am typing this post on :-)
I dual boot XP and Ubuntu, i XP for games, ubuntu for everything else.

Pros:
No viruses/spyware
all free programs
reliable/stable/fast
Really ideal for the internet

Cons
Differences with windows can take some getting used to for your users, if they have a desire to learn the person you are giving it to will be fine.
Lack of 3rd party software (so if you need it for one specific program you have have trouble, but if you are doing general things you should be fine)
Not that many games

You can read more about it in this article
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/shopping/free-office-software
Type ubuntu into youtube or go to ubuntu.com if more info. Or feel free to ask me any questions

I read and enjoyed some of this article before, but i didn't read it all, it gives a good account of the pros and cons:
http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm

Hope i've been helpful

10past6

Falc wrote: »

if they have a desire to learn the person you are giving it to will be fine

awww, the person it's for is a silver surfer, I think they may well have difficulty.

Falc wrote: »

Hope i've been helpful

You sure have, thank you

MattLFC

I find Linux GUI's (even Ubuntu which is supposedly the most suer friendly) sloppy and very time consuming to get to grips with. It is something they have not quite perfected yet, although they are getting closer all the time. Linux is far far easier from the command line, although 99% of users would hate doing things in this way.

Windows is deffo better for the basic home user when it comes to ease of use, followed by OSX, however, there are cons with Windows as mentioned.

With regards the "No viruses" comment, I really think this should be dismissed. There are plenty of viruses doing the rounds against Linux. Maybe you were confused with Unix and possible OSX with its background in Unix, but Linux certainly isnt virus-free.

My life would be so much less hassle if there were no viruses or stability problems with Linux (I administer CentOS and Fedora servers). Imho, a decent Windows 2000 SP4 setup on a system with no hardware faults, is every bit as reliable/stable as any Linux OS.

Although viruses are far more of a risk in Windows due to its market share.

Falc

Ah probably not the best then, i have found lots of things like you mention but the screens are smaller, so i will keep my eye out if i see anything, as i am also buying a new laptop at this time i am also doing lots of searching.

I was going to recommend this:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/topic.aspx/emea/segments/gen/client/en/ubuntu_landing?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

Or these if you don't mind about the screen size so much, these have XP:
http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/3-/227239/0/-/Promo.html?ob=price&sp=1

And for £30 pounds more this one seems very nice
http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/range.html?t=nb&c=all&r=E15

But unfortunately nothing perfect yet

Anyone know about the i7 processor prices then?