Any recommended laptop deals ?

Mr_Frugal

I am currently looking for a new laptop. I have about £570 rebate from taxman due so was looking at using that to fund the purchase (was hoping to keep it to £500 but happy to blow the lot if the extra £70 buys me a lot more).

Have had a look round Comets, PCWorld etc and a few online sites like eBuyer..

I really want as good a processor as is possible for my money (with a preference to Intel Core 2 as opposed to AMD/Celleron etc).
Speed is important for me and as such a good size memory would be important (3MB - 4MB).
Not overly bothered by hard disk size (although over 200GB would be nice).

Whilst I am not a gamer I do want it to be able to handle graphics such as video and Google Earth (so not sure if it will need a dedicated graphics card and if so how much ?)

The laptop that kinda best meets my criteria that I can see is a Sony VGN FW21L (available at Comets for £585 - so slightly blows my budget).
Not sure if I am paying for the name here or not (as Acer and Advent are cheaper but really dont like either of those names).

Can anyone give me any insight in to this Sony laptop or more importantly point me towards any other better priced laptop that hits most of my criteria ?



Kind regards,

Mr_F.

cowbutt

The received wisdom is that the most reliable and robust laptops are those branded Toshiba, Lenovo (used to manufacture for IBM) and Apple. Last I heard, Sony had a pretty lousy reputation for service.

The Advent is probably a rebranded Clevo, and you'll probably find essentially the same hardware a bit cheaper from one of the resellers advertising in Computer Shopper magazine and the like.