Student needs a cheap but reliable laptop for dissertation, please help!

Younggrandmother

Hi,
I need your help. I'm a mature student in her final year that requires a reliable laptop for my 15,000w dissertation. I know very little about the technical side of computing, so I'm basically a sitting duck for a sales assistant.

Please could you guys give me a few tips and suggestions so I can at least fight my corner and not get ripped off.

I am not interested in playing CDs/DVDs, playing games or storing photographs, what I need is to store and process a large amount of text and also connect to the university's Wi Fi facility for researching on the internet. I will be carrying the laptop to site practically everyday so it needs to be fairly light and robust and able to fit into a large school bag. I'm reluctant to carry a laptop case due to several muggings off campus. I am also very restricted by budget, with only £350 max to spend.

So far I have looked at the Advent 5421 Laptop at PC World £293.60 and the Ei System 1412 Laptop at Currys £274.03. I would be very grateful for any advice you have to offer.

[Deleted User]

How about one of these?
http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/product.php?nav=227&product=SOLV088&title=HP+Compaq+NC4200+Centrino+1.73Ghz+Laptop+-+1Gb+RAM+-+60GB+-+Wi+Fi+-+XP+Pro+COA

Forget Vista - if you ran Vista on an Advent 5421 it would make you cry at the poor performance. Put Windows XP on it and it would fly... So, why not use an older laptop with a decent amount of ram and XP Pro on it? All at a very MSE £169.99

I wrote my dissertation on a machine with 1/2 the power of that thing.

Does the university supply MS Office / Word? If not, you'll need to consider buying it (they may have a discount license scheme) or using something a bit more free (http://www.openoffice.org/)

GunJack

just to second ringo...I got my two kids IBM Thinkpad T41's from bigpockets for xmas....bargain at £165, and they're being hammered now

[Deleted User]

That's because IBM Thinkpads are tough as hell! Here's one that's very cheap - http://www.bigpockets.co.uk/product.php?product=SOLV089

I'd recommend buying a high-capacity USB stick like this - http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/6059462/SanDisk-Cruzer-Micro-16GB-USB-Flash-Drive/Product.html

Use that to backup/store your dissertation.. the PC i've shown only has 40gb hard disk - this isn't massive, but USB sticks are so cheap now you can always use those to boost your storage space

Younggrandmother

Thank you guys, I hadn't considered buying an older model, it would certainly be easier on my pocket. My father-in-law said he could load MS XP if I needed it, which I probably will as I am not a huge fan of Vista. My concern is that a reconditioned model might fail, do you have any experience of using one?

[Deleted User]

Sorry.. no experience myself, but i know the IBM Thinkpads are well regarded for their durability. I will give you my own advice though-- BACKUP YOUR WORK

Always, always always keep more than one copy of your work. One on the PC, one on a memory stick

David333

Just to add another option. I have one of those tiny netbooks: an Asus EEE. I really would recommend them: they're so light to carry to and from uni every day, will connect to your uni network for the Internet, and are no problem to write on for a dissertation - back up to a USB drive and all will be well!

John_Gray

ringo_24601 wrote: »

I will give you my own advice though-- BACKUP YOUR WORK

Always, always always keep more than one copy of your work. One on the PC, one on a memory stick

Backup cannot be over-emphasised! Perhaps keep your work on at least two USB Flash Drives (of two different makes, to be really paranoid!), and keep them in separate places except when doing the backups. Also ask how you can save your work on the University's server.

15K words is a lot to have to recreate, probably the day before the dissertation has to be handed in...

mdean

Certainly agree with the guys about back up
I would email to a friend so its kept in lots of places

As for a lappy - you can get what you need very easily on ebay and save a packet

Dime_Bar

I would think about a net book if i was yu, if mainly for the portability and robustness of one with a ssd. Also they usually have at least one sd slot which is one backup sorted. Use online storage as another backup if everything went wrong (eg fire), even if this was just a googlemail account that you emailed a copy to every hr.

One other thing to consider is how to carry it to campus, a laptop bag is like a steal me sign.

[Deleted User]

Anyone suggesting a netbook for writing a dissertation obviously has never had to do one

However.. if you were considering this, you could buy yourself a screen (a 15" TFT can be had for about 60 quid) and plug in a keyboard into one of these: http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5825940/Acer-Aspire-One-A110L-Intel-Atom-N270-1-6GHz-512MB-8GB-SSD-8-9-Linux-NetBook-White/Product.html - £179.99 and tiny.

So, use the tiny netbook at uni whilst in the stacks looking in journals, then take it home, plug it in and type away. God knows what the resolution would be though

It would mean getting use to Linux also