laptop suggestions

x-stitch

Hi,

My laptop is now officially dead so am looking for suggestions for a new one. Don't want to spend a fortune (who does?) but have no idea what is best. OH says better to spend a bit more to hopefully get something more reliable; I'm not sure that spending more = better reliability.

Thanks,

X

Leopard

http://store.apple.com/uk/browse/home/specialdeals/mac?mco=19B76462

(If you can bear the thought of computer life with no viruses, no trojans, no worms, no "HiJack This" panic postings to MSE...)

x-stitch

Thanks for the suggestion - but I'm kind of used to windows now, even if I will end up with vista. Also, if I become familiar with vista I stand more chance of helping my parents (70's) with their PC! Despite spending more time than I ought on MSE this is mainly through our PC so the laptop is less at risk.

X

totalsolutions

Go to WH Smiths this weekend and check out the PC mags PC Pro and PC World plenty of Best Buys there, I would start there, What is your budget you can spend as little as £150 to over £2000 on a laptop, What will you be using it for, Choice is a small, light netbook to a fully blown 19" desktop replacement monster.

macman

Agreed, need to know what you want to do with it and approx budget. I tend to recommend Dell for laptops, because you can spec exactly what you want and they cover all the possible requirements in the range.
Start from about £350 upwards. Good idea to have a look on the Dell site where you can pick a base model and then build your own spec, and save it if you wish.

SunnySusie

Yep, are you looking for a "desktop replacement" or an ultra portable machine?
If the latter, my vote goes to the Samsung NC10. If the former. I dunno.

I'd stick to PCs, cheaper, more upgradable, all the free software you ever need from the open source community, secure if handled right. Actually, something like the NC10 can dual boot Mac OS X!

Good luck with the purchase

Leopard

SunnySusie wrote: »

Yep, are you looking for a "desktop replacement" or an ultra portable machine?
If the latter, my vote goes to the Samsung NC10. If the former. I dunno.

I'd stick to PCs, cheaper, more upgradable, all the free software you ever need from the open source community, secure if handled right. Actually, something like the NC10 can dual boot Mac OS X!

Good luck with the purchase

The thing like the NC10 that best dual-boots Mac OS X is a Wind. :cool:


(PS. http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/08/12/03/apple_pulls_support_note_recommending_antivirus_software.html )

x-stitch

Ok, budget is up to about £450 I guess;
it's to replace my dead laptop, not the pc;
usage is light - itunes for my nano, photos, word processing, email - that kind of thing;
Screen needs to be a reasonable, but not huge, size as my eyesight suffers otherwise!

I'm not even remotely likely to be playing games - other than solitaire type of thing. Think I would need an optical drive(?) so I can upload my CD's to itunes but unlikely to be playing dvd's.

OH has suggested lenevo(sp?) - any experiences good or bad?

Will try and remember to pick up one of the computing mags when in Mr T's on Monday.

Thanks for your thoughts,

X

macman

Any basic laptop will run the functions you mention. If you need an internal optical drive forget netbooks, you are looking at a conventional laptop. With your budget you are only going to get a 15in screeen, not a 17in.
I would look at the Dell Inspiron range, £450 will get you one with a reasonable HD, say 250GB, Vista Home Premium. Look for minimum 2GB RAM and preferably 4GB.

x-stitch

Tesco seem to have the Dell Inspiron 1525 T3400 160GB 2GB for £349 - does this sound like a good price?

X

macman

It's about £50 less than the near equivalent spec on the Dell site, which presumably is why Tesco are advertising it at £50 off. It comes with only Vista Home Basic, not Premium. HD is only 160GB which is the smallest they offer.
For around £400 you could get the exact spec you want direct from Dell and still be within your budget,
Still not clear why you would go to Tesco for a laptop though-would you buy your baked beans from PC World? (Actually, thinking about it, that's about all I'd buy from PCW...)