Laptop recommendation

recovering_spendaholic

I am just starting to work for myself and am using the family computer, which is old and slow and full of rubbish which the kids have downloaded. I need to get myself a laptop but haven't a clue which one to get. I have seen the Dell for £349 which is being advertised at the moment, but when I went on the Dell site and tried to get one it kept asking me if I wanted add ons and I felt that some of them might be necessary and when I had finished the cost had gone up to £499! I need a laptop to:

run microsoft office and store docs and presentations - need excel, word and powerpoint.

Watch the occasional DVD

browse the internet for e-mail and to look up stuff, but not to download much - certainly no films but a bit on itunes.

don't want to use it for any kind of gaming

be quite light but I don't want a netbook as that is too small.

My budget is as low as I can get really -I was hoping for under £350. I have been told to avoid Acer but other than that I don't have a clue!

Any suggestions? I went into PC world but the SA was trying to get me to get one which was over £500 and I felt very unassertive so just came out!

macman

You just need a basic laptop for your purposes, if you are taking about the Inspiron 15, that will do that job, as long as you are happy with a 15 in screen. You won't get a 17 in laptop with your budget.
I would suggest the min spec you need is: Dual Core or Core Duo processor (not the Celeron which comes with the cheapest ones), min RAM 2GB (preferably 3GB), min hard disk size 250GB (preferably 320GB), OS Vista Home Premium (not Home Basic). You really need to spend about £400 to get this spec, if too much then have a look at Dell Outlet, where there should be some pre-built stock already which is discounted. Spending that extra £50 or so will get you a much better machine.
Keep well away from PCW whatever you do!

Strider590

I know I keep bangin on about my laptops, but!!!

Buy a 3 or 4 year old business machine, they're damn fast, well built and very reliable.
I've got 2 IBM T41's, rock solid business grade machines, none of your cheap store brought rubbish here, how many store brought laptops have a titanium reinforced case and auto drop sensing so that if you happen to drop it the system turns off the HDD before it even hits the ground?

I paid no more than £160 per laptop.

barginunter

recovering_spendaholic wrote: »

the family computer, which is old and slow and full of rubbish which the kids have downloaded.

Download Ad-Aware, run it and get rid of all that stuff. Download CCleaner and do likewise. Defrag. It'll speed up.

[Deleted User]

What about a Vostro A860:

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&kc=N4XA8602&l=en&oc=N0686006&rbc=N0686006&s=bsd

Windows Vista® Home Basic SP1
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5470 (1.6 GHz, 2 MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB)
15.6" Widescreen WXGA Display
2GB RAM
250GB HDD

£379.00 inc VAT

Or a Vostro 1520:

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?reconfigure=true&vw=list&cart=ActiveCart&id=eb933211-eace-4515-ae76-9cac5d1bf3b5&ecomm=ecomm.euro.dell.com&c=uk&l=en&cs=ukbsdt1

Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T6570 (2.1GHz, 800MHz FSB,2MB L2 cache)
15.4 inch WXGA+
3GB RAM
250GB HDD

£435.85 inc VAT

Or if you want a 17" go for maybe a Vostro 1710:

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&kc=N4X17102&l=en&m_30=143330&oc=N0517105&rbc=N0517105&s=bsd

Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5670 (1.8 GHz, 2 MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB)
17" Widescreen WXGA+
2GB RAM
250GB RAM

£339.00 inc VAT

Or finally a Vostro 1720:

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&kc=N4X17202&l=en&m_30=143330&oc=N0617205&rbc=N0617205&s=bsd

Windows Vista® Home Basic SP1
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T5870 (2.0 GHz, 2 MB L2 Cache, 800 MHz FSB)
17.0 inch WXGA+
2GB RAM
160GB HDD

£369.00 inc VAT

I'd say if you go for one of the 2GB RAM models if you could upgrade to 3GB you'd notice the difference. Personally the 1710 (£339) has a nice 17" screen with a comparable CPU to the 1520 and you could upgrade the RAM if you wanted to 3GB for an extra £50.

Don't worry about it being on their business section either, anyone can buy from this and if anything these laptops are better in the respect of they'll have less bloatware, less annoying trial software etc.

Jakg

Strider590 wrote: »

how many store brought laptops have a titanium reinforced case and auto drop sensing so that if you happen to drop it the system turns off the HDD before it even hits the ground?

Actually a lot of them as it's built into the hard-drives themselves (Seagates G-Force is an example of this).