Help, want to buy a laptop but haven't a clue!

4Fingus

'Easily connected to tv' - In what way? This could be a little tricky depending on your TV.

4743hudsonj

Jaffa. wrote: »

No it was the Nvidia graphics that failed, They share the same heatsink though so the AMD processor caused a malfunction in the graphics. Speedfan went up to about 90° on the processor, must have overheated the graphics on the board. Yeah poor design on HP's part and they issued a statement acknowledging the fault, shame the 2 year warrenty is up now though.

Nothing inherently wrong with AMD processors... If I would have picked the intel that ran cooler, face it, I still would have had a laptop. It's up to the OP though, play it safe and go with another brand of laptop like Toshiba (which have brill cooling, big vents on the side) with an Intel processor, or take a risk with an AMD.

this is a problem but they do also have rubbish cooling

all the vents are on the bottom with very little ground clearance

Psychofly

Here's a timely deal from HotUKDeals.

http://www.dixons.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/652743

John_Gray

Psychofly wrote: »

Here's a timely deal from HotUKDeals.
http://www.dixons.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/652743

Congratulations on putting 'timely' to something from Dixons (the 'PC World' of the high street...)!

Psychofly

Yeah they're crap in general. But that's not a bad deal for the laptop. There's better around, a few options have already been given. That's just an extra one to consider.

Occassionally places like PC World do have good deals - I often think it's a mistake on their part - but I certainly wouldn't listen to a word they say or follow any advice from them whatsoever.

Jaffa.

Psychofly wrote: »

Occassionally places like PC World do have good deals - I often think it's a mistake on their part - but I certainly wouldn't listen to a word they say or follow any advice from them whatsoever.

I saw McAfee in there for 89p once

Strider590

Why do you need a laptop again?
You can't get your wireless to work?
Why is a laptop going to be any better? they're exactly the same as a desktop PC only more fragile

Would hate to see someone waste money on something that'll probably be no different to what they hhve already.

el_gringo_3

Yeah as Strider590 says if you want it to be wireless you'll still need to have a working wireless router, even if it has wireless but you only have a wired router you'll still need cables. Also remember that laptops have the annoyance of a power lead to trip up on!

Looking at the spec of the Compaq I would stay away as its only got a 120 g hard drive and 1gb memory - if your using it for work you'll want some of that space to be used up with backup, then theres system files, program files etc, leaving little room for storage. I personally wouldn't use Vista with anything less than 2g but thats personal choice I suppose, if your the sort that regularly performs a lot of pc-housekeeping it should work fine. I'm assuming your TV is HDMI and thats why you've been suggested this model?

Tbh I think you'd be far better off with a desktop, purely for the length of time you'll get out of it - kids won't bust it up, and theres no batttery to go.

Paradigm

el_gringo wrote: »

Tbh I think you'd be far better off with a desktop, purely for the length of time you'll get out of it - kids won't bust it up, and theres no batttery to go.

Gotta agree here... I really don't understand this fascination with laptops! Ok if your a businessman/woman who needs to cart valuable work data around I can just understand it but for the average family??

Inferior performance (pound for pound), fragile build, a battery that will die & that bloody awful touchpad... all for something that looks chic & will probably never leave the house.

As Jim Royle would say, "laptops my !!!!"

4743hudsonj

Jaffa. wrote: »

The Toshiba? Na they have huge strips of vent in the side, the laptops cool to the touch.

i meant the hp's:p