Help on Choosing Between Laptops

borgman

Hello,

http://www.wizmarkcomputers.co.uk/hot-deals-dell-inspiron-15.htm

two laptops at £329 can some one please tell me which one I should choose and why?
Its for my daughter to take to University.

thank you

R

martin8_2

hhmm.... not much difference between the two really but I would prob go for the one which includes the following:-

Intel Celeron Dual Core T3000
2048MB RAM
250GB HDD

slightly better CPU, 2GB ram should be fine for now (can upgrade quite cheaply at a later date) and the extra Hard drive space should come in handy for storing all her..... homework!

borgman

Thanks for the advice

Is this a fair laptop? I'm going mad trying to decide Is there something better at this sort of price?
Are Ebuyer any good saw a couple of HP ones there but don't know if I should just stick to the Dell?

Many Thanks
R

gingerscot

The standard cost of a laptop including all the main bits, screen, casing, motherboard, dvd drive, ports etc takes up a large proportion of the cost of a budget laptop thus you’re never going to get a new laptop below around £250. From here the extra money generally goes on the processor, graphics card, memory and harddrive.

Pretty much all laptops have 2 or 4 gb of memory which is perfectly fine with all windows versions so there’s no cost issue there.

Most laptops below £500 will have integrated graphics (GMA4500 or GM3100 in most cases). These are fine for playing any game over 5 years old and most non-graphically advanced games (Sims 2 will play fine but Sims 3 will struggle abit for example). Graphics cards make no or negligible difference to any other normal day-to-day process (office, net), it’s a waste if 99/100 times you use it, use just use the net or office and they reduce the battery life.

Harddrives are fairly standard these days in terms of speed and durability so it just comes down to size really. Anything over 100gb is fine really and they all offer that, I went out 4/week with my camera at uni for 3 years and only have 30gb of pictures for a reference. It’s all about whether you download movies/TV shows really.

…..my point is that the vast majority of the performance difference is down the processor! Celeron’s that you’ve mentioned are budget processers that are designed for very basic tasks and not for having lots of tabs, programmes running at the same time. It’s always best to pay a bit more to get a dual core processor, they are soo much faster! That extra £50-100 over 3 years is worth it. Celerons cost £30-40 and dual cores are double or more but that equates often to only a 10% increase in the cost of the laptop however the difference in performance will be vast!

Look for at minimum the Celeron dual core but the Pentium dual core or Core 2 processers are far better. The Celeron 900 will be slow and I would not recommend it even with more memory. I agree with martin8, 2 to 3 gigs of ram will not make as much a difference. I've had 3 dell laptops with no major problems. They nearly always tend to be good value for money and for £300-350 you can't expect much more expect if you get it refurbished or 2nd hand from ebay.

Search around and don’t be afraid to look on ebay (All my past 3 laptops have been from ebay), many are large trustworthy sellers and it gives you a massive selection, easy to compare, and at least a good indication of what you should expect to pay.

Hope helps,

borgman

gingerscot wrote: »

The standard cost of a laptop including all the main bits, screen, casing, motherboard, dvd drive, ports etc takes up a large proportion of the cost of a budget laptop thus you’re never going to get a new laptop below around £250. From here the extra money generally goes on the processor, graphics card, memory and harddrive.

Pretty much all laptops have 2 or 4 gb of memory which is perfectly fine with all windows versions so there’s no cost issue there.

Most laptops below £500 will have integrated graphics (GMA4500 or GM3100 in most cases). These are fine for playing any game over 5 years old and most non-graphically advanced games (Sims 2 will play fine but Sims 3 will struggle abit for example). Graphics cards make no or negligible difference to any other normal day-to-day process (office, net), it’s a waste if 99/100 times you use it, use just use the net or office and they reduce the battery life.

Harddrives are fairly standard these days in terms of speed and durability so it just comes down to size really. Anything over 100gb is fine really and they all offer that, I went out 4/week with my camera at uni for 3 years and only have 30gb of pictures for a reference. It’s all about whether you download movies/TV shows really.

…..my point is that the vast majority of the performance difference is down the processor! Celeron’s that you’ve mentioned are budget processers that are designed for very basic tasks and not for having lots of tabs, programmes running at the same time. It’s always best to pay a bit more to get a dual core processor, they are soo much faster! That extra £50-100 over 3 years is worth it. Celerons cost £30-40 and dual cores are double or more but that equates often to only a 10% increase in the cost of the laptop however the difference in performance will be vast!

Look for at minimum the Celeron dual core but the Pentium dual core or Core 2 processers are far better. The Celeron 900 will be slow and I would not recommend it even with more memory. I agree with martin8, 2 to 3 gigs of ram will not make as much a difference. I've had 3 dell laptops with no major problems. They nearly always tend to be good value for money and for £300-350 you can't expect much more expect if you get it refurbished or 2nd hand from ebay.

Search around and don’t be afraid to look on ebay (All my past 3 laptops have been from ebay), many are large trustworthy sellers and it gives you a massive selection, easy to compare, and at least a good indication of what you should expect to pay.

Hope helps,

Thank you for such a comprehensive reply
I suppose like most people finding it difficult and paralysed by indecision
Final shortlist

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/152309

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/159081

http://www.wizmarkcomputers.co.uk/hot-deals-dell-inspiron-15.htm
the £329 ntel Celeron Dual Core T3000
(1.80GHz, 800MHz, 1MB Cache)
2048MB

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.206-9216.aspx

All would probably be fine but if it was your money which would you buy??

Many Many Thanks

R

Cemeteryjunction64

hardware is so competitive price-wise these days, its difficult to find a bad deal. I would just spin a coin, they are all pretty similar in terms of reliability etc..