£1500 Laptop

bobdauilda

thanks chaps- the top spec sony ones aren't as highly specd as the dell ones for the same money though are they? The XPS one seems to have the best graphics card available at the mo and dual core tech which the sony doesn't have http://www.comet.co.uk/comet/html/cache/572_311642.html
Pound for pound is the dell really the best option? Is it worth buying the dell 3 yr warranty as I am always suspicious of store warranties...

pigeonpie

If you have £1500 you could get an IBM /Lenovo with good spec. They are meant to be the most reliable.
I have returned 2 Dells with major monitor faults and each time it took weeks to get them to fetch them and more weeks for the refund.
Toshiba Qosmio has TV tuner etc etc and is on sale at John Lewis; actually no maybe that's around £1700!! They will at least give you good customer service though.

carl_east

You get 5% cashback via quidco at John Lewis to but their laptops can be found cheaper elsewhere. Those Toshiba Qosmio's certainly look the business though. But I would stick with the Dell laptops and maybe extend the warranty if you're not confident. I can tell you from owning a Dell laptop that their customer service is really bad. All of their operations are in India and it's very hard to understand them and they often misinterpret you. From quite a lot of them that I've spoken to they are also quite pushy.

But the XPS laptops offer onsite service so you may not need to worry about that.

pigeonpie

I had onsite service but they wouldn't come. Made me speak to 0870 India tech support for one hour and then told me to send it back.
Won't John Lewis match anyone else's cheaper price btw?

bobdauilda

Jesus I never thought it would be so hard to spend £1500 on a laptop! I have posted on whatpc forum as well but it seems that I am in an 'in between' bracket at this price whereas I thought Id get the muttsnuts for that... the tosh does look v nice but then Microsoft will bring out a new os soon and everything will be out of date in a few weeks again.... just wish the ins would let me have the checque and allow me to decide whether to spend the full whack or just part of it...

pin

Have you looked at Asus laptops? They are very nice looking, great build and come with 2 years warranty.

Have a look at www.laptopsdirect.co.uk for some of their stuff.

bobdauilda

Thanks for all the input. I think its a toss between the lower spec dell m1710 or the Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi.... anyone know if Acer are good?

John_M_Business

Hi there
I am just about to take delivery of one of these babies...
http://www.rockdirect.com/notebooks/xtremectx_cons.htm
After looking for a similar spec to yours...

They're supposed to be very reliable, backed up with a 3 year on-site warranty...

Even if they're a little over your budget... give them a call, and they could well squeeze you in.

carl_east

How much can you get the Acer for?

I think you've got a choice to make. The 17" screen of the Dell or the 15.4" screen of the Acer. I've got a 17" screen and it makes a huge difference. But it also makes the laptop a lot less portable. You'll never notice the difference in the rest of the spec. Unless you're trying calculate the date of the next iceage.

Secondly I know that, once you've received a computer from Dell you can call them up and tell them that you don't want it, they will often either chuck in some accessories for free or give you a discount. Otherwise they have to pick it up for free and sell it on the dell outlet website.

Lob_Rockster

I would not touch Dell nor Acer.
IBM or Toshiba. IBM (Leveno) would be my favourite to be honest.

I have a Dell D610 which has had a new motherboard in the 8 months I've had it. It's slower than the IBM T42 I mostly use - a fantastic machine. I also have T21/22/23 at home and they are still going strong.

Thinkpad all the way, I say....