Best laptop for £500?

movingforward2010

I have £500 possibly a little more to spend. Ive looked at Sony ones but if there anything like their mobile phones and PSP's I dont want one

I will be using it for:

*Uni course work

* Watching videos

*Surfing the net

* Storing music

* Ideally a replacement for my old desk top

* I'm not overally bothered about a 17 inch display.

* I would like a built in webcam

*Would prefer non vista software but I know they all seem to come with it now, I quite like XP

can anyone recommend one

moneysavingwannabe

I've just ordered this Acer aspire from amazon 5536

Had good reviews in mags and internet reviews for a budget laptop.

Does have vista tho

Jaffa.

Acer have a bad reputation for build quality, things like screen's falling off and cracked plastic's. That AMD Athlon will just act as a catalyst because of how hot it gets.

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/catalogId/1500001801/partNumber/5081804.htm

I'd go for something like that, but you don't need to pay £500 for what you want to do... XP is going to be hard to get hold of, Windows 7 is said to be better than Windows Vista. You could buy a copy of XP but you might have issues with drivers.

asininity

I bought this one a short time back very good.

When it turned up it didn't have an inbuilt webcam as advertised so I rang amazon to complain and they gave me a free £60 webcam in return, very nice 5mp webcam instead of a 0.3mp integrated webcam. I see that the webcam is still advertised as integrated in the specs;).

Acers "bad" rep is a past issue as they have produced some very good computers of late, take the acer aspire one which was the most popular netbook in 2008. Their thin timeline series are getting good reviews.

Jaffa.

asininity wrote: »

Acers "bad" rep is a past issue as they have produced some very good computers of late, take the acer aspire one which was the most popular netbook in 2008. Their thin timeline series are getting good reviews.

Yeah if I owned an new Acer laptop I'd be hoping that there bad reputation is a thing of the past too

asininity

No hope needed. I've personally never had a problem with one, even in the past. All I've experienced is good cheap computing and even cheaper warranties.

Every manufacturer has issues with a percentage of their systems, even apple who are renowned for decent hardware, the internets full of complaints.

Esqui

If you buy a computer now with Vista on it (not Basic, in most cases), you will get an upgrade to Windows 7 with most retailers. And Windows 7, by all accounts (I have yet to get my hands on it) is a lot better than Vista.

With regards to Acer, their computers are indeed a lot better now, but I still have concerns about the build quality...they just seem a bit flimsy to me.

Edgar_Prates

go for toshiba Satellite has built in harman/kardon speaker and good speed.

cassandra_k

Hi i'm thinking of getting a laptop i am lookin at a Sony vaio VGN-NW11S/S does anyone know where i can get one under 590 including postage?????

Thanks x

Marty_J

wxmlad, if you have "possibly a little more to spend", and depending on your definition of "a little", you could get yourself an Apple MacBook for just over £600 using your student discount (which would include a 3 year warranty).

They're built very well, are quite light and thin, have excellent battery life, and feature a built in webcam. It would come with Mac OS X 10.6, and a load of great photo, movie, music, web and DVD editing software called iLife.

There are rumours of a redesign being released in the near future, so you could wait and see what they release, or get yourself one of the current models; they might decide to drop the price.

ukbill69

I have a dell xps m1330 and love it. Best laptop ive owned.