The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

pin

Kilty wrote:

Dell Inspiron 1300 is the best value out of all < £400 laptops.

Build quality just pi**es all over anything Acer can churn out.

Remember neither Dell or Acer actually make their own computers.

HCDayantis

itsfrommark wrote:

Hi Jbatista, Where is this at the price of £342, as I can only find at £399 on Dell site.

....so is the dell inspiron 1300 currently the best value laptop for this specification?
Intel® Celeron® M Processor 380 (1.60 GHz, 1 MB L2 Cache, 400 MHz FSB)
Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition
Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive#
15.4" Widescreen WXGA (1280x800)
60GB Hard Drive
Memory - 512MB

Expert advice, IT user comments please, much appreciated Mark

This one here that Mark mentioned is probably your best bet at said budget, Angus.


As for you, 'I-luv-free-stuff', between the two you showed, the first one is definately better suited to your needs, rather than forking out an extra £100 unnecessarily. In my experience, high-street shops tend to give you less for your money than more 'obscure' internet shops, as I am on the brink of ordering this Lenovo here. (I say on the brink of, because I've done some borderline obsessive research on the store and laptop, looked at reviews and the like, and it's definately the one I want. I'm 16, with enough money from my part-time job to buy it (just!), but I need to persuade my father to let me have it, as I don't own a credit card!)

Anyway, from what I've read (I have no first-hand laptop experience except with old Toshibas), Acer quality of build/ sturdiness is inferior to that of Dell and Lenovo (for those unaware of it, Lenovo ate IBM. They still do ThinkPads, but are also in the commercial (non-business) side as well, far more than IBM). were.

HCDayantis

pin wrote:

Remember neither Dell or Acer actually make their own computers.

That doesn't really matter, though; you can have someone else build something well, and someone else build something badly. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter who builds it, but how well it's done.

Fair point, though.

i-luv-free-stuff

pin wrote:

Remember neither Dell or Acer actually make their own computers.

does this make a difference?

i-luv-free-stuff

HCDayantis wrote:

As for you, 'I-luv-free-stuff', between the two you showed, the first one is definately better suited to your needs, rather than forking out an extra £100 unnecessarily. .

ok
but i notice the difference in the processor i.e. amd turion 64 x 2 dual core and also the processor cache is only 512kb compared to 2mb on the 2nd one.

is this a major difference?
aslo what is a gigabit lan as it is not featuerd on the 1st one?

thanks for the help

HCDayantis

LAN is Local Area Connection. It's for networking computers. Gigabit just means increasing the data transmission speed of a conventional LAN to nearly 1 billion bits per second. Nothing you need to worry about unless you want LAN.

The second one does have a faster, better at multitasking and the like. No need to fork out £600 for it, though. You can get that processor on this Lenovo and this Acer. True, the Hard Drives are smaller, but it depends on how much you need. Unless you're planning on storing thousands and thousands of pictures on iit, or installing a lot of recent games on it (some take ~3gb+ or so these days), then 80GB should be plenty. Really, gaming is the one that would drain the HD and graphics card. If you don't intend on heavy gaming (I certainly don't), then these two should satisfy your processor needs. Hope it helps!

i-luv-free-stuff

so a LAN is when you want to connect up more than 1 computer?

espresso

i-luv-free-stuff wrote:

so a LAN is when you want to connect up more than 1 computer?

A LAN connection (Ethernet 10/100) is used to connect other computers or your router.

pin

i-luv-free-stuff wrote:

does this make a difference?

Sometimes it does, however in reality probably not. However what you will find it that often the same ODM will be making computers for both Acer and Dell, therefore built quality will often be the same. It more about the aftercare that may be a bit of a difference.

HCDayantis

Local Area Connection, does what it says on the tin. Have a dictionary-type definition:

A user-owned and operated data transmission facility connecting a number of communicating devices (eg computers, terminals, word processors, printers, and storage units) within a single building or floor.


Just to clarify, you don't need Gigabit LAN for connection to the internet via router or otherwise. You can quite easily connect with a number of devices, like wireless network cards. I haven't looked in detail at the others, but the Lenovo has integrated wireless connectivity, and I'd assume that the others would too. The 802.b etc. is all wireless connection, by the way.