The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

vinylmusic

espresso wrote:

So have you ticked the "connect when this network is in range" box in your wireless settings. Presumably the fn+f2 switches on your wireless, to conserve battery life when wireless is not required.

Ok fair enough but there has to be a manual override so that users have a choice in how their equipment behaves.
Fn+F2 turns it on or off
If that was all I needed to do then ok but 6 manouvres each time is going a bit far
It isnt a problem when coming off standby. Only after a fresh reboot which isnt much good when it comes to power saving.

Smickan

I have a Fujitsu Siemens Amilo pi1505 that was bought from Staples for £500. It's 100gb, dvd writer, dual processor, wide screen and.... I wouldn't be without it.

In the week we bought it, Computer Active, unbeknown to us had it as the computer to buy

http://www.fujitsu-siemens.com/home/products/notebooks/amilo_pi_1505.html

ioscorpio

PC World 2 day sale have a laptop for £199, but only had 10 for the store, I missed out today but they should have the same tomorrow.

Although the assistant did say that they are not Intel, Via C7 processor and they only have 20gb hard drive, apparently it's the one they have recently advertised on TV at £299, Ei system model 3084

I don't think I'll bother going back tomorrow.

mrbnewc1

vinylmusic wrote:

I bought a fujitsu Siemens laptop from Staples
Everything looked great until I set it up for wireless networking.
When wired with an ethernet cable to the modem/router everything was fine but to have it working wirelessly was a pain in the backside
I tried everything possible and even went to Staples who couldnt help.

Ideally you should be able to open the lid and go straight to it. I had to make no less than 6 manouvres to get it to work.
Open the lid and turn it on

• rightclick on the wireless icon

• Choose search for available networks

• In the next window search for available networks again... nothing happens

• press fn+f2

• Then click search for available networks again and the signal comes up

• then click connect

If I try using fn+f2 before anything else I still have to do it again after clicking on the search option.

There has to be an easier way

I finally called fujitsu-siemens avoiding any 0870 numbers and got through.

They wouldnt help me and insisted the only way I could get support was through a premium rate number at 60p a minute. and theres no email support
It gives me a bad taste having to call such a number not knowing the final cost and wether or not I would be put on hold.
I dont think that a new customer with setup problems should have to pay for support in that way and its totally wrong not to give an email alternative.

For anyone wishing to buy a Fujitsu item I advise them to consider this when weighing up their options

Hi

I have the same laptop from Staples. The easisest way to solve this problem is to press fnf2 whilst the laptop is starting up - by the time it's reached the log on screen the wireless connection is active.

Hope this helps

Mrbnewc1

buckrogers

hi all
hope you had a good xmas

can someone give me advice on buying a laptop
its for my daughter
i was hoping they wwould go down in price, but dont seem to be :-(
my budget is £450
i was looking at these two and would like advice which would be the best to buy
thankyou
Woolworths
£399
http://www.woolworths.co.uk/ww_p2/product/index.jhtml?pid=50790683

and dell
£439
http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&oc=N01157&rbc=N01157&s=dhs&sbc=ukdhsftdppnotebook1

FLC_3

Well I've had bad experiences with Dell so I wouldn't pick them. (My Dell PC broke just outside warranty and they were going to charge me £200 for the part, never mind what the labour would have cost. All their parts seem to be proprietary hence the high cost.)

I bought a Toshiba from John Lewis for £499, which I am very happy with. You get a free two year guarantee which is definitely worth having. It's out of stock on the web but they will probably have it in store (they also have a wider selection in store there were two different ones at £499 when I went in).
http://www.johnlewis.com/Computing/Computers/Computers/Laptops/398/1/1/ProductType.aspx

Malestrom

vinylmusic wrote:

Ok fair enough but there has to be a manual override so that users have a choice in how their equipment behaves.
Fn+F2 turns it on or off
If that was all I needed to do then ok but 6 manouvres each time is going a bit far
It isnt a problem when coming off standby. Only after a fresh reboot which isnt much good when it comes to power saving.

It depends on the particular model of Fujitsu laptop that you buy, some have this annoying 'feature' whilst others don't. I could be wrong but it might be all the Celeron based ones that need the Fn+F2 to switch wireless on every time you boot up, our Centrino based laptop doesnt. A friend bought two of these Celeron based Fujitsu laptops for his twins and we found the easiest way around it was to hibernate the systems instead of shutting down. They still power off completely but all the settings, including wireless, are saved. You can set the laptop to hibernate when the lid is closed too.

womble12345

In this thread the Advent 7111 from PC World has been reccomended so I went to buy one and they are out of stock:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0039996182.1167421431@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccgfaddjkgjefjmcflgceggdhhmdgml.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=387548&category_oid=

Next door in Currys they had a Advent 8111 which seems even better:
http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0819274210.1167421604@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdjaddjkgjefjhcflgceggdhhmdgml.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=734893&category_oid=

Any thoughts?

Simon

bestvalueformoney

After very extensive research I recommend the Advent 8111: at £494.98 on PC World's Website it's the cheapest machine to meet my minimum specification: Intel Core Duo T2050 Processor 1.6GHz and 1 GB RAM. Beware it's about £100 more in-store but you get the Website price using their collect@store service: I hope to get 3% cashback as I placed my reservation through Quidco.

Advent is a brand used by Dixons/Currys/PC World. I could have saved a bit more by ordering with my Egg credit card from Dixons (5% cashback) but I was uncertain whether the "shiny" screen would prove acceptable from a reflections perspective (it's great from a colour and clarity perspective) so I preferred PC World's in-store returns policy.

Note that the website specifications omit the fact the machine also has a wired LAN connector, a memory card reader (various formats including SD) and an S-Video connector.

Hope this helps

John

skinnerus

Im thinking of this laptop Novatech Revo Max T2050 Pro http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/nbrange.html?REM which was mentioned on a previous link can anyone give me some advice or views on whether this is a good deal or if there is somthing better around. Was looking to buy a Fujitsu Siemens Amilio 1505 but this model seems to be no longer available. The novatech seems to match it on spec / price although it is sold with no software any thoughts ?????