The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

deedub777

shazam wrote:

Hi,
there are so many laptops to choose from and so im not to sure which one to get. the ones below seem cheap, but are they any good?
I just need the laptop for work, any other suggestions

thanks

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Fujitsu_Siemens_Amilo_Pro_V3515_VFY:EM71V3515AB2GB/version-1.asp

http://direct.tesco.com/product/default.aspx?R=200-4597

Go for this one...
Acer Aspire 5051 (http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5051AWXMi_LX.AG30J.056/version.asp) then hunt for cheaper price and they will match it.

energy80s

southantrim3 wrote:

I know this is very hard to believe but this is what I got in their Bangor (Northern Ireland) store on Saturday afternoon. It was an ex-demo so had a few scuff marks. It also had a 1 year warranty.

I got and Advent 1500MHz intel celeron processor
60 GB Hard Drive
512Mb Ram
4 USB ports
Built in mic, speakers, modem.
DVD +/- RW drive
Preloaded Windows XP home and MS Works

All for £213.97!! (inclusive.)

I would be very wary of buying ex-demo stock from PC World as the keyboards especially will be "battered to f**k". Hopefully you will have better luck with your purchase than I've had with mine. Acer going back to PCW tonight with a dead DVD drive!

petergatestone

Build quality is important when looking at the budget end of the market. Have a look at the Lenovo 3000 N100. This is a Wifi DVDRW laptop for £352.49 inc VAT. Lenovo used to be IBM who have an excellent reputation for building solid, reliable notebooks.

huddsta

Go for this one...
Acer Aspire 5051 (http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/Acer_...56/version.asp) then hunt for cheaper price and they will match it.

Anyone know of a site worth price matching?

deedub777

huddsta wrote:

Anyone know of a site worth price matching?

Yes, try technoworld

Originally Posted by deedub777
Got them down to £388 (matched https://www.technoworld.co.uk price)

fitorbust

Have just ordered this one

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-3601.aspx

and the spec seems great - better than the Acer and the reviews are good.
£399 seems a good price and you can use a tesco code to get either 1000 or 500 extra clubcard points if that is your thing!!
L x

Guy_laister_2

Thisis the best

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-0972.aspx
Audio Features Yes
Bluetooth Yes
Brand Acer
Built-in Webcam Yes
Card Reader Yes
Features of Product Intel Celeron 420 Processor, 512 MB RAM, 80 GB Hdd, 14.1" TFT screen, DVD-RW optical drive, 5 in 1 card reader, 0.3MP Orbicam, 12 months warranty. Up to 2.5 hours battery life
Graphics Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950
Hard Drive 80GB
Memory 512MB
Mouse Touchpad
Number of USB Ports 4
Operating System Windows Vista™ Home Basic
Optical Drive DVD-RW
Processor Intel Celeron M Processor 420
Product Depth 26.5 cm
Product Height 2.93 cm
Product Width 35.8 cm
Screen Size 14.1"
TV Tuner None
Wi-Fi Wi-Fi


so good for the money. i have one and its fab

£379.93
379 Clubcard points

peedy-wessex

What do we want, folks, the cheapest - or the best? Cheapest won't be much good if you want to manipulate pictures, download videos etc. The best will set you back £2K. In the middle is the happy medium: You'll need to pay £.8K to £1K to get a gig of RAM and a 250 gB HDD, a good graphics card, a tv tuner, twin layer DVD and lots of ports around the edges plus at least a 17 inch TFT. Then you've got a nice machine and worth the extra few quid (well extra 300 quid then. Who's counting?)

Bascule_2

peedy-wessex is right BUT I think something like this would be a very happy medium:

Gateway MT6825B £499

Audio Features Yes
Bluetooth No
Brand Gateway
Card Reader Yes
Graphics Intel graphics media accelerator 950 with up to 224MB shared video memory
Hard Drive 100GB
Memory 1GB DDR2
Mouse Touchpad
Number of USB Ports 4
Operating System Windows Vista™ Home Premium
Optical Drive DVDRW
Processor Intel core 2 duo Processor T5200
Product Depth 15.5 cm
Product Height 43 cm
Product Width 34.7 cm
Screen Size Features 15.4inch wide
Software Load Windows Vista™ Home Premium, Microsoft Works 8.0, Microsoft Office Home and Student 2007 (60 Day trial), Adobe Reader 8.0, McAfee Internet Security Suite (90 Day Trial)
Wi-Fi Yes

speedy_gonzalez

That's one of the ones I'm considering. I haven't heard much about Gateway's aftersales service though, which I'd be interested in.