The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

itsakidsworld

After posting on here and taking the advice I called Dell and I cannot praise them ( at the moment!) enough. I spoke to a nice chap, very helpful and not pushy and I feel I got a good deal that suited me.

It was the inspiron 6400 and I decided on some little extras which were for me such as a better screen, 9 cell battery and delux case. The total cost varies even on the 6400 so it is all down to personal choice but expect to pay around £480- £600 depending on what you go for.

Dell called and gave me a date for delivery, I set the computer up and it works great. I am no computer expert and yet found it easy to use. At the moment very happy and I hope it long continues.

Well done Dell.

melancholly

i've been looking at laptops for a couple of weeks now and annoyingly lots of prices appear have gone up since the weekend.

found this though:
http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=4CVK&CategorySelectedId=11105&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11105,46400000,4294959538,46160000&InMerch=1

looks pretty good to me, anything obvious that i should be worried about?!

melancholly

melancholly wrote: »

i've been looking at laptops for a couple of weeks now and annoyingly lots of prices appear have gone up since the weekend.

found this though:
http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=4CVK&CategorySelectedId=11105&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11105,46400000,4294959538,46160000&InMerch=1

looks pretty good to me, anything obvious that i should be worried about?!

ahhhhhhhhhh! so excited and pleased with myself!
i rang dell and said i was looking for a laptop and had seen this offer on dabs, but someone at work had suggested i ring dell before buying it to see what they could offer.

they upgraded the hard disc to 120GB, gave me the fancy tru life screen and a 9 cell battery for £419 (on the insprion 6400). (saving £200 on what it would have cost to book online - not that i'd have paid any more than £450 total anyway!)

i would never have dreamed of trying to get stuff for free from them. thank you so much to all the people who suggested bargaining......! :j :j :j

(and i even rang them from work so i didn't have to pay the 0870 cost myself!)

Sammz

Sounds similar to the one I'm after: http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&oc=N05642

albertross_2

Trulife screens aren't everyone's cup of tea. too shiny/reflective. I'd pop into curry's and check them out before you plump for one.

melancholly

albertross wrote: »

Trulife screens aren't everyone's cup of tea. too shiny/reflective. I'd pop into curry's and check them out before you plump for one.

had a look at someones at work and was impressed - wasn't going to buy something blind!

misterthrifty

I phoned Dell but was offered very little. I got through to an Indian call centre and the best they could offer was a few pounds off the better graphics card. Perhaps give it another go tomorrow!

Whits

Can someone with a bit of expertise have a look at these 3 laptops and tell me what they think offers more bang per buck -

linky

Thank you

lolamancity

I (well, my husband did) tried haggling twice with Dell on a 6400, the one at £498.99 on the website, as thats the one i have set my heart on.

They would not budge AT ALL! All they offered was a battery upgrade to 9 cell... and begrudgingly agreed to throwing bluetooth in aswell. Not a chance were they offering any more memory or hard drive... absolutely nothing.

Seems ive been totally unlucky

toasterman

Whits wrote: »

Can someone with a bit of expertise have a look at these 3 laptops and tell me what they think offers more bang per buck -

linky

Thank you

I'd say the Acer from that listing.
The fujitsu is a definite no-no, based on the comparison.. its got the smallest hard drive, lowest cache, its the slower AMD 64-bit processor, the delivery time takes 14 days (but costs the same as the others' 5 day delivery)..the list goes on.

I'd double check the spec of the HP one on their website too - because it says on that page it has no onboard lan card at all - I bet that isn't correct.
It also says it has no pc-card slots.. even my budget £299 HP laptop has a pc-card slot. It also says the screen is 15".. it isn't.. it'll be 15.4" because it says its widescreen, and you don't get 15" widescreen. You just look at that and wonder what else isn't correct.

I'd say the graphics is moderately better on the Acer compared to the HP, but its all cheap onboard graphics, which isn't great either way...fine for everything except the most modern games though.

The HP is moderately faster for moderately more money.. there's not a lot between them really.