The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

Glitterati

I'm on the lookout for a decent cheap laptop for my little brother, he's off to China as part of his degree course at uni for a year so is going to need one. My dad will be footing the cost, but as he is pretty skint it's going to have to be pretty basic but reliable. Anyone know if it is probably best and cheapest for him to just buy it in china rather than here? I know they are huge on electronics there, but not sure about how they are price wise. Also the keyboards etc would be different... hum.. well any suggestions would be welcome! Just want to save my dad getting in more debt than necessary, as I know he was thinking of getting a 'cheapy' from pc world and he probably will be able to get better/cheaper elsewhere.

dalumsden1

Also posted in student forum:

Hello. I'm going to be ordering a student laptop in the next 2 weeks but it's hard reading through the mumbojumbo for a person who doesn't quite no how much of this and that he needs whilst at university. I was hoping people could help me and maybe others who read this. These are things I'll be running and at a budget of only 350-400 I would hope someone has good advice.

Skype
Msn Messenger and Gadu-Gadu
Microsoft Office
Firefox and Thunderbird
DVDs to watch movies (not an essential though)

I have a 500GB external hard drive so this may play to what I get.

Cheers.

spud17

Hi there,

Apologies if I don't reply promptly but can't be on here for a couple of days.

The question is on behalf of a friend, the small company he works for is looking to buy some Toshiba Satellite laptops.
The boss has asked if he would like to buy one for his own use, the idea being to try and get a better deal by bumping up the number being bought.

The model spec and OS are not yet finalised, but he would like to know if Toshiba are in principal a good buy.

Yes,I have seen the poll, but that might not necessarily reflect opinion of the latest models.

At present he has a Compaq M700(XP Professional,Office2003), I've told him it's worth about £75, but that's a complete guess, anyone care to give a more informed answer?

Thanks R

kirill

Had my toshiba satellite 2450-s402 for 3 years, no problems apart from 1 broken hard drive, it's still working just very very slowly and I have a loose lid, but I think that issue had been fixed in the future models

Ramz_3

thamesmatt wrote: »

seen this for £475 online! I'm thinking of a R20 too. Actually arrived on here to ask a the advice of the experts here! it looks to good to be true being what i consider a decent name

Yeah well, i'd recommend it, it's excellent, although the only thing is the battery, it only lasts about an hour when browsing the web...

DanielRichards

I've narrowed the choice to 3, but if anybody can help to narrow it to 1, i'd be really grateful!

Thanks
Dan.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=126333

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=126336

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=128950

Itchy_Niagras

DanielRichards wrote: »

I've narrowed the choice to 3, but if anybody can help to narrow it to 1, i'd be really grateful!

Thanks
Dan.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=126333

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=126336

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...uct_uid=128950

The Fujitsu-Siemens one has a great 17" screen and is much cheaper at Comet online.

DanielRichards

Cheers Itchy, but the spec is less with a slower processor etc. I'll keep thinking!!

meandmaboy

Good Evening,
This will probably appear to be a bit of a daft question, but i'll ask it anyway :eek: :eek: :eek: :eek:
Thinking of buying a basic laptop & dear son can have use of this pc, @ present i get all my emails thro' OUTLOOK EXPRESS' will i still be able to retrieve my emails from both the PC & Laptop if i have Windows Vista on the laptop & not Windows XP ???????????????????

I make no apologies for this being a silly question

TIA

buglawton

If your laptop has Vista then it can hardly be a basic one, needs fairly top spec to run Vista smoothly. A program called Windows Mail replaces Outlook Express in Vista, is similar enough. You can set the email on either machine to read the email but leave it on your email sever to be read then deleted by the other computer (you choose which one is to be 'master').

Meanwhile I want to avoid Vista so am looking for a refurbished or used IBM T41 with XP, a Gig of memory, and a non-reflective screen that does not look like a letterbox. Anyone know a good source?