The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

talltree_3

I have been looking around for a laptop but am struggling to understand all of the ins and outs. I was thinking of waiting untill after christmas for the sales but dont know if its really worth it.

And then i came across this dell
InspironTM 6400
Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor T2130 (1.86 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 1 MB L2-cache)

2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]

160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive

To me it seems a good laptop for £349


Any help on this matter or any other suggestions will be very much appreciated.

JDPower

talltree wrote: »

I have been looking around for a laptop but am struggling to understand all of the ins and outs. I was thinking of waiting untill after christmas for the sales but dont know if its really worth it.

And then i came across this dell
InspironTM 6400
Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor T2130 (1.86 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 1 MB L2-cache)

2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]

160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive

To me it seems a good laptop for £349


Any help on this matter or any other suggestions will be very much appreciated.

If that's £349 all in it seems a pretty good deal.

d123

M-People wrote: »

makro (google it)
decent laptops for £100
Acers from £160
Dells from £200

Even after googling I'm none the wiser, no cheap laptops show up, either through google or searching makro.co.uk.

Do you have any direct links for the £100 laptops?

obsessednewbie

Have read back 15 Pages and have picked up a few "essential" must haves, however a few friends have suggested i also "must haves". Please can someone help guide me in the direction of a laptop that has the following:-

** Core2duo processor
** 2gb Ram
** DVD dual Layer
** Wireless ability (assume all have this nowadays?)
** Bluetooth & firewire (is this really essential)
** 4 USB
** XP (currently have vista pc and cant get on with it)
** Widescreen - any size
** 120gb hard drive

Graphics - was told not to go for on board graphics - how do i tell?

Have a budget of £300 - £550 - Am i asking for the moon on a stick or is any / all of this possible.

Thank you so much in advance!

JDPower

obsessednewbie wrote: »

Please can someone help guide me in the direction of a laptop that has the following:-

** Core2duo processor
** 2gb Ram
** DVD dual Layer
** Wireless ability (assume all have this nowadays?)
** Bluetooth & firewire (is this really essential)
** 4 USB
** XP (currently have vista pc and cant get on with it)
** Widescreen - any size
** 120gb hard drive

Graphics - was told not to go for on board graphics - how do i tell?

Have a budget of £300 - £550 - Am i asking for the moon on a stick or is any / all of this possible.

Will be a bit of a push in that price range. I would suggest as an alternative to the Intel Core 2 processer you also look at AMD dual cores as these systems will generally be a little cheaper and just as good as Intel if not better (they are in my experience anyway).
Also most laptops have onboard graphics, you'll pay alot more for a lappy with a seperate graphics card. Do you really need it though? Are you going to be playing games on it, in particular more resource heavy modern games? If not there is absolutely no need to avoid onboard graphics, just look for onboard graphics with a reasonable graphics memory - 128Mb or more, preferably 256Mb (it will use some of the RAM memory for this but with 2GB ram it won't be noticeable)

mw00001

Hi all,

I am trying to but a decent 17" laptop, have seen this at amazon for £499...

Acer Aspire 7720Z Notebook, Dual Core T2310 1.46GHz, 17" TFT, 2048MB RAM, 160GB Hard-drive, DVD±RW, GL960 Graphics, WiFi, Vista Home Premium

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000VPJDW0/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

Is it any good? Or any other stores I should consider? Is there any other 17" laptops I should consider?

Thanks in advance,

Matt

fallen_angel_shelley

mw00001. try doing what i did, i found a laptop on dell, in my price range (inspiron 64000) then gave them a call, told them which one i wanted and what extras i wanted, for the money i had (then did the old silent close trick) it worked a treat, got every thing i asked for. if you do try this, phone them up about half an hour befor closing, that way if there sales figers are down for the that day you will get it, just remember once you have told them what you want and how much you want to pay for it, don't say a thing untill the sales person answers you. you are the one in control, it's your money and they want it. i know this because i use to work in sales. good luck, shelley. x

JDPower

mw00001 wrote: »

Hi all,

I am trying to but a decent 17" laptop, have seen this at amazon for £499...

Acer Aspire 7720Z Notebook, Dual Core T2310 1.46GHz, 17" TFT, 2048MB RAM, 160GB Hard-drive, DVD±RW, GL960 Graphics, WiFi, Vista Home Premium

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000VPJDW0/ref=ord_cart_shr?%5Fencoding=UTF8&m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

Is it any good?

There are better deals around IMO. If you can wait a few more days (ie till after xmas) there'll probably be even better deals than are currently around

talltree_3

Anyone seen the laptop sale on play.com, there looks to be some pretty good deals to be had on Acers.

Any tips on which is the best model to buy & generally your feedback on acers?

Thanks in advance,
Matt

Osborn_2

obsessednewbie wrote: »

Have read back 15 Pages and have picked up a few "essential" must haves, however a few friends have suggested i also "must haves". Please can someone help guide me in the direction of a laptop that has the following:-

** Core2duo processor
** 2gb Ram
** DVD dual Layer
** Wireless ability (assume all have this nowadays?)
** Bluetooth & firewire (is this really essential)
** 4 USB
** XP (currently have vista pc and cant get on with it)
** Widescreen - any size
** 120gb hard drive

Graphics - was told not to go for on board graphics - how do i tell?

Have a budget of £300 - £550 - Am i asking for the moon on a stick or is any / all of this possible.

Thank you so much in advance!

:cool: You're in luck, i've found a couple opf pretty good laptops for my cousin. She's a med student in pakistan so i'm gona be buying a laptop for her here (or america )

the first is this fujitsu siemens lappy...
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/133387/show_product_reviews

next model is acer travelmate 5515wlmi notebook
Samsung R20 is a pretty good lappy for around the 500mark,,, ni need to make a separate thread for this...