The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

lkoky

Saeed wrote: »

Dell were doing a Vostro 1500, core 2 Duo 1.4Ghz, 2GB RAM, 120GB HDD, DVDRW, 15.4" Trulife, 1yr business hardware warranty, for £311 a little while ago and the Vostro 1500 is rock solid with little flex anywhere.

This seem to be placed under Dell small business section, can I as a consumer order it?

spud17

Copied and pasted from dmxdimension

The links provided below will take you to the Vostro systems on the Dell UK Small Business website. You are still allowed to purchase these systems if you are a home user. During the checkout process you will be asked to provide a business name, however it is perfectly acceptable to enter your own name in this space.

Saeed

lkoky wrote: »

This seem to be placed under Dell small business section, can I as a consumer order it?

I bought mine from the home section using an e-value code. You can still buy from small business side, but you need to know that you have less rights with regards to retuns as a business seller, so make sure you know what you want as dell may not accept it back if you don't like it. if you want to see dell's in the flesh, currys are stocking the inspiron 1502 at inflated prices so go theer and see what you amke of them. the inspirons are the same as the vostro's.

AliceBanned

d123 wrote: »

In a moment of madness (or so I thought) I have bought a laptop from PC World, and to make it worse it was an Advent. (It was just supposed to be a cheap short term stopgap after a problem with my Toshiba.

But after 2 weeks of use I am really pleasantly surprised by it, it's the Advent 9912 (£349.99), and the build quality is at least as good as my now gone Toshiba u200 (which cost £749.99). I have no plans to replace with another machine in the forseeable future.

The Toshiba was a core2duo 1.66mhz with 1GB RAM while the Advent is (only) a Celeron 1.73mhz which also came with 1GB RAM, I had a spare 512MB module which I have added (Advent had the decency of using 1x1GB, rather than 2x512MB that Toshiba used).

Surprisingly the apparent defiencies of the Advent don't actually have an impact on performance in comparison to the more expensive Toshiba, especially as the Tosh ran XP while the Advent runs Vista Home Premium.

Even heavy duty duty programs like Photoshop CS3 run as well on the Advent.

My conclusion, anyone looking for a cheapish small laptop (12" screen) can do far worse than the Advent 9912, it's nothing like the Advent I tried about 2 years ago, it has good build quality, very good LCD, good battery life and performance to match a Toshiba 12" laptop that cost more than double the price.

HiI found your post useful - am aiming to buy a laptop this week. Was going to go for a Toshiba but then realised that I don't like the keyboard, and as it will be a desktop replacement rather than portable that I'm after, the keyboard is important. I liked everything else about the Toshiba Satellites so was disappointed that I couldn't touch-type on them. Then in PC world today (I know!) I tried the Advent9517 (17" screen) for £475. Has windows Vista (dont know whether this is best), built in webcam, 2gb ram, 160gb. Screen is matt unlike most others nowadays.Also tried out similar models by Packard Bell and Acer, all preferable to the Toshiba "slippery" keyboard. Price wise I don't want to go much over £500. John Lewis offer 2 years guarantee on all their laptops, whereas only 1 year for PC world. Does anyone know where I can get better deals than either of these? The assistant in John Lewis was recommending Toshiba as the better brand in general but it isn't comfortable for me.I'm getting all mixed up by having so much choice! Any other advice would be appreciated - eg where I might get better deals on the internet?Thanks!

ageandjo

I know I have asked this before but I never got round to purchasing a new laptop, I now need to get one for my OH, it will be used for just mooching the net and using excel and word and that's about it really, no playing games etc... I would like to get one withing the next week or so, so if you kind peeps could point me in the direction of a decent lappy I would appreciate it.:j

tradetime

ageandjo wrote: »

I know I have asked this before but I never got round to purchasing a new laptop, I now need to get one for my OH, it will be used for just mooching the net and using excel and word and that's about it really, no playing games etc... I would like to get one withing the next week or so, so if you kind peeps could point me in the direction of a decent lappy I would appreciate it.:j

This looks reasonable value for the spec

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.aspx?sku=343857

or this if you can live with Vista Basic and without Dual core

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/ki.aspx?sku=345638
Don't think it represents as good value, but is cheaper.

ANDENA

just had my dell inspiron 6400 price £329 which i was happy with included vat and postage now i can get it for £279 at laptopsdirect.co.uk with free postage i have sent email to dell saying about it to see if they would give me a deal,You see dell is in Ireland that is why it cost so much.to get over here, dont think they will do anything it is worth a try any help on this would be most greatful.

littleange

I'd go for a Dell. Prices are good, support is good and batteries seem easy to take out.

JDPower

littleange_com wrote: »

I'd go for a Dell. Prices are good, support is good and batteries seem easy to take out.

Price is good - agreed. Support is good? Not in my experience (dreadful/non-existent). Batteries easy to take out? I've never seen a laptop with a battery that's difficult to take out :huh:

littleange

JDPower wrote: »

Price is good - agreed. Support is good? Not in my experience (dreadful/non-existent). Batteries easy to take out? I've never seen a laptop with a battery that's difficult to take out :huh:

I've had a replacement dvd writer and keyboard, both sent out next day.

Batteries are sometime screwed in so you can't take them out on a daily basis.