The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

melvis

want2bmortgage3 wrote: »

the thing with the tesco laptop is you can get blue or red for the same price, from dell they charge £30 extra for anything other than black.

On the dell site I noticed that the Pacific Blue is no extra cost xx

jingle68

Im sure the Tesco Dells are the same code but are actually lower spec than the ones on the Dell website?

AirCooledHeaven

melvis wrote: »

Help please

I've looked at so many laptops my heads buzzing :rotfl:

I get paid on Wednesday, can afford £350 - £380 tops for a laptop. The desktop is going upstairs to be used for downloading etc so we're not going to be using the laptop for that. (OH's moving the desktop upstairs on Saturday as the new sofa is coming and there's to be no room for it downstairs so need my laptop asap!)

My brother says Acer all the way, my friend says Dell. I personally have never even used a laptop before so have no idea :rotfl:

Ok, so what do I need to use the laptop for I hear you ask? Surfing the internet, opening lots of competition tabs at a time on Firefox, the odd bingo game. Also general office applications, like Word and Excel and basic photo editing. OH will be using it for roulette games etc but no heavy gaming going on.

Most of all, I don't want an ugly laptop

Is it relatively easy to replace Vista with XP? I have XP on disc that I have on my desktop at the moment. OH reckons it'll be easy but he isn't a laptop user! I haven't actually used Vista and don't exactly know what it is but have heard awful reviews of it and OH recommended I use XP instead

Thanks peeps xx

Hi

In my opinion Dells are always expensive for the level of specification, and if you search for reviews you'll find that people often complain about poor battery life on the inspiron range. Acer is an excellent budget brand, as is Fujitsu-Siemens, I've owned both and been satisfied but there doesn't appear to be any deals on these at the mo (I've been researching to buy one for my son). Best deals by far right now (imho) are on HP laptops, I just bought this one and I'm impressed by it considering the price and specification:

http://www.simplyhp.co.uk/HP_6735s_536938.html

You'll also find cheaper ones than this on the same site.

You won't find XP installed on any budget laptop, but give Vista a try and see what you think, I'm not a big fan myself but there's no doubting the 'eye candy' is much better than XP and my son loves it.

No problem installing XP but you'll just need to visit the support website for your laptop and download all the XP drivers. In fact before purchasing a laptop I suggest you check that XP drivers are available if using XP is an important cosideration.

Hope this helps

sukysue

I don't think Vista is bad at all imho I don't know a lot about puters but I am on mine a lot and Vista seems to be ok with me.

want2bmortgage3

my guess is vista is probably fine if the computer/laptop was designed for it, but on an older system i've noticed where xp works fine, vista is struggles and there seems to be constant hard disk activity.

456789

melvis wrote: »

My brother says Acer all the way, my friend says Dell. I personally have never even used a laptop before so have no idea :rotfl:

Ok, so what do I need to use the laptop for I hear you ask? Surfing the internet, opening lots of competition tabs at a time on Firefox, the odd bingo game. Also general office applications, like Word and Excel and basic photo editing. OH will be using it for roulette games etc but no heavy gaming going on.

Is it relatively easy to replace Vista with XP? I have XP on disc that I have on my desktop at the moment. OH reckons it'll be easy but he isn't a laptop user! I haven't actually used Vista and don't exactly know what it is but have heard awful reviews of it and OH recommended I use XP instead

For just general browsing and office applications - pretty much any decent laptop will do the job

Personally I do not like Acer - Dell is good sometimes they have nice deals sometimes not

The license for the copy of XP on your CD probably does not allow for it to be installed on 2 computers at the same time.

Vista is perfectly OK to use

jingle68 wrote: »

Im sure the Tesco Dells are the same code but are actually lower spec than the ones on the Dell website?

Normally yes as they are mass produced rather than custom built so by the time they get to stores such as Tesco and PC world they are slightly out of date

AirCooledHeaven wrote: »

Best deals by far right now (imho) are on HP laptops.

Yes HP has good prices and good specs - I have a HP atm and had a Compaq before (they are owned by HP) - there are usually good HP deals on http://www.ebuyer.com/

want2bmortgage3 wrote: »

my guess is vista is probably fine if the computer/laptop was designed for it, but on an older system i've noticed where xp works fine, vista is struggles and there seems to be constant hard disk activity.

The biggest issue is that it is very ram-hungry - xp would be fine on 512mb and I even have it on an old pc which has 128mb ram but vista can struggle even on a GB of ram

clyd3robert

Keep your eyes open and wait for the next big sale to pop out. You never know when your favorite vendor will offer a sale you can't refuse. Be very cautious about sales, though. Ask the seller why they offer such a deal and drop the price so you won't make the mistake of purchasing a cheap laptop that won't work. Ask if there are some parts they deliberately do not include with the package. Of course, buying them separately may cost you more after all. :beer:

silvercar

Can someone do me a big favour and compare the £349 dell with the sony vaio NR38ES that is also £349 (at Argos).

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/laptop-inspiron-1545?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn&dgc=EM&cid=22689&lid=530199&acd=9F3BTM-YB6PY-IPZNB3-BMJ4WY-D9DFE-v1


http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5080702.htm

456789

Depends which model of the dell you are buying

silvercar

456789 wrote: »

Depends which model of the dell you are buying

I thought the link led to the model.

Dell: Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core Processor T4200 (2.0GHz, 800MHz, 1MB cache)
15.6" Widescreen WXGA CCFL (1366 x 768) TFT Display with TrueLife™
2048MB 800MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
160GB (5,400rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
Intel Integrated GMA 4500MHD
DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 - English

Argos:
Intel Dual-Core processor T2390.
1.86GHz processor speed.
1024Mb cache.
2Gb RAM (2x 1024Mb DDR SDRAM).
15.4in screen size.
Resolution 1280 x 800 pixels.
Widescreen.
160GB SATA hard drive.
Multi format, dual layer, optical drive.
Intel GMA X3100 graphics.
350MB graphics memory.
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1 operating system installed.