The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

AirCooledHeaven

Tysa wrote: »

Hi,

I've finally found two laptops that I like but I'm torn between the two. It will mainly be used for surfing and watching films with the odd bit of gaming. I've always been a Pentium man so please help.

Thanks

Here's the first one:

http://www.staples.co.uk/ENG/Catalog/cat_sku.asp?Description=UK_CL_Laptops+-+Toshiba&CatIds=21797,35750,90634&webid=398661&affixedcode=WW+

and the second one.....
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.205-9535.aspx

Hi Tysa

Given that you want to do some gaming I would not buy either of these as the integrated graphics chipsets are not the best. I've been researching a laptop in this price range for my son who also wants to use it for games and finally bought this one:

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

Big decision factor is that it has ATI Radeon HD3200 graphics chipset which is the best you'll find in this price range, it also has a low power dual core processor and 2GB ram as standard. He's pretty pleased with it although due to the overhead of vista it would probably benefit from maxing out the ram to 4GB (another 20 quid), but this is true of all vista machines.

Hope this helps

Comrade

silvercar wrote: »

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.

Argos one doesn't have dedicated graphics memory, this is a mistake. And its integrated graphics is older and slower than Dell's.

JDPower

AirCooledHeaven wrote: »

Hi Tysa

Given that you want to do some gaming I would not buy either of these as the integrated graphics chipsets are not the best. I've been researching a laptop in this price range for my son who also wants to use it for games and finally bought this one:

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

Big decision factor is that it has ATI Radeon HD3200 graphics chipset which is the best you'll find in this price range, it also has a low power dual core processor and 2GB ram as standard. He's pretty pleased with it although due to the overhead of vista it would probably benefit from maxing out the ram to 4GB (another 20 quid), but this is true of all vista machines.

Bear in mind that any integrated graphics card will struggle with modern games. Also half that 2GB RAM is being used up by the integrated graphics so only 1GB is available to the computer for general use (and Vista can comfortably use up most of that)

allotment_owner

Soooooo..................! Very confusing! I have been given up to £500 to buy a laptop for my daughter.
She is only 10 and it seems crazy to spend so much money on one thing fo her! BUT she does go into hospitals for stays so she would love one where she can take games as it gets boring.

Now I understand that to play games fast you need a good graphics card- right?

But when you are playing, you aren't doing anything else at the same time (usually not I would have thought!!), so...really she wouldn't be surfing the net,using office, and playing at the same time! So does it still really matter?

I would like to buy her a laptop from some place where if I have a problem, I can get it fixed without stress! Argos are usually good for that.

Has anyone got a simple recommendation for me? She will surf, do powerpoints, play games like rollercoaster tycoon.
Not all at the same time!
Chat on msn to her mates and granny living in France (who is paying for this) . She satarts secondary school in 1 and a half years time, hopefully the laptop will still be going strong then for homework!
I need to find something this coming week for her.

thanks in advance.

allotment_owner

PS- I am looking at the argos site and there are some nice looking ones Acer and Asus at about the £480 range-



http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Browse/ID71/12108673/c_1/1|category_root|Office%2C+PCs+and+phones|12108629/c_2/2|cat_12108629|Computers+and+laptops|12108658/c_3/3|cat_12108658|Laptops|12108673/r_1/4|Price|400+%3C%3D++%3C%3D+499.99|2.htm
Any views on these?

want2bmortgage3

Argos are usually quite expensive unless they have a special offer on.. might be worth waiting for the next offers catalog that comes with the free newspaper?

I would advise going for the best CPU you can in your price range. The memory can be upgraded easily in the future and its unlikely you will run out of hard disk space these days. The CPU is important and one thing you cant change later on.

JD Power : Does an integrated graphics really use up a whole 1gb of RAM??? Surely it would only be something like 128mb?

boobbby

allotment_owner wrote: »

Soooooo..................! Very confusing! I have been given up to £500 to buy a laptop for my daughter.
She is only 10 and it seems crazy to spend so much money on one thing fo her! BUT she does go into hospitals for stays so she would love one where she can take games as it gets boring.

Now I understand that to play games fast you need a good graphics card- right?

But when you are playing, you aren't doing anything else at the same time (usually not I would have thought!!), so...really she wouldn't be surfing the net,using office, and playing at the same time! So does it still really matter?

I would like to buy her a laptop from some place where if I have a problem, I can get it fixed without stress! Argos are usually good for that.

Has anyone got a simple recommendation for me? She will surf, do powerpoints, play games like rollercoaster tycoon.
Not all at the same time!
Chat on msn to her mates and granny living in France (who is paying for this) . She satarts secondary school in 1 and a half years time, hopefully the laptop will still be going strong then for homework!
I need to find something this coming week for her.

thanks in advance.

Surfing the net, chatting on MSN. homework take very little processing power and could be done one at a time or for that matter could all be on the screen at the same time with most modern computers. Some of the latest games require many times more processing power or can sometimes be played at a slower rate or use less detail. Graphics cards fitted to computers have extra processing and RAM installed but they cost. They more of less detirmine the price of a computer. When you buy a game it will say on the back of the game how much is the minimum system power needed.

want2bmortgage3

How about this one from Novatech, providing you can get hold of a copy of windows/linux from a friend?

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/range.html?t=nb&c=home&r=E15

Or what about this toshiba from tesco, its a dual core not a slow celeron like Dell's budget inspiron:

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.205-9535.aspx

superstar_2

Is celeron worse than core processor?

want2bmortgage3

the celeron is a cheap alternative to intel's pentium, just like the amd sempron is cheaper than the athlon.