The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

Matt_F-Smith

http://www.e-inbusiness-affiliate.com/u/europc/t.asp?id=1622

I bought a NEC Versa M320
Pentium 4, 2200, 256mb ram, DVD-ROM 16x, ATI mobility gfx card, 30gb HD for a very reasonable £445 inc VAT and delivery

see this

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>http://forum.moneysavingexpert.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=Referrers;action=display;num=1092352812

topic

Matt

Bargainbabe_2

http://www.student-laptops.co.uk/acatalog/New_Laptops.html

Thats the cheapest and most powerful laptop i can find...

£499 Toshiba Satellite Pro A60 with DVD and CD-RW including delivery and VAT.

nic.stone

I agree with the above, the Satellite Pro A60 is a new model, very reliable and £499 inclusive is a bargain. Avoid the cheaper manufacturers if you're looking for 'trouble free' computing as the built quality, driver and technical support can be abysmal. (especially with Time/Tiny/Advent etc.). IBM best for support, great website.

https://www.student-laptops.co.uk also has good prices for reconditioned lappies too.

If you're buying reconditioned, check the machine comes with software, you'd be surprised when you read the small print how many companies will supply you with a blank hard drive!

circuit

Thanks to everyone who has contributed to this thread... I'm going to make a decision on my new laptop today and will post it here when I'm done

dsle99

Hi, Try https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk for Acer laptops just bought a 292EXC. This has centrino technology which means battery last much longer than normal, it has a 1.3Ghz chip which is approx equal to 2.6Ghz. Check this spec out, and they will haggle a little on price especially if your getting extras.

The first option in the Acer Travelmate 290E series has an efficient Intel Celeron 1.3 GHz processor, 10/100 LAN adaptor and a combined DVD / CD-RW drive. The long "average battery life" of 4.5 hours makes this laptop a good choice for mobile users such as professionals and students.

Intel Celeron-M 1.3GHz Processor
256MB DDR SDRAM
30GB Hard Drive
14.1" TFT Screen
Intel 852GM 64MB Graphics
CD-RW / DVD Combo Drive
Integrated 10/100 LAN and 56K Modem
2 Hour Average Battery Life
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Pre-Loaded
1 year warranty upgradeable to 3 years collect and return policy including accidental damage for only £99!

circuit

I promised I would update on my buying decision... as it turned out, I found a used Vaio on Ebay for a good price... it's the best option for me as Vaios are very good for audio visual work.

However, had I not gone for the Vaio, the Toshiba A60 from Student Laptops completely trounces all the others mentioned in this post. It is an absolute bargain if you have the £500 going spare. I charted out all the specs and the A60 is the best value by FAR.

Incidentally the Medion refurb is out of stock, otherwise that would have been my first choice.

F1F1

We've also plumped for https://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk.

Went for the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro V1000 -

£715.57 inc vat:

Intel Mobile P4 2.2GHz processor
1 x 512MB DDR SDRAM Upgradeable to 1GB
60GB hard drive
CD-RW/DVD Combo
15.1" Ultra-bright TFT XGA display
56k modem
Wired 10/100 LAN
Integrated Graphics
Weight - 3.2Kg
Battery Life - 3 hours
Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition Pre-Loaded, Adobe Acrobat Reader, Nero, WinDVD, F-Secure Anti-Virus
1 year collect and return warranty upgradeable to 3 years warranty for only £99!

We didn't take the extended warranty but did upgrade the memory to 1GB.

F1F1

Fujitsu Siemens Amilo Pro V1000

Also free battery and free delivery just now. <see last post>

Dread

A few things to remember when choosing your laptop. I recently bought a second hand Compaq EvoN1015v notebook from Ebay and am delighte with it. It has an AMD processor, why is this significant? Well as I understand things, it runs a lower clock speed but it's architecture means it frequently outperformes the equivilant Intel model and it uses less power.......this bit is very important to laptop users!

I had to compromise on a slightly smaller than the norm, 14.1" screen and felt a little cheated at the time but now I'm laughing up my sleeve as a friend of mine bought almost the same machine from PC World (Spit!) but its an Intel with a 14.1 inch screen, I can use my machine for general use, surfing (wireless so the PC card has to be powered as well) for 3 to 4 hours before I have to use external power. His machine gets only 2 hours running and frankly, there is no discernible difference in performance.

Save money on a laptop? Go for an AMD processor, smaller screen and more RAM (although this also uses slightly more power).

Hope it helps.

Sarfaraz

Travelmate 2001XCe C2.6 256Mb 30GB Combo 14" XPH

Ex. VAT
£417.19

Inc. VAT
£490.20

Details @

http://www.savastore.com/products/product.asp?catalog_name=Savastore&product_id=10277374&pid=45&tid=14

Good luck!

Saf