The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

raeble

ttoli wrote:

Hello
I'm a complete novice with computers and need some advice I need a cheap laptop for letters, Digital photo processing and v light surfing and have found the following,
HP OMNIBOOK XE2
CELEROA 333 PROCESSOR
128Mb
REFUBISHED INCL DELIVERY £199
through https://www.cheap-it.com

Has any one dealt with this company, is the deal any good and will it fill my needs?

Thanks in advance

Haven't dealt with them personally. Can I ask why you need a laptop? A desktop will give you more bang for your buck so to speak. I wouldn't touch refurbished laptops as if they go wrong it can be quite expensive to fix - batteries for instance can be as much as £100 if you can still get them for the particular machine. Also it doesn't seem to mention if you get the operating system on cd, - the operating system is about three or four versions back from the current one and I believe another version is in the pipeline. If you don't get it, you would need to buy a new one if for any reason you needed to reinstall it and as you would probably have to buy the latest version - windows xp you would also need to get more RAM, as xp needs a minimum of 256mb ram to run and the laptop only has 128. The laptop is very, very low spec and will have an extremely low battery life. A lot of programs these days are ram intensive and you will need more than 128mb of ram to run them effectively. If you really want a laptop I would advise going for the Acer comet/tesco's one that has been mentioned. It is a shade under £500.

craigblade

Hi,
Thanks for your replies everyone. I think 'Wonga' may be mistaken regarding the laptop from Comet though: the price of £449 is for the Acer 3002 model, which isn't a widescreen. The laptop I was referring to is the the Acer 3502WLMI, which is £499 and has widescreen.

I'll be phoning my local tescos tomorrow though to enquire if they have any in, so thanks for suggesting that.

I suppose another way to make it cheaper is if I purchase one of the laptops at £499 from PCWorld/Currys/Dixons, then I can use a 5% off code, and if I go through a cashback site such as quidco or egg.com then I can get a further 4.5-5% off. The price would then come down to around £450. I may wait till the Bank holiday weekend before purchasing actually because often PCWorld/Currys/Dixons have 10% off days (well they did on the Easter Sunday, and May Bank holiday).

Thanks again for your replies and if you spot any more widescreen laptop bargains please let me know.

Craig.

elona

My daughter has just been trying out the laptop we got last night for £468 from Tesco - she is really pleased with it - it is 512 ram and she says it is really fast and just "zips along" :j

pin

A pretty decent speced laptop from Novatech for £586:

Screen
15.4" WXGA TFT Screen ( 1280 x 800 )

Processor
1.6GHz AMD Turion 64 Processor

Memory
512MB PC2700 333MHz DDR

Hard Drive
60GB Hard Drive

Graphics
Upto 64MB Intel Extreme Graphics

Optical Drive
DVDR Multi Burner


Features
4 x USB 2.0 Por


54g Wireless Enabled Network Port


56K Internal Modem


Glidepad with 2 buttons & scroll button


<li>512MB PC2700 333MHz DDR
(Supports up to 1GB)

1 x Type II PCMCIA Slot PCMCIA Slot


NA Firewire Port


1 x Mic-in,1 x H'phone/Speakers


DVDR Multi Burner


1 x S-Video Out Port


Weight - 3.0Kg with battery


Dimensions (mm) - 33h x 358w x 272d


12 Mths RTB

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/NBsextra.html?NNB-332

Remember to use one of the rebate sites to get extra % off.

z1000000

Thank's Pin. Does anyone else think this is a good machine. I'm after a basic laptop, around the 500-600 mark, or less.
It's just for simple stuff, internet, but no games or Video.
I don't know much about Novatech, or computers in general, so any help would be great.

iamnew

I was hoping somebody on this thread might be able to help me as well.

I'm wanting to buy a laptop up to about £650ish exc vat (£770 inc).

I think it needs to be a Centrino laptop, based on the new Sonoma chipset, because it will be used on the move now and then. It'll be used mainly for office work (web, word processing etc) and the odd game, but really I just want to make sure it has a good bit of power, with a nice screen. And it needs to have a DVD writer.

I've narrowed it down to two; the HP nc6120 with a 1.6Pentium M, 512mb DDR, 60gb, DVD+RW with Windows XP PRO, and the Samsung X20 with 1.6Pentium M, 512mb DDR2, 60gb, and DVD+/-RW with Windows XP Home.

The advantage with the Samsung is that it has a dual format (and DVD RAM) DVD writer, a better screen (possibly), and DDR2 memory. However it has a 4200rpm hard drive, in comparison to the HPs 5400 rpm drive

So the question is, which of the two will be be better, will the slower hard drive let down the samsungs performance, even if it has faster memory?

And also, do you have any other suggestions of laptops for this kind of use. (as long as it isn't Acer/Dell/Advent/Packard Bell)

Many thanks in advance everyone.

1sttimer_2

I have seen a laptop advertised at Woolworths. Does anybody know if this is a good offer or not?

r.mac_2

I have seen this laptop advertised by PC world - what do you think?

advent 7063M Intel banias Pentium M 1.5 GHZ processsor £499.97 (inc VAT)

• Intel Banias Pentium M 1.5GHz processor
• 400 MHz FSB
• 1 Mb cache
• 256 Mb RAM
• 40 Gb Hard Drive
• DVD±RW Drive
• 15" TFT display
• Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
• 64 Mb Intel 855GME integrated graphics
• 1 Year FREE warrantyI appreciate any thoughts
  
  r.mac

£$&*"($£&(

For the price it looks good. Pentium-M laptops seem to be getting quite cheap these days. You should budget for an extra 256mb RAM. As long as your not going to use programs that are very graphic intensive like games it looks good.

ttoli

Many thanks for your response, I need a laptop as I'm emmigrating soon and it needs to fit in my hand luggage (I'm allowed one container and that has already gone with all my wordly goods, furniture etc). I'll check out tesco's tomorrow..thanx