The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

Tallymanjohn

Just to add my tenpenny worth - recently bought Acer Aspire 5738z from Currys for £399. It's a 'full' widescreen (16:9) laptop which put me off at first, but I quickly got used to it. Has Win7 64bit, T4300 CPU, 3Gb RAM & 250Gb HD. Only slight moan is that bluetooth isn't included, even though the button/light for it are there. Battery life is average, screen is great, wireless connectivity brilliant using some Acer-specific enhancement. The lid is glossy & attracts fingerprints very easily, but the palmrest is matt & the keybnoard, including a full numeric pad is extremely nice to use - flat but positive keys make typing a pleasure. Bought mine on Oct 22n when Win7 came out, following week went back for another for friend and both Currys & PCW had sold out - obviously popular but both had new stock due in. Argos also do a slightly less specified version for £30 less.

*max*

Hi Tallymanjohn! I bought the same laptop from Currys but returned it today...I really loved it, but the CD drive kept making a loud grinding noise at start up, and sometimes got stuck on it, as if it was looking for a disk to read...the drawer wouldn't open either then, and was very difficult to open the rest of the time.
Do you have a similar experience? I'm hoping it was a fault and not something "normal"...Can you let me know? Many thanks!

JDPower

Tallymanjohn wrote: »

Only slight moan is that bluetooth isn't included, even though the button/light for it are there.

If you need bluetooth you can get tiny usb bluetooth adapters very cheap, eg this one (not a recommendation, just an example)

*max*

passlady wrote: »

Still £349 when i clicked on link! Boo Hoo

It's gone down to £329 now...I wonder why they keep changing the price!

http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home/laptops_great_deals/fs.aspx?refid=laptops_great_deals&s=dhs&cid=HDLaptop&cs=ukdhs1&dgc=IR&lid=NHP_BB1

coupleuk

Does anyone know anything about this laptop? Acer Aspire 77322

Intel Pentium dual core T4300 processor.

2.10GHZ processor speed.

4GB DDR2 RAM

17.3in screen size

1600 x 900 resolution.

250GB hard drive capacity.

Multi format dual layer

Intel GMA 4500M graphics.

Multi card reader.

2 USB ports.

0.3MP webcam.

802.11 B/G/N wireless enabled.

Numeric keyboard.

Windows 7 Home Premium Software operating system installed.

Weight 3.3kg.

Anyone any views on this one please?

The newspaper pullout this weekend does state 4xUSB but their spec online says 2xUSB.

Think I will call in today to find out as 2 USB sockets is nowhere near enough.

But would be good to get a review from anyone with one of these????

Thanks

EDIT: IT DOES ONLY HAVE 2 X USB - CHECKED IN-STORE 09/11/09

sweetheartlmg

*max* wrote: »

It's gone down to £329 now...I wonder why they keep changing the price!

http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home/laptops_great_deals/fs.aspx?refid=laptops_great_deals&s=dhs&cid=HDLaptop&cs=ukdhs1&dgc=IR&lid=NHP_BB1

Is there any better laptops for the price before I order the above? Don't know much about laptops but just need it mainly for internet and downloading music to Ipod. Thanks

alexgg

coupleuk wrote: »

Anyone any views on this one please?

The newspaper pullout this weekend does state 4xUSB but their spec online says 2xUSB.

Think I will call in today to find out as 2 USB sockets is nowhere near enough.

But would be good to get a review from anyone with one of these????

Thanks

Despite lack of information and reviews I did buy Acer Aspire "77322". It turned out that the real model number is 7715Z. It has only two USB slots and no inbuilt microphone. Otherwise so far it has been very good. I had to install dual boot Windows XP to connect to my old printer and in the process corrupted Windows 7 several times. However the restore disk that Windows 7 offers worked perfectly. Also it is very fast, although I don't have many programs installed yet.

JamesN

sweetheartlmg wrote: »

Is there any better laptops for the price before I order the above? Don't know much about laptops but just need it mainly for internet and downloading music to Ipod. Thanks

well if thats all you'll be using it for it will be just fine.

rev_henry

butterbeanmash wrote: »

Hi all,

I've just bought one of these;

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=290345495047&ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT

It's a Medion S5610. I went to their showroom and asked what the best offer was and it's £349.99. The laptops are as new, and most are still sealed from Medion, with restore disc, warranty, laptop bag, Nero and Windows 7 upgrade offer.

Hope this helps someone.

I'm after something about this £350 mark with reasonable graphics for a bit of gaming. Is this my best bet? Or would say this be better...
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ACER-ASPIRE-5535-15-6IN-LAPTOP-DUEL-CORE-WIDESCREEN_W0QQitemZ360200589388QQcmdZViewItemQQptZUK_Computing_Laptops_EH?hash=item53dda0d04c

Or anything else? I've been keeping my eye out for a while now.
Thanks

EDIT: Just found this also:
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1652127970.1257786378@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccdadeikkkdkjjcflgceggdhhmdfhj.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=352412&category_oid=-28487

Would appear to have the best graphics, larger screen, slightly better processor, but does not come with the Windows 7 voucher (oh dear how sad), nor a fingerprint sensor (gimmick, but I like gimmicks!) Could anyone confirm my thoughts?

toomanykids

I need advice Hubby wants to by a laptop and wants this one COMPAQ CQ71-314SA from Comet at £429 but I can't find a review on this anywhere, could someone have a look at this and let me know what they think, we know nothing about laptops, tia http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/product/590223/COMPAQ-CQ71-314SA?cm_sp=FeatureEnd-_-Laptops-_-position