The Great 'Cheapest Decent Laptop' Hunt

Millionaire

JamesN wrote: »

i dont. For £50 more you can get a much better processor, experience on here says that the celeron is a very slow processor. 2GB is not fantastic either, you normally get 3/4GB at £400. Dont be swayed by the free carry case.

I should of mentioned, for £350 it's a half decent spec so if you have a budget for £350 it's worth a look.

Obviously at £50 more you'll get better spec and £50 more even better, and so forth.

Regarding the Celeron Processor, its the Dual Core Version and it performs reasonably better to previous incarnations of the Celeron branded processors, and almost on par to the lower end Pentium Dual Cores.

So it's not as bad as the Celeron name would suggest.

freehat

7richy7 wrote: »

I found this laptop and looks good to me, especially at £399.99 from what i think is a respectable manufacturer in compaq. Would like others opinions. Thanks

from laptopsdirect.co.uk
model is cq61 330sa

Sorry but not allowed to post links (newbie)

I'm not too up to date on laptops but this looks like a decent deal, what do others think?

It's listed as having an AMD Turion II mobile processor M500 / 2.2 GHz processor, is this any good? I'm guessing the NVIDIA GeForce 8200M G is a shared graphics processor, I'm not bothered about playing any recent games so would this be alright?

Thnaks for any advice.

littlebutton_2

My current laptop (Fujitsu Siemens V3515) is going to conk out any day now, so I'm looking to replace it, but I only have up to about £300 to spend. I ideally need it to run a little faster than the current one and maybe have a built in webcam but I'm not too fussed, the cheaper the better really! Anyone have any reccomendations? I've been looking around but really don't know what is the best deal for my budget. Any help greatly appreciated!

superstar_2

littlebutton wrote: »

My current laptop (Fujitsu Siemens V3515) is going to conk out any day now, so I'm looking to replace it, but I only have up to about £300 to spend. I ideally need it to run a little faster than the current one and maybe have a built in webcam but I'm not too fussed, the cheaper the better really! Anyone have any reccomendations? I've been looking around but really don't know what is the best deal for my budget. Any help greatly appreciated!

If you can afford another tenner, then this acer might be for you. Its got pentium dual core, way way better than your current 1.73Ghz celeron. I think you can get a free upgrade to windows 7 too before 31st January, but check that!
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/174201

Hope thats some help.

superstar_2

freehat wrote: »

I'm not too up to date on laptops but this looks like a decent deal, what do others think?

It's listed as having an AMD Turion II mobile processor M500 / 2.2 GHz processor, is this any good? I'm guessing the NVIDIA GeForce 8200M G is a shared graphics processor, I'm not bothered about playing any recent games so would this be alright?

Thnaks for any advice.

The M500 Turion is a decent processor especially if you want to play games on your laptop. Its clocking around the same as a T6xxx series of intel core 2 duo, although its worth noting that its impossible to compare them like for like.

The 8200 M G graphic card is a separate dedicated graphic card but its not much better than a integrated intel card.

brianm729

Hi all,

I am looking for some help to choose a laptop for my daughter.

Budget is up to £400, and we would like Windows 7, and a webcam.

She will use it mainly for chatrooms, downloading music, streaming videos, and surfing the internet, but she would also like to be able to play Sims 3 on it (if possible). I assume it would need a dedicated graphics chip for this game?

I have seen this one in Argos; http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5082281.htm?jspStoreDir=argos&params=AR641&referredURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.argos.co.uk%2Fstatic%2FProduct%2FpartNumber%2F5082281.htm&cmpid=AR641&uid=7006497488&referrer=AR641&mid=700146446&storeId=10001

Any thoughts on this, or suggestions for any other one would be very much appreciated.

Many thanks in advance.

Amanda4242

Hi I've been researching and browsing these pages and need to buy a laptop for my son for christmas like many others on here!!

Usage would be internet, webcam, email and possible dvd/cd burning...

Looking to spend LESS than £350.

I've been endlessly searching and with my very very very limited knowledge best I could find was this Compaq CQ61-312SA M100 2GB 160GB 15/6" windows 7 at £339 which with clubcard points and quidco brings it under £300. What do you guys/gals think is it a good deal and is there anything out there better???
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.206-6817.aspx

bushcaro

ErodedPebble wrote: »

It really depends on what the Laptops will be used for....
If purely for Internet surfing, facebook, Twitter, Skyping etc... and they don't require a DVD Drive then I suggest looking into Netbooks (samsung NC10 can be bought for around £250 or less from Pixmania)...see Trustedreviews for more info:
http://www.trustedreviews.com/filter/laptops?price_min=nmin&price_max=nmax&score=0&section_id=13&filter=123&manufacturer=0&submit.x=27&submit.y=8

However the screens are approx 10inches...so if your daughters are into Graphics, art and design etc...they may not be appropriate.


Many people I know (including myself) buy from DELL Outlet..which are returned machines that have been refurbished or had their order cancelled.

http://outlet.euro.dell.com/topics/global.aspx/arb/online/en/InventorySearch?c=uk&cs=ukdfh1&l=en&lob=INSP&s=dfh

Filter on the price for < £500 and see what machines they have available for your budget.....Bear in mind that they will add VAT and delivery on the prices displayed.

Hi - What sort of warranty do you get with the refurbs please

JDPower

brianm729 wrote: »

Hi all,

I am looking for some help to choose a laptop for my daughter.

Budget is up to £400, and we would like Windows 7, and a webcam.

She will use it mainly for chatrooms, downloading music, streaming videos, and surfing the internet, but she would also like to be able to play Sims 3 on it (if possible). I assume it would need a dedicated graphics chip for this game?

I have seen this one in Argos; http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5082281.htm?jspStoreDir=argos&params=AR641&referredURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.argos.co.uk%2Fstatic%2FProduct%2FpartNumber%2F5082281.htm&cmpid=AR641&uid=7006497488&referrer=AR641&mid=700146446&storeId=10001

A dedicated graphics card would obviously make for smoother game running but that should run Sims 3 ok, perhaps with some of the graphics detail turned down. And you should be able to increase the amount of shared memory to the max amount in the ATI software seeing as you have plenty of RAM (If the laptop doesn't have the ATI Catalyst Control Centre installed when you get it just download the latest drivers from the ATI/AMD site and it will be installed with the driver. It's usually preferable to install the latest gfx driver anyway as the ones installed on laptops can be a little on the old side)

JDPower

Amanda4242 wrote: »

I've been endlessly searching and with my very very very limited knowledge best I could find was this Compaq CQ61-312SA M100 2GB 160GB 15/6" windows 7 at £339 which with clubcard points and quidco brings it under £300. What do you guys/gals think is it a good deal and is there anything out there better???
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.206-6817.aspx

That has a very old single core processor and on that basis alone would heavily dissuade from buying it. Look back through last few pages at suggestions made and if wanting to use clubcard points look at the other laptops in your price range on the Tesco site, there are several dual core models on there.