laptop?

cazmeg

I'm looking for a cheap laptop for my son. has anyone seen any good student offers? Many thanks.

smellybum

What do you regard as cheap?

You can pick up a laptop in shops for around £300
pc world, comet dell etc

rhig

There are really two main choices for student Laptops:

Firstly there are the ultra cheap, budget student laptops. These are usually made by Acer or Advent though Toshiba also have some which fit into this category. They are generally fine for typing up essays plugged in at a desk in someone’s room although they are usually rather bulky and feel cheap; they also have poorer battery power and lower grade screens which can't display higher resolutions. Processors are usually around 1.7GHz and you will probably get 256MB of RAM, the warranty will most likely be a 1 year return to base.

These laptops range from £300-500 and are ok for someone taking a course which does not require intensive computer use, for courses which do require this a laptop is not usually the best solution anyway despite portability. These laptops are not really as portable as others due to the weight and poorer build quality, they are fine to carry home for holidays but far more likely to break if carried around campus a lot. Heavy computers which are cheaply built are accidents waiting to happen.

Secondly you have the budget Laptop, this is sold to a variety of users outside the student market, usually manufactured by Dell, HP, Compaq and Siemens these laptops are usually not vastly more powerful than ultra cheap laptops but are build much better and will last longer, they are usually sold with some kind of quick replacement warranty, much better than losing your laptop for 3 weeks while it is repaired.

These cost from around £450 to £650, you will usually get a DVD writer which is useful for backing large amounts of work up as well as integrated wireless and a healthy amount of memory. These laptops can usually be carried around easily being smaller and usually pretty well built as well as having better batteries.

My brother just managed to get a Centrino Duo laptop from Dell for £477 delivered; Duos are a lot faster than single core CPUs and are not too hard on the laptops battery for the performance. The Laptop reviewed in the link below is now around £550.

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/inspn_6400?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs



Of course most laptops are a lot more powerful and have more features but they are not really worth the extra money if you just want a computer for three or four years of university work so I haven't really looked into them much. When you do buy one try to see if you can get it through a Quidco merchant for the cash back, my brother got £20 off his laptop from Dell (4.5%).

The Acer/Advent laptops look appealing as they are the cheapest and stocked on the high street in PC World, Dixon’s etc with alleged offers to appear like a better deal. Some of these are legitimate, the £300 laptops are really not too bad if you need to buy the cheapest though I would look into the refurbished market before buying one as you will get a better brand and can use the new cheaper laptops as a haggling point.
The offers on Acers are usually not that great though, retailers will have a ridiculously high price during periods of low demand so they can cut the price by £100 in the summer when the students are shopping for them. Before buying an Acer or Advent Google them for reviews, their laptops are generally despised by the IT community because of their poor quality and performance.

I would recommend against buying a Laptop in the high street unless you have some good store discount on an already reduced computer. Sure you get to take it home the same day but if it breaks down all they can usually do in the shop is look at it and tell you it has to go back to the factory. If you buy from a company online like Dell they will at least pick it up for you, you will also be able to deal with someone more knowledgeable if you have problems with it.

talksalot81

It is very rare that students would NEED a high powered laptop for work purposes. If their work has such a component, the university will almost always provide the facility. I am guessing you are thus just looking for the cheapest 'good' deal? That being the case, Dell is the way to go.

Blacksheep1979

rhig wrote:

Duos are a lot faster than single core CPUs

This isn't entirely true as very few applications support both cores at once and usually a dual core cpu will be clocked at a slower speed than its single core equivalent. However it does mean that you can run more applications at once without making the computer slow to a crawl - as long as you have enough memory.

pcdj

ebuyer.com were doing Lenovo (formerly IBM) laptops at £300 last time i looked a few days ago. Can't go wrong with the build quality, support and brand in that instance. Check the customer reviews on their site yourself, and I wouldn't worry too much about ebuyer customer service - you're less likely to need them than if you were to buy one of their own branded "ebuyer value" products, and in my experience they've been exemplary anyway.

Vodkatie00

I would stay away from Dell, their customer support is actually very poor and the laptops aren't as asthetically pleasing as most and tend to be more bulky.

If you are going to buy a laptop do not get anything less than a centrino with at least 512mb RAM otherwise its going to be very slow and basically pointless, especially for portable purposes.

I have found ACER to be a very reputable company with well made machines, although I would still not buy anything less than a centrino (NOT a celeron!). Their customer support is excellent. I had a query fault with my laptop, it was picked up and returned fixed within 4 days!

I wouldn't bother paying out for a core-duo etc at this stage as its not worth the extra money.

It would be much cheaper to buy a desktop machine (you would get a much higher spec machine for less than a laptop and it is more easy to upgrade) although not portable!

Whatever you decide to buy, do not get it just because it is "on offer", make sure it has a good spec otherwise you will regret it, especially when they want a new one in a years time because it is too slow...

Kt

colin79666

I think Woolworths are doing a medion at half price just now - £399.99
has 256mb ram but that's easily upgraded


I have an acer which has accompanied me to uni over the last year with no problems - cheap out of Tesco

ihatechoosingnames

my acer is brilliant! i've had it for around four years now without any problems. i think you mean the cheaper end of acer laptops are bad, as their more expensive ones are very reliable.

Kilty_2

Dell Inspiron 1300.

Solid machine, bit bulky at 3KG but most budget laptops are. Performance is great once you add some RAM and get rid of the Dell bloat.

anewman

30111987 wrote:

I think Woolworths are doing a medion at half price just now - £399.99
has 256mb ram but that's easily upgraded

That's a bit of misleading advertising though. It *may* have been worth that much over a year ago or when it initially came out but it would not sell anywhere for anywhere near £800 so IMO not half price.

I'd compare like for like with price for price and not be misled by advertising