Which 17 inch laptop?

vertical_fool

I`m after a laptop with a 17 inch screen. I originally noticed the Acers at not alot over £500 although they seem to be too cheap! I can put up with small hard drives and even only a dvd writer however it may be better to spend the extra to get a better spec, I would prefer a seperate graphics card I think although not essential.

So what are peoples suggestions?

Thanks

Vertical Fool.

abdulinyourface

how much are you willing to spend?

mikey-mike_2

i was looking last year....i seem to remember dells & acers have a history of screen faults. Sony have amazing screens but are expensive, I ended up with a 2 month old sony off ebay and not a hint of trouble in almost 18 months and did i mention the screens are amazing, mine runs at 1920 x 1200 and is crisp & bright

If you do go the ebay route it will take a while (took me weeks untill i found a genuine one (lots of scammers)

abdulinyourface

mikey-mike wrote:

i was looking last year....i seem to remember dells & acers have a history of screen faults. Sony have amazing screens but are expensive, I ended up with a 2 month old sony off ebay and not a hint of trouble in almost 18 months and did i mention the screens are amazing, mine runs at 1920 x 1200 and is crisp & bright

If you do go the ebay route it will take a while (took me weeks untill i found a genuine one (lots of scammers)

yes....dell and acer have been having screen faults but i know some higher end acers are meant to be good!

I've always been sceptical of dell because they seem to offer quite good laptops for quite a cheap price and it just reminds me of Tiny computers...where the hardware kept having conflicts with each other, thus causing no end of problems. then you hear about exploding batteries etc... hmmmm.....

which laptop did you buy just out of interest? I've got a sony laptop, AR series and i bought it off ebay too (have to be real careful but I think I can spot out the good from the bad now) and it has the same screen resolution.

I definately recommend Sony Vaios if you can afford it...top class laptops and they ooooze class! Only ones I think that come close are Tosh's...especially the Qosmio range, but again you'd be looking to pay top dollar for these laptops.

Abs

vertical_fool

Price wise I haven`t got a rigid price, originally was going to get a £400 ish 15.4 inch but I would much prefer the 17 inch as I assume its alot easier to display full width web pages and just easier to see.

I then saw the £500 Acers and thought they must be poor quality for that although Acers do good priced extended warranties so maybe there are a good bet even if something happens to the screen.

After that I saw the Dells, can`t remember which model or the price but weren`t as cheap as I was expecting (altough I think the graphics card is upgradable so a big plus point).

Then after looking through morgan computer I saw the Qosmio for around £850 which I think is difficult to not be drawn to. They also have a MSI megabook for £800 ish although I think other retailers have it for around £700.

So overall I haven`t got a rigid price as I`d prefer to pay not much more than £500 altough I would pay upto £800 (well £850 for the Qosmio) if it seemed to be a better long term decision including a better screen (this is probably the most important part to me), maybe decent graphics card, dvd writer and if I ever decide to sell later and just to be upto date probably a core duo cpu.

What are your comments, opinions etc.

What Sony did you get and for how much?

Thanks

Vertical

mikey-mike_2

it's a VGN A197VP, 1.7 centrino, 1 gb ram and 80 gb hard disc. It has ati 9700 graphics, wifi, bluetooth and a dvd writer plus almost all the standard ports. It has no serial port & the keyboard could be better but screen is really really ace.

I've had it 18 months, it was two months old when i got it and cost me 700 or 720

Re the comments above about screens, i seem to remember the other screen problems were dead pixels which they argued was a acceptable thing as long as there weren't too many of them

albertross_2

abdulinyourface wrote:

I've always been sceptical of dell hear about exploding batteries etc... hmmmm.....

Abs

batteries made by Sony:rotfl:

abdulinyourface

albertross wrote:

batteries made by Sony:rotfl:

lol true! but what are they doing in a dell?? :rotfl:

vertical_fool

I`ve also just seen a post for a £700 Dell Inspiron 9400. Does anybody have one of these and what do they think?

These also have the option of a screen upgrade for over £100 to a 1920 x 1200 resolution. How much of a difference does this resolution make (mikey mike?)?

With the screen upgrade and battery upgrade to a 9 cell plus the instalation cd`s came to around £850. What do you think?

Thanks

Vertical fool

mikey-mike_2

It’s a personal choice thing, when I was looking the sony screens were noticeably better than the competition but I didn’t see a 1920 x 1200 dell screen. The ones I saw were lower res

Sorry I can’t be more help on the dell…someone on ebay (No 170032892363) is selling the sony, ex-demo with full warrantee for 620 + vat. It looks like a real sale so might be worth a look BUT, this i what i paid for mine 18 months ago and compters being what they are i would have expected to the price to have fallen a fair bit by now