Worried about being robbed of my hard saved cash buying a laptop. Please Help

Legendaryjim

Bad News, Argos only have 2 left England, One in Dudley and one In Hoddesdon. Both are nearly 3 hours away for me. Dont think it would be worth it with the fuel cost these days.
What do you think to that MSI Blu Ray one above guys?

BeenieCat

Donnie wrote: »

What model number? What will you do with it when you buy new?

Mine is an A100-487. It's still fine except a loose charger connection and the battery lasts about 3 seconds.

Not sure what to do with it, i would be too gutted to let it go for £50 or something and would rather keep it for experimenting with (i'm starting a level 1 course in IT soon) but at the same time, i'm an MSE'er and should sell it

My budget is £500 at the very maximum. But some are above that and i'm wondering if i don't put the extra towards it i'll regret it later. I want i3 or better processor, at least 4gb RAM, HD screen, decent sound (my Tosh is good, the Samsung is reeeeeeeeally bad). I don't need dedicated graphics or loads of hard drive space.

Every single one i like the look of is over my budget

Satellite C650-154 - Core i3-350m, 4gb RAM, not sure if it's HD (?), 320gb hdd, £530
(Comet have one with 3gb RAM for £480 not sure if there's any other differences)

ASUS K52F SX057V - Core i3-350m, 4gb RAM, HD screen, 500GB HDD £540

Asus X52F-SX163V - Same as above but with only 3gb RAM, £506

There was another Tosh i think but i can't find it.. Hmmm

BeenieCat

Also, this looks good but i don't know if you have to wait for it to be a "special buy" for it to be in stock?

http://aldi.medion.com/md98410/uk/?refPage=aldi

fenlander_uk

Starting threads with questions like this almost always leads to confusing, anecdotal advice. However, early on, someone mentioned "fit for purpose" and nobody has followed it up. Pity: you should start by asking yourself what you want the pc to do, not which one is the flashiest, most reliable, is made by X or has the biggest discount.

So, we can assume that you want it to do basic tasks like web browsing, email, office, etc. Any modern laptop will do that and if it's all you want to do you won't need all your budget. But more demanding tasks require different solutions, and they cost money:
- Do you want to view videos on it? If so, you should look for a machine with hardware graphics acceleration or one of Intel's latest chips, probably an i3. If video-watching is going to be an important requirement, you should also consider the screen size. Standard size is around 15.6", but video looks better on a 17" screen. But a 17" screen is not very portable, which leads to the next question.
- Do you want to use it on the move? If you need to use it on the train every morning, or on long flights to exotic places you need a small machine - 10" to 13" with good battery life. That puts you in the area of netbooks and ultraportables. But many of these struggle with video and the small screens are less suitable.
- Do you want to do any gaming? That needs good processing power, serious graphics acceleration and a big screen. A laptop that will do all that is probably well over your budget, but if gaming is your thing then £500 will get you a decent desktop machine.

You should also consider whether you should include any accessories in your budget. For example, if video, music or photography are your passions, you'll probably need more hard disk storage than many laptops will give you. Consider earmarking £50 of your budget for an external 500GB drive.

If I were you, I'd start by looking at some reliable reviews on a site like PCPro. Their A-list is a good starting point and the October edition of the printed magazine includes a laptop megatest in which the winners in every category are well inside your budget. Be sure to shortlist machines that will do what you want your laptop to do. Then look for those machines on Amazon - the user reviews are good intel. Finally, do a web search for the best prices of the machines you like.

Don't go to a high street retailer and don't worry that you could have saved £20 if only you'd waited a week. Whatever you buy, there will be something better or cheaper next week or the week after. That's the nature of IT. Also remember that most pc hardware is pretty reliable - it's the owners who aren't.

(For what it's worth, I've had good experiences with Toshiba, Sony and Samsung. At the time I bought it, the best deal available on a Sony I currently own was at my local Sony Centre. If you want to use a high street retailer - just to look at what's available - John Lewis are usually better than the likes of Comet. At least their staff usually have some idea what they're talking about.)

Legendaryjim

Wise words my friend. Thank you for your input.

BeenieCat

fenlander your post is good and you raise lots of good points.

While i agree with you that you should buy a laptop for your needs, you also have to think ahead. It's all well and good buying one with 2gb RAM and a single core processor, but if you hope it to still be in date in about 3 or 4 years then you need to go above today's expectations a little.

When i bought my current laptop, 1gb RAM was one of the highest available for under £1k. It cost me just under £800 and 4 years later it struggles with up to date applications.

Knarf44

BeenieCat wrote: »

Also, this looks good but i don't know if you have to wait for it to be a "special buy" for it to be in stock?

http://aldi.medion.com/md98410/uk/?refPage=aldi

BeenieCat

I assume you have seen this i5 Medion at £569?

I've never owned a Medion desktop or laptop so can't vouch for their quality or reliability but price wise it's probably the best spec'd i5 laptop on the market at the moment under £600.

Donnie

BeenieCat wrote: »

Mine is an A100-487. It's still fine except a loose charger connection and the battery lasts about 3 seconds.

Not sure what to do with it, i would be too gutted to let it go for £50 or something and would rather keep it for experimenting with (i'm starting a level 1 course in IT soon) but at the same time, i'm an MSE'er and should sell it

My budget is £500 at the very maximum. But some are above that and i'm wondering if i don't put the extra towards it i'll regret it later. I want i3 or better processor, at least 4gb RAM, HD screen, decent sound (my Tosh is good, the Samsung is reeeeeeeeally bad). I don't need dedicated graphics or loads of hard drive space.

Every single one i like the look of is over my budget

Satellite C650-154 - Core i3-350m, 4gb RAM, not sure if it's HD (?), 320gb hdd, £530
(Comet have one with 3gb RAM for £480 not sure if there's any other differences)

ASUS K52F SX057V - Core i3-350m, 4gb RAM, HD screen, 500GB HDD £540

Asus X52F-SX163V - Same as above but with only 3gb RAM, £506

There was another Tosh i think but i can't find it.. Hmmm

Don't know if I have the part number right(PA3399U-2BRS), but batteries are available via eBay for a little as £20...as well as some chunky extended use 12 cell batteries for £40 . Can't vouch for the quality of the products, but may be of use

Legendaryjim

Could anyone tell me what I'm missing when looking at the Lenovo Thinkpad SL500? It's a shade over £500 and has only got an "old technology" processor, 2GB RAM, Onboard Graphics and a 15.4" screen yet it gets 5 stars overall on PCPRO? Is Lenovo like the Gucci brand in the Laptop world or is it made of platinum or something because I just don't see what I would be paying 500 quid for over something that has like an i3 processor and 3GB DDR3 an a 17" screen. Throw me a bone lol:eek:

Donnie

Just to put into perspective all of this latest technology nonsense...

Here is the CPU benchmark figure of the processor in my four year old PC. I've spent the princely amount of £45 to £50 in upgrades since then; to the Graphics card and RAM.

My laptop has considerably higher specifications, but I don't use it; as the PC does all that I need it to do, including watching HD Video.

So whilst having an i3 processor may sound nice, in a laptop you are still limited by the other components; which, in the main, you won't be able to upgrade.

Best to look for the laptop that actually suits your likely usage pattern.

Why buy a Ferrari when you need an estate car?