Anyone know where I can get a similar spec laptop for less than £1,400?

pstones578

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/vn-f-series/vpcf13s0e-b

Core™ i7-740QM
6GB
500GB (7200)
Blu-Ray ROM drive
16.4inch (1920x1080)
1GB graphics
USB 3.0

Hammyman

What the hell do you need that spec for? Unless you're into CAD, Photoshop to commercial standards or 3D modelling it is complete and utter overkill.

pstones578

Hammyman wrote: »

What the hell do you need that spec for? Unless you're into CAD, Photoshop to commercial standards or 3D modelling it is complete and utter overkill.

VM / Exchange 2010 / Server 2008 R2, and a spec that will get through Windows 8 and 9 hopefully with no worries.

fiddiwebb

£1,283.99 from..........

http://www.sla-performance.co.uk/store/SONY_VPCF13S0E/B.CEK

tilamok

pstones578 wrote: »

http://www.sony.co.uk/product/vn-f-series/vpcf13s0e-b

Core™ i7-740QM
6GB
500GB (7200)
Blu-Ray ROM drive
16.4inch (1920x1080)
1GB graphics
USB 3.0

This might be of interest
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/dell-core-i7-laptop-further-reduced/768536

pstones578

fiddiwebb wrote: »

£1,283.99 from..........

http://www.sla-performance.co.uk/store/SONY_VPCF13S0E/B.CEK

Thanks, that will hopefully be useful for a price match

kabayiri

pstones578 wrote: »

VM / Exchange 2010 / Server 2008 R2, and a spec that will get through Windows 8 and 9 hopefully with no worries.

I run Virtualisation on my HP Envy.

Admittedly, it's a lower spec I7, but at least it supports vtx.

Max RAM of 16Gb ram was a plus for me.

It's worth a look because it's cheaper. It isn't perfect however.

Whichever power laptop you choose might I suggest investing a few pounds in a quality Zalman laptop cooler....else it will be like living with a toaster on your lap!

Hammyman

pstones578 wrote: »

VM / Exchange 2010 / Server 2008 R2, and a spec that will get through Windows 8 and 9 hopefully with no worries.

Still serious overkill. Windows 7 is currently being supplied on "Pentium Dual Core" laptops that have processors that are actually slower than 3 year old Core Duo ones. Did you know that manufacturers put large hard drives and load them up with lots of memory to hide deficiencies? RAM and HDDs are cheap. Decent processors, boards and building them solidly isn't.

Believe me, there will be a lot that has packed up (hinges, mouse buttons etc) long before you get to Windows 9. I'd be surprised if it lasts long enough to see Win8 out. I've repaired loads and loads of 3 and 4 year old Vaios and I've broken loads for spares. This is precisely where yours is going to be in 3-4 years time. You say you want it to see out Windows 9? Well on MS standard 3 year release cycle for Windows (XP was an anomaly), then its going to need to last 7 years. I don't know any regularly used shiny consumer class one thats made year 4 without serious repairs. I have sold plenty of 4+ year old corporates which have worked fine though.

If you want one that lasts that long, stop looking at shiny consumer class rubbish and look at corporate ones. I sell 5 and 6 year old Dell Latitudes and Thinkpad T series that are still using the original batteries and have little sign of wear or packing up. The corporate ones also have little tweaks over their consumer grade cousins. Take a Thinkpad T61 OTTOMH. Spill a drink on the keyboard of that and it merely drains through the designed in drain holes on the keyboard onto the desk below it. No damage done. Do that on a consumer grade laptop and you're buying a new one. I commonly do lots of repairs for lappies locking up where its down to the gap between the cooling fan and heatsink blocking up - 99% of home lappies suffer this in 12-18 months. The Toshiba Tecra has a flap built in the base to access this area to clean it out or the corporate versions have this problem designed out....

Don't get me wrong - I'm not saying it because I think you're daft spending £1400 on a laptop - I'm not. I'm saying it because if you're going to spend £1400 on a laptop you want to be buying one that'll last quite a few years. Consumer ones simply aren't built to. They're designed to look good which is why they've pretty much universally got glossy screens you simply can't use in daylight.

Last night I sold an open box Tosh Tecra A10 to a guy for £400. Its a £1k corporate spec lappy. What was it going to replace? The £400 HP he bought that lasted just over 12 months before the mainboard packed up. That Tecra will be going for a good 4 or 5 years at least.

tronator

pstones578 wrote: »

VM / Exchange 2010 / Server 2008 ...

On a laptop? Are you serious? Or are you just playing with it a bit?

Usually an Exchange Server should be available 24/7. And don't get me started on RAID and co ...

pstones578

tronator wrote: »

On a laptop? Are you serious? Or are you just playing with it a bit?

Usually an Exchange Server should be available 24/7. And don't get me started on RAID and co ...

I'm still trying to stop laughing from you thinking anyone would put it into production on a laptop :-)

supermonkey

personally if you have that budget for a machine I dont know why you'd want to make it last 6-7 years. Its like being able to afford a brand new Audi and justifying the expense by saying you're going to keep it 10 years.