Which Laptop? Help!

JonPoint

Hello

I am looking to purchase a new laptop within the next day or so (preferably before the VAT goes up on the 4th!) and thought I would tap into the MSE forum techie whizzes.

The specs I am after are as follows;
17.3 inch screen
any HDD size over 250GB
Preferably 4GB DDR3 RAM or 3GB DDR3 if not
most recent AMD or intel processor would be nice
Numerical set of keys on right hand side of laptop keyboard as found on a normal desktop keyboard (this is not essential but would be nice)
NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 or greater; ATI Radeon 9500 Pro or greater
Budget is ideally £600 but can stretch to £700 if needs be.

I want to stay away from Dell as I have heard bad things about them. I have heard Mesh computers are good though.

All help would be much appreciated.

Thanks :beer:

spakkker

Your graphics card reqs are massively different ??

ahillsy

I would actually suggest a Dell. Especially at the moment as you can get a good deal with a series of discounts.

As an example, the XPS 15 (I know you want a 17.3 inch screen, but this is one example worth mentioning:
Intel i5-460M (2.53GHz dual core)
1GB NVIDIA GeForce GT 420M Graphics Card
4096MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM
640GB (7,200rpm) Serial ATA HDD (free upgrade from 500GB)
Free delivery
£629 - includes £229 off in the sale
Go via quidco, use discount code from there (5% if list price is > 749, 10% code if list price + extras > 899) and also get 5% cashback on the purchase. Mounts up to a good price & good spec (7200RPM HDD as standard with the XPS instead of 5200RPM with others). Though if you want more RAM, don't upgrade with Dell, it's cheaper to buy a full 8GB from e.g. Crucial.

If 17.3" screen is a must, there are ones available and IMHO worth not ruling Dell out. I just mention the XPS 15 as an example of the deals you can get at the mo. Recently ordered one myself, and did look at Mesh myself beforehand having had my last 2 desktops from them. However, the Dell XPS are nice laptops and won it for me.

Sony Vaios are v nice (last 2 laptops have been Vaios) but personally decided not to pay the premium for another. I spent quite a while looking round to find a good deal, and ended with Dell. But that's my 2 pence.

JonPoint

spakkker wrote: »

Your graphics card reqs are massively different ??

Hi There. Not sure on that sorry. I like to play a game that i bought a fair few months ago and the game manufacturer had those graphic cards down as suggested system requirements on their website so i just copied and pasted.

If there are newer ones of them out there then I wasnt aware. Not really up on graphics cards sorry.

Cheers.