recommend a dell laptop

snowmen

hi there,
anyone recommend a dell laptop?
need it for word processing, editing home dvd's, burning cd's and dvd's, and wirelessly accessing the internet.
looked on their website and am confused with the choice to be honest!
It will be a replacement for my dell desktop as I would like to reclaim the space it is using up!
thanks!

OK_Sauce

Have a look over at http://www.dmxdimension.com/. They've got a very good comprehensive guide to all of the current offers. Click on any of the blue links and there's a great chart listing all the variations of each machine.

WhiteChristmas

I've got a Dell Studio (2 year old so not current spec) which is a thing of beauty; I use it for Photoshop and a little bit of video editing without any problems.

Only thing I would say is that, if you're planning on burning a lot of discs, laptops aren't as robust as desktops and it's more expensive to replace the drive when (not if) it dies.

carleea

Hi Snowmen

I rely on laptops (I have five) for my work. They all have pros and cons but my 3 Dells have all developed a problem with the power supply. At some point becomes impossible to run them on the battery.

My local laptop dealer told me that there was a "Dell conspiracy theory" about this particular problem - built-in obselescence etc. There are messages about this on the web and I have to admit my 3 Dells are ample evidence that there might be some truth in it.

So if you buy one, bear that in mind!

C

snowmen

Looking at the dell inspiron 15R (i-3 version) for £499 off the dell website.
A mate recommended the acer aspire 5742 from amazon for £399.
Any ideas which would be a better buy?

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspiron-15r?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&baynote_bnrank=0&baynote_irrank=1&~ck=dellSearch
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Notebook-i3-370M-processor-Wireless/dp/tech-data/B004EBUX12/ref=de_a_smtd

closed

The dell equivalent is £429

http://www.dmxdimension.com/dell-uk/inspiron-15-deals-codes-coupons/

you could probably shave something off that price by using a cashback site

http://www.topcashback.co.uk/dell/

http://www.quidco.com/dell/

You could drop to the £300 price level if you wanted to save some money, because your requirements are heavy

spannerzone

carleea wrote: »

Hi Snowmen

I rely on laptops (I have five) for my work. They all have pros and cons but my 3 Dells have all developed a problem with the power supply. At some point becomes impossible to run them on the battery.

My local laptop dealer told me that there was a "Dell conspiracy theory" about this particular problem - built-in obselescence etc. There are messages about this on the web and I have to admit my 3 Dells are ample evidence that there might be some truth in it.

So if you buy one, bear that in mind!

C

hehe they don't need to build in obselence, computers by their very nature are obselete very quickly! Microsoft and the hardware makers ensures that happens :rotfl:

Laptop batteries often fail due to always being used on mains power and the battery eventually gives up having always been charged up and never discharged, although lithium ion batteries shouldn't suffer too much, the heat in laptops seem to cook the batteries,

Some Dell's have had a battery charge issue (1501 I think is an example) and a BIOS update cures it, a friend of mine had one that stopped charging the battery (although it still had some charge in it) and a BIOS update cured this error message that came up when the laptop was turned on.

Some people suggest removing laptop batteries if always being used on mains power, other people run the laptop on battery power once a month to keep it in use, ulitmately though batteries are an item that can wear out even if never really used.

tigertail49_2

what is a bios update, i have a 1501?

dizzyblonde82

snowmen wrote: »

Looking at the dell inspiron 15R (i-3 version) for £499 off the dell website.

I bought a sony viao just after christmas and it developed a fault, when I returned it to PC World I opted to change it and chose a dell inspiron 15R (i-3) and have found it really good, quick to start up and very quick when using multiple programmes at the same time.

snowmen

closed wrote: »

You could drop to the £300 price level if you wanted to save some money, because your requirements are heavy

Thanks for taking the time to reply!
What do you mean by the last sentence though - are my requirements heavy so it would be better to go for the dell or do you mean I could get away spending £100 less with the acer?

closed

I mean you could drop to a lower spec laptop if you wanted to save some money, any laptop you can buy is capable of browsing, word processing, wireless, etc, and assuming it has a dvd writer, the rest.