Decent basic laptop under £200 - is there one?

stilltheone

buglawton wrote: »

I could not see any such £150 price on visiting that Toshiba link. I suppose OP is looking for something that is really purchasable today.

It's obviously a private sale.
Not a bad laptop, but sight unseen with no warranty.
Are recovery discs supplied?

cit_k

Hammyman wrote: »

Is that a legitimate licenced version? :p

that wont suddenly stop working a few months down the road...

Spiritseeker

Just out of interest, what would be the cheapest laptop out there that would meet the criteria I am looking for? Hard drive space could be halved but otherwise the same items would be necessary - the wireless internet ability, screen size etc. Just wondering how much the budget would have to be stretched.

thanks again for everyone taking the time to advise.

KillerWatt

Hammyman wrote: »

Is that a legitimate licenced version? :p

Wouldn't be offering it with the laptop if it wasn't.

KillerWatt

cit_k wrote: »

that wont suddenly stop working a few months down the road...

Assumption is the mother of all f*** up's!

Snakeeyes21

you can get a dell inspiron for £216 delivered from the dell outlet shoup at the moment.
comes with 1 year warranty, 3gb ram, 320gb hard drive, etc etc
no need for all those ex business 50 year old pieces of crap with a smaller hard drive than 10 dvd discs haha

classed as scratch and dent but these will be minor..

free delivery is only until the 14th..

http://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?rn=1107&SC=&c=uk&cs=ukdfh1&l=en&s=dfh

Description Inspiron N5030
Date & Time: 10/05/2011 14:17:22
SYSTEM COMPONENTS
Inspiron N5030
Qty 1 Inspiron N5030 Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT) Unit Price £216.67

15.6in High Definition (1366X768) WLED0MWG0 Keyboard6G5C3 3072MB (1x1024 + 1x2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual ChannelC402H Processor : Intel Celeron Processor 900 (2.2Ghz, 800Mhz, 1MB)C6H4N LCD Cover : Glossy 3D BlackDF17M MiscDW8NJ 8 X DVD +/- RWGYMJT MOD,INFO,NO MEDIAMX962 MOD,HD,320,5.4,P11,SGT-W,XLOBMYDNF MOD,SW,ADB,RDR,9.0,MLANGP349J MOD,INFO,ARB,EMEA,SDMO1RHHMN Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)VR08H Assy BaseX9W8V Scratch and Dent
ARB - 1yr Standard Service for your PC
Qty 1
Unit Price £0.00
TOTAL :£216.67
Additional Discounts and Coupons Free Shipping on all UK outlet Systems

Expires 14 May 2011 View Details

Total excl. VAT VAT Rate Total incl. VAT

£180.56 20.00 % £216.67
Total Delivery Charge £18.33 20.00 % £22.00
Delivery Charge Discount -£18.33 20.00 % -£22.00 View Details
Total Price £180.56 £216.67

Hammyman

KillerWatt wrote: »

Wouldn't be offering it with the laptop if it wasn't.

Sadly I know of too many, including local shops, that do. One shop I used to supply instantly put Vista Ultimate and Office 2007 on every laptop I took there pretty much as soon as I'd put them on the counter. I stopped supplying them out of principle because I know full well who they'd pass the blame on to when the installation got killed by WGA.

Hammyman

Intel Celeron Processor 900

That is actually way slower than my current 4-5 year old stock.

And its scratched and dented. The two 5 year old Dell D610's I have have not one single scratch and the keyboards and trackpads look unused with the original batteries still giving over 4hrs. Oh, and at 1400x1050, their screens are higher resolution as well.

I guarantee they'll outlive the above laptop as its one of the cheap chinese assembled ones like most of the retail ones are since 2008 - you can actually put a year to two identical Dell laptops, one made in 2007, the other made in 2008 simply by the fact the screen hinge screws come undone on the 2008 model after about 12 months because unlike the previous year, the chinese company doing the assembly didn't use threadlock when assembling them. In fact, the assembly issue is so bad that I deliberately buy any post 2008 Dell I come across that has apparently broken hinges, such as the Inspiron 1520 etc because 99.999% of the time, all I need to do is take off the strip with the power button on and tighten the hinge screws back up and they're fixed.