Choosing Laptop...Tonight (i hope!) - Advice? :)

asbokid

£350 might even squeeze to a core i5.. there were dell vostrum 3700 for £379, but all seem sold.. the dell outlet is often a source for hi-spec keenly priced kit..

Spend

asbokid wrote: »

no idea about samsungs.. don't even recall seeing one in the flesh.. although i would say that they are probably just rebadges any way.. there are just a handful of manufacturers of laptops in the world.. all in the far east..

edit: does sony even make its own laptops?

Fair enough, same goes for cars and engines!

No idea about the vaios though

asbokid

Spend wrote: »

Fair enough, same goes for cars and engines!

No idea about the vaios though

Quanta Computer of Taiwan manufactures the laptops in the Sony Vaio range. Apparently the Vaios were previously made by Foxconn (better known for manufacturing desktop PC motherboards) but Sony ditched Foxconn in 2009 on grounds of poor quality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanta_Computer

From the Guardian.. nearly three years old now..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/jun/27/didquantaorcompalmakeyour

Spend

asbokid wrote: »

£350 might even squeeze to a core i5.. there were dell vostrum 3700 for £379, but all seem sold.. the dell outlet is often a source for hi-spec keenly priced kit..

The only i5 I found was a sony from my original post for £650..

I've been neglecting the dells, although my old desktop and were both dell, they were ok

asbokid

Spend wrote: »

The only i5 I found was a sony from my original post for £650..

I've been neglecting the dells, although my old desktop and were both dell, they were ok

here's an asus with a core i5 for £389 from the co-op of all places.. what's the world coming to? the co-op should know its place and stick to selling baked beans.

http://www.coopelectricalshop.co.uk/products/ProductDetail.asp?ProductCode=ASU-COM-X52F_EX582V-BR&utm_source=google&utm_medium=basefeed

EDIT: impressive processor in that asus for the price... core i5 460m.. (passmark CPU rating: 2616)

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5+460M+%40+2.53GHz

EDIT2: Same laptop but a bit cheaper (£377) from electrical123.com (whoever they are)

http://www.electrical123.com/products/ProductDetail.asp?ProductCode=ASU-COM-X52F_EX582V-BR&utm_source=google&utm_medium=basefeed

EDIT3: There are quite a few laptops with almost identical specs.. HP, Lenovo, Asus.. maybe all the same inside.. They all use the Intel HD 55 chipset

Spend

asbokid wrote: »

Quanta Computer of Taiwan manufactures the laptops in the Sony Vaio range. Apparently the Vaios were previously made by Foxconn (better known for manufacturing desktop PC motherboards) but Sony ditched Foxconn in 2009 on grounds of poor quality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quanta_Computer

From the Guardian.. nearly three years old now..

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/blog/2008/jun/27/didquantaorcompalmakeyour

Guess only time will tell how that works out for them

Spend

asbokid wrote: »

here's an asus with a core i5 for £389 from the co-op of all places.. they should know their place and stick to selling baked beans.

http://www.coopelectricalshop.co.uk/products/ProductDetail.asp?ProductCode=ASU-COM-X52F_EX582V-BR&utm_source=google&utm_medium=basefeed

EDIT: impressive processor in that asus for the price... core i5 460m.. (passmark CPU rating: 2616)

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5+460M+%40+2.53GHz

EDIT2: Same laptop but a bit cheaper (£377) from electrical123.com (whoever they are)

http://www.electrical123.com/products/ProductDetail.asp?ProductCode=ASU-COM-X52F_EX582V-BR&utm_source=google&utm_medium=basefeed

That looks pretty decent to me. Might be worth getting that over the acer 15.6".

But still, everyone on here thinks I'm a nut for wanting a smaller screen.

Just cant seem to help myself. Options are looking good if I get stuck and have to go for the bigger ones..

asbokid

If ~£350 was burning a hole in my pocket, I would go for that Asus.. but not before demanding a refund of the unwanted pre-loaded Micro$oft Windows crap.

Shop around and who knows, you could probably squeeze to a 500GB hard drive for the same money..

• Product Description - ASUS X52F EX582V - Core i5 460M 2.53 GHz - 15.6" TFT
• Manufacturer Warranty - 1 year warranty
• Dimensions (WxDxH) - 38 cm x 25.5 cm x 3.6 cm
• Weight - 2.6 kg
• Processor - Intel Core i5 460M / 2.53 GHz ( 2.8 GHz ) ( Dual-Core )
• Hard Drive - 320 GB - 5400 rpm
• Networking - Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n
• Power - AC 120/230 V ( 50/60 Hz )
• RAM - 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Graphics Controller - Intel HD Graphics Dynamic Video Memory Technology 5.0
• Audio Output - Sound card
• Optical Storage - DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM
• Display - 15.6" LED backlight Color Shine TFT 1366 x 768 ( WXGA ) - 16:9
• Input Device - Keyboard, touchpad
• Battery - 6-cell
• Operating System - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition
• Built-in Devices - Stereo speakers, wireless LAN aerial
• System Type - Notebook
• Card Reader - 3 in 1
• Notebook Camera - Integrated
• Microsoft Office Preloaded - Includes a pre-loaded image of select Microsoft Office 2010 suites. Purchase an Office 2010 Product Key Card or disc to activate preloaded software on this PC.

asbokid

Spend wrote: »

That looks pretty decent to me. Might be worth getting that over the acer 15.6".

But still, everyone on here thinks I'm a nut for wanting a smaller screen.

asus don't have that brilliant a reputation on build quality, but who knows.. maybe the people who buy asus tend to be younger people who are saving a bit of cash, living a wilder life, but end up smashing their laptop in the process!

I think you should get the highest resolution screen you can find... if you can get a 14" screen with a decent pixel resolution then that's all the better. for that reason, i will buy a 17" screen next time!

Spend

asbokid wrote: »

If ~£350 was burning a hole in my pocket, I would go for this one.. but not before [url=
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_refund]demanding a refund[/url] of the unwanted pre-loaded Micro$oft Windows crap.

Shop around and you could probably squeeze to a 500GB hard drive for the same money..

• Product Description - ASUS X52F EX582V - Core i5 460M 2.53 GHz - 15.6" TFT
• Manufacturer Warranty - 1 year warranty
• Dimensions (WxDxH) - 38 cm x 25.5 cm x 3.6 cm
• Weight - 2.6 kg
• Processor - Intel Core i5 460M / 2.53 GHz ( 2.8 GHz ) ( Dual-Core )
• Hard Drive - 320 GB - 5400 rpm
• Networking - Network adapter - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, Gigabit Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, IEEE 802.11n
• Power - AC 120/230 V ( 50/60 Hz )
• RAM - 2 GB DDR3 SDRAM
• Graphics Controller - Intel HD Graphics Dynamic Video Memory Technology 5.0
• Audio Output - Sound card
• Optical Storage - DVD±RW (±R DL) / DVD-RAM
• Display - 15.6" LED backlight Color Shine TFT 1366 x 768 ( WXGA ) - 16:9
• Input Device - Keyboard, touchpad
• Battery - 6-cell
• Operating System - Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit Edition
• Built-in Devices - Stereo speakers, wireless LAN aerial
• System Type - Notebook
• Card Reader - 3 in 1
• Notebook Camera - Integrated
• Microsoft Office Preloaded - Includes a pre-loaded image of select Microsoft Office 2010 suites. Purchase an Office 2010 Product Key Card or disc to activate preloaded software on this PC.

Hahahaha love the Microsoft refund link!

Have to say, that is probably the best deal I've seen going for this range of laptops.

But what if I managed to have £450+ burning a hole in my pocket and wanted a smaller size. What would you advise in your clearly well informed opinion asbokid?