PC World Laptop, £199!

MercilessKiller

The spec has no relation to the lastingness of the hardware as such.

Whether an Alienware £2000 laptop or a pc world £200 laptop.. hardware fault percentage are prob the same (or higher in alienwares!!!!!!!!!!!!)

Due to this its an invalid argument. I've been through 3 PSU's in a £1000 pc. Theres a possibily i could buy a £200 pc and never need to change until i upgrade in yeeeears time... Thats not due to price/quality.. thats due to luck and conditions its kept in

toasterman

cookie_monster - you can't compare those two machines. One is a £250 desktop, and one is a £200 laptop. Laptops always cost more than desktops - even including the screens.
So £350 gets you a not-bad desktop, but not a particularly good laptop.
As I said earlier - unless you really NEED a laptop - a desktop gets you much more for your money.

For people suggesting buying a second hand laptop - I couldn't recommend it. With most second hand laptops, you will find the batteries gone. A laptop with a battery that doesn't work is just a (lighter) desktop.

Plus most second hand laptops will come with a 30day warranty absolute tops.
I've returned plenty of things to PC World - some because of faults, some because of them not being compatible with something else of mine - I've never had any problems returning anything to them.

The point urbanmac was making about trusting confidential information on it - my guess is he was referring to important information - or stuff you might want to keep, given the cost of the machine and possible reliability issues. For this - I'd have to argue that no hard drive is designed to last forever. People should have a backup - burning back to cd/dvd..etc. Even businesses who I advise - who will buy servers costing thousands - always have backups as well. If the information is that important, you don't rely on any one thing.

And for people who say you need a higher spec for modern applications - that just isn't true.

My sister as an example again - her pc is a Duron 900, 256mb ram, 20gb hard drive. I would say that is about the same spec as that £200 laptop. Possibly even slower than it.

She surfs (admittedly with ie6 at the moment - but I wouldn't recommend upgrading to ie7 yet anyway as various websites don't display properly). We're also assuming people want to upgrade - a few people I've spoken to dislike ie7 so much, they've gone back to ie6.

She emails - Outlook Express will run on any pc from the last 6-7 years, but a lot of home users use Hotmail/Gmail nowadays anyway as its more convenient to have it online.

She has broadband - and it's the 10mb Telewest cable service too - its faster than I have at home. It's a standard network connection from her modem to her pc - so really isn't affected by the pc on the end of it.
Thus far, she's never complained to me about the speed of pages loading - and I have no complaint with using her pc when I'm there.

She uses MSN Messenger - no problem there.

She uses Office XP (ok not the latest version, but perfectly usable).

She can watch films and all latest versions of media players are fine.

All of the above is perfectly usable on this machine. She only has 256mb ram (actually less - as some of that is used by onboard video) and she doesn't find the lack of power an issue because she doesn't play games, and hasn't had her own computer in recent years.

How can people deny that this laptop is suitable for web browsing, emails, and homework? What stops it from being usable for this?

MercilessKiller

YEY someone agrees with me!.. see.. I'm not an evil monster wahoooo

jeppy

I got my first laptop from pc world, it was rubbish, i was without it for 3 months out of 12, they didnt stand by their 28 day guarantee, it went on fire they stated they couldnt see the evidence (having seen it in the shop, but too busy suggested the repair would be quicker if I returned it!!!)

I have never dealt with a company like this in my life I was horrifed at they way thye treat me and personally would only recommend buying anything from them if it was from someone who is a reputable manufacturer like Sony Vaio and Toshiba!! Ignore the products that are sold only by them!!!!!!!!!!!

h4x3r

guys n girls
I understand your coverd with the 1 year warrenty and so so yeh yeh

but you will stress out the hardware you dont understand like my cuzions brought a budget laptop 6 months late its a piece of junk the hardware gets stressed out. i do have to admint its going to be alright for a while then when new updates come out with 256mb say ur on msn and put a film on i doubt it would be running smooth. Ive dealt with alot of computers in the past im just saying its not a good buy.

DID anyone get one btw?

toasterman

jeppy wrote:

I got my first laptop from pc world, it was rubbish <snip> personally would only recommend buying anything from them if it was from someone who is a reputable manufacturer like Sony Vaio and Toshiba!!

Did you miss the news a few months back about the thousands of batteries that Sony made, that were bursting into flames? Sony were making them not just for Vaio's but for all manner of other manufacturers. Just something to think about...

h4x3r wrote:

i do have to admint its going to be alright for a while then when new updates come out with 256mb say ur on msn and put a film on i doubt it would be running smooth. Ive dealt with alot of computers in the past im just saying its not a good buy.

DID anyone get one btw?

My sister is a typical home user - never closes anything until its about to grind to a complete halt.
Msn, messenger plus, Outlook Express, and at least 2 IE windows are open at all times. Doesn't seem to be an issue. Plus she's got into podcasts, so normally realplayer or winamp open too.

I'm tempted to buy one of these laptops just so I can offer a view from someone who actually has got one...but I'm really not sure I can be bothered to queue up at 7.30 tomorrow morning to find out I'm the 11th person of the day to ask for one. Plus not sure what I really need a laptop for - I can form my plans of world domination on a notepad pretty well..and eat the evidence if I'm caught.

Given the lower specs of this laptop - does anyone who has bought one, happen to be on here? And have you installed Linux on it yet?

MercilessKiller

Are you kiddin me h4x3r? The hardware is NOT going to be "stressed out" by doing word processing andinternet browsing.

It will be stressed out my games and video editing, but who the hell in their right mind would buy this laptop for that?

STOP thinking inside the box and think about WHO this laptop is aimed for! Its a good price for someone who doesn't need a computer for anything, but would like one for fun (or for homework)

grrr

rogerramjet

What is wrong with some people posting in this thread? This is a grabbit forum thread which is about letting people know about items for sale which may be available for a short period of time and which may be at a lower (bargin) price than normal.

For those still stating its not worth buying because it must be rubbish at the price on offer, I've posted the minimum specification for running Windows XP

• PC with 300 megahertz or higher processor clock speed recommended; 233 MHz minimum required (single or dual processor system);* Intel Pentium/Celeron family, or AMD K6/Athlon/Duron family, or compatible processor recommended

• 128 megabytes (MB) of RAM or higher recommended (64 MB minimum supported; may limit performance and some features)

• 1.5 gigabytes (GB) of available hard disk space*

• Super VGA (800 x 600) or higher-resolution video adapter and monitor

• CD-ROM or DVD drive

Please remember Windows XP was released in October 2001, when most computers were slightly better spec than those recommended by Microsoft. The specifications of this laptop well exceeds the minimum specifications required.

melodytoon

At the end of the day, it's horses for courses. I went to PC World on Boxing Day & got one of the laptops for my mum. She's starting a Open University degree in February, & is only going to be using it to type up assignments, do web-based research & send/receive e-mails. She didn't have a computer of her own, but uses one at work & can find her way around basic office tasks. I've installed StarOffice on the laptop & it's working fine. She's using Outlook Express for e-mails & is very happy with it - it's enabled her to have a computer at a very cheap price that she can take to work.

I wouldn't have minded getting one for myself, but it would have been pointless for me. I'd want to be able to write music, do graphics editing & video editing on it, plus I'll need a wireless set-up & a dvd writer. This laptop wouldn't have been worth me trying to upgrade, so I'll wait until I can afford a better machine.

Not every buyer wants to play games, watch dvds, watch tv & do a multitude of other things they've heard other people do on theirs. Surely people should think about what they want the computer for, then look at whether it will meet their particular needs. Just because it won't meet some people's needs doesn't make it rubbish for everyone.

ManAtHome

Why do you assume it'll be rubbish - do supermarket bananas/beans etc suddenly become rubbish when the price is reduced? If PCW were making the same margin on these as the others they sell, surely they'd be flogging container-loads every day.

It's above average spec for a 5-6 year old laptop (which would have been a bit under £1k at the time) - in fact it's a higher spec than the one I'm using at the moment (8 years old...).