PC World Laptop, £199!

Stevee

Hi guys.

I haven't got a clue about computers, I just switch it on and go.

A friend is looking for a desktop, for email and the web. Can anyone point me in the direction of a half decent desktop for around £300 please?

toasterman

I wish I'd seen this on here earlier. If I'd known they had 10-a-day, I'd probably have lined up this morning to buy one.
I believe Ebuyer were selling a similar spec to this made by a company called Esys about 2-3 months ago, for about £75 more, only Ebuyer's didn't come with a copy of Windows.

I work in network support, have built plenty of pcs in my time, and I built a desktop for my sister using the cheapest components I could get my hands on.
Hers is a Duron processor, with 256mb ram, onboard video and sound, and 20gb hard drive. 20gb is plenty - she even downloads whole films. When it gets full, she burns back to cd, or deletes. It has lasted a good 3-4 years no problem. The onboard video uses system memory - so theres probably about 32mb gone before she hits windows, and I can tell you the pc is perfectly usable.
A friend of hers had a 17" monitor she was throwing away - due to it being replaced with a TFT.

It's obviously not as fast as my Intel dual-core pc with 1gb of ram, but perfectly usable for what she needs it for - MSN, Email, Internet, and MS Office (XP/2002 version).

No - hers doesn't play the latest games and won't support Vista - but if you need a cheap pc for current computer software, it's mostly fine.
Lets not forget - Vista isn't widely accepted (or supported by software manufacturers) yet, and won't be for 6 months at least.

I will agree about the ram in this cheap laptop - if you need more than 256mb and know it - this is NOT the pc for you.
I say this because to remove the existing ram and insert 512mb will probably cost you around £40, and you would be better off spending an extra £100 initially, and getting a better laptop with a dvd writer, larger hard drive...etc...as I know PC World were selling last week for £299.

For those of you who need a laptop for whatever reason, and can't afford to spend £300 - I would have to say this £200 laptop is a good buy. If you don't NEED a laptop - buy a desktop - you will get more for your money - even allowing for having to buy a monitor as well.

For those of you slating the build quality and saying it will be dead in 6 months - it's a brand new laptop from a reputable store - it comes with at least 1 year warranty.

ioscorpio

It's the same one that they were selling for £299 an assistant said this morning in the store.

toasterman

ioscorpio wrote:

It's the same one that they were selling for £299 an assistant said this morning in the store.

Nah - his was an Advent, and it was a.. celeron I think. It wasn't a VIA processor - I'm sure of that.
He told me his is very good, except that the bundled software was crap (and it normally is).
The other annoyance he got was no 'recovery'-type cd - you run the software they supply (which didn't work) to make an image of your hard drive and burn your own.

If you ask me, this is a bit much to ask the average computer user. I would guess about 90% of users wouldn't bother even attempting it. And of the ones that did, of the ones that got stuck - about 80% of them would just give up and not bother.
Then when their hard drive crashes and they get it repaired, they will wind up having to get a friend to install illegal non-licensed versions of XP Pro, newer versions of Office than they should have..etc - as its the only way they can get it working again.

lowbrim

can you laptop geeks out there tell me whether the Medion Intel Celeron 1.46GHZ laptop from Woolworths is worth the £399 they are selling it for it has wireless etc which is what I am looking for . i will only be using it for Browsing etc. Not games
Cheers

youngwilly

rthirlby wrote:

I repair laptops for a living and have had thousands of laptops pass through my hands. So im uniquely experienced to say what is and what isnt a good laptop and this clearly is not good !!!
.

Such modesty! We are truly blessed by your 'unique' presence!

Shame you aren't more experienced in making balanced judgements about value for money. Yes it is bargain basement kit but that is precisely the point of this laptop. It is good enough for surfing the net, word processing and most other day to day computing activities - and the spread of web based applications like Google's online word processor means that pretty soon this is all anyone will need.

Want to play games? Buy a Playstation, X Box or a Wii.

hata00

MyUserNamesTaken wrote:

It is one of the EI systems and it's 10 per store. Also £199 desktops on offer.

EiSystem 104 & 17" CRT (Limited to x10 per store, per day) £199 Desktop PC

EiSystem 3084 (Limited to x10 per store, per day) £199 Laptop


Laptop Specs:

VIA C7 Processor 1.5GHz

133 MHz FSB

64 KB Cache

256 MB RAM

20 GB Hard Drive

DVD ROM/ CD ReWriter Drive

14.1" Display

Microsoft Windows XP Home

64 MB integrated graphics


Desktop Specs:

Intel Celeron D 351 Processor

3.2GHz, 533MHz FSB

Genuine MS Windows XP Home Edition

256MB DDR RAM

80GB Hard Disk Drive

CD Rom Drive

Integrated Graphics

6 USB Connections

1 PCI Slot

Works 8.5 Software Titles Included

The spec is not that good anyway !!!

youngwilly

lowbrim wrote:

can you laptop geeks out there tell me whether the Medion Intel Celeron 1.46GHZ laptop from Woolworths is worth the £399 they are selling it for it has wireless etc which is what I am looking for . i will only be using it for Browsing etc. Not games
Cheers

for £399 I would check out Dell as they are much better quality than Medion

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/notebooks_good?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

toasterman

youngwilly wrote:

the spread of web based applications like Google's online word processor means that pretty soon this is all anyone will need.

Want to play games? Buy a Playstation, X Box or a Wii.

I'd have to agree with those statements. I've ditched Ms Office at home already.
and as for PC gaming - and who wants to have a load of people huddled round a 17" monitor when you have that big widescreen tv in the sitting room?

I have to say the Wii is fantastic.. I'm definitely interested in buying one...again. I bought one a few months ago but when I got my preorder on release day , and then saw how much they were selling for on Ebay...as they were then sold out...I'd have been mad not to sell it on, for the £100+ profit I made for doing nothing. It is a very very fun console though - I'm not really a gamer, but I got it out the box and had a few hours fun with it.

beara

Well, I'm just back after getting up and queuing for the laptop- five of us were there by 7 (I was sad and there by 6!)and they brought us out coffee and tea, let us wait in the lobby and then once store sales staff were there allocated us the laptops and I was back home by 8.30! I'm now typing this upon the new laptop - it's perfectly fine for just browsing and email, which is all I wanted it for. I used to use an ancient compaq and this is blistering in comparison!

this was at Carmarthen -one issue is that the advert in the paper said dvd writer but it only has a dvd-rom/cd writer!