PC World Laptop, £199!

toasterman

youngwilly wrote:

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

I will second that. It will probably work out very marginally more expensive from Dell (£30-£40), but I have more trust in them.

However - I would say if you need any accessories - a usb memory stick, external floppy drive.. etc...get a computer-geek friend (or someone here) to check it over before you buy. I only say that as Dell are cheap on systems, but the accessories sometimes are overpriced.

For example - they're selling an external usb floppy drive for £35. Ebuyer sell them for 16.95 -> http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/60118

And a 256mb memory stick doesn't cost £30. Tescos sell them with built-in mp3 players for 9.99.

Edit - if you have £400 to spend though, I'd consider this -> http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/117785 - just being a fan of HP as I am.
There are a few laptops available around the £400 mark though - so shop around.

AMO

joshm wrote:

I tend to disagree with some of the posts above and think it's a perfectly ok machine for straightforward, everyday use like surfing, word processing etc. Of course you won'r be able to run flashy games on it. I can't vouch for the screen quality etc as I've not seen it. Win XP Home will run ok on it (especially if you turn off some/all of the visual window handling - shadows, fading etc) and it should only take up a few GB of disk space. If you can get one for £199 I'd say you've done well.

I disagree heavily with that statement. The first thing the user has to do once they get this machine is really upgrade the memory to 512Mb. That's pretty much a certainty. Given the recent release of Internet Exporer 7, resource requirements have increased a tad more. Running Windows XP when it was first launched used less system resources than it does now.

Overall, its about value and this is what I have to hammer into friends and relatives all the time.

The above machine doesn't have any life in it left without upgrading.

In general, the amount of money you have to spend on a laptop is about twice what you'd spend on a desktop to get similar performance. A £200 laptop is like a £100 desktop.

You really don't want to go for this one. And I guarantee that if you do, the first thing you'll do is upgrade the memory inwhich case you'll find that there are better deals elsewhere.

AMO

Kilty_2

steelwind101 wrote:

Its a C7 and is a smiliar build the 300 series mobile celeron, it uses less battery and provides better security protocols.

Similar build? Similar as in chalk and cheese?

ANY Via CPU would get totally f****d by ANY Celeron-M chip not just the 300 series.

It has 256k of L2 cache compared with EVERY 3xx series Celeron's 1MB (based on the Dothan core) or the 512k that the older Celeron-M have. Not to mention the fact that they run on a 400mhz FSB and support DDR2 memory.

And don't expect a long battery life either. These machines have cheap batteries in them and the manufacturer claims 1 hour battery meaning in real life applications it'd be lucky to last past 30 minutes.

Bottom line - Buy it if you'd like a £200 paperweight. Else buy a bargain basement desktop or fork out another £100 for a good Intel laptop.

mat32

Hi,

For those of you thinking of purchasing one of these £199 laptops ...

Today at 9:30 I wandered over to the PC World branch in Chatham today to inquire about the £199 laptop which they have been advertising in their Boxing Day Sale.

Given PC World's track record I was not surprised when the sales assistant informed by that they only had 10 of these laptops available on Boxing Day (yes..T-E-N) and they were all sold out. Apparently each store is allocated 10 laptops on Boxing Day and another 10 the following day.

Personally I think what PC World is doing should be exposed as false adverstising however I suppose the technically is that they are not obigated to disclose how much stock is available as part of the sale.

-MT

mat32

Hi,

For those of you thinking of purchasing one of these £199 laptops ...

Today at 9:30 I wandered over to the PC World branch in Chatham today to inquire about the £199 laptop which they have been advertising in their Boxing Day Sale.

Given PC World's track record I was not surprised when the sales assistant informed by that they only had 10 of these laptops available on Boxing Day (yes..T-E-N) and they were all sold out. Apparently each store is allocated 10 laptops on Boxing Day and another 10 the following day.

Personally I think what PC World is doing should be exposed as false adverstising however I suppose the technicality is that they are not obligated to disclose how much stock is available as part of the sale.

-MT

beara

mat32 wrote:

Hi,

For those of you thinking of purchasing one of these £199 laptops ...

Today at 9:30 I wandered over to the PC World branch in Chatham today to inquire about the £199 laptop which they have been advertising in their Boxing Day Sale.

Given PC World's track record I was not surprised when the sales assistant informed by that they only had 10 of these laptops available on Boxing Day (yes..T-E-N) and they were all sold out. Apparently each store is allocated 10 laptops on Boxing Day and another 10 the following day.

Personally I think what PC World is doing should be exposed as false adverstising however I suppose the technicality is that they are not obligated to disclose how much stock is available as part of the sale.

-MT

To be fair,the advert did say only 10 per store, and I'd assume that it was only 10, not 10 per day.

h4x3r

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

those computers laptops are a piece of junk i feal sorry for people who going to buy it because after to months or so its only going to be good for word processing + gaming on pc;s are better

Kilty_2

It's only good for word processing as it is...........

urbanmac

Face it, a laptop for £199 is going to be rubbish, would you trust putting confidential information of a laptop this cheap that will undoubtedly need repairing in its first 12 months?

Its junk, save your money and buy something else

MercilessKiller

urbanmac wrote:

Face it, a laptop for £199 is going to be rubbish, would you trust putting confidential information of a laptop this cheap that will undoubtedly need repairing in its first 12 months?

Its junk, save your money and buy something else

ROFL YOU HAVE TO BE KIDDING ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Please have some common sense when posting.

Why would confidential information be more exposed?!?!??!! That does not make ANY sense at all!

This laptop IS good for word processing and browsing the net. PERFECT for some people. If you want to do more, yes its awful, but my grandma doesn't for example and she'd love it!

Wow this is getting silly.... People slate it but its not aimed at current computer users!!!!!!!!!