laptop - which one to buy?

garym8

can anyone help me decide which laptop to buy?

i'm setting a budget upto £ 400 and will be using the laptop mostly for surfing and putting songs onto my ipod that i got from santa aka roz =O)

the £200 pcworld one seemed good but after reading about it on here it may not have been worth it, so, i have the choices as from the following link :

http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/asp/price-search.asp?band=0

i think the aspire ones would be best but they seem to be the same?

which one would you go for? thanks for any help and sorry to the admin if this is posted in the wrong place......cheers, gary.

jobbingmusician

I am replying on an Aspire (1640Z) which I am delighted with! I paid £500 about 2 months ago and I should imagine you could get it at closer to £400 in the sales.

BUT

what will you be using it for? Mine has a wide range of uses so it is good to have the enormous memory and processing capacity (well, relatively enormous ) which this one has. If you are a game player this will NOT be powerful enough for you, and conversely if all you want it for is this site and a bit of word processing, you will probably be equally happy with a lower spec. I thought you might like to talk to someone who has one, though....:D

garym8

hi and thanks for the reply mate......i'm replying on an acer travelmate 512dx which has served me well and still does hence why i like the acer brand.

i would be just using it for websites and downloading music to ipod.......i have an xbox that i use for games and i guess i would like to be able to burn dvds especially any movie with Hugh Grant in it :eek: and for word / excel programs. no hacking into NORAD for me, just the basics of computer use and a bit of multi-media.

what model do you have and i'll have a look for it on the www.

thanks again, gary.

bartman

I've been helping my son look for a laptop on a budget of about £400 - we were quite impressed with the Acer Aspire range, in particular this Aspire 5051 at Ebuyer
http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/119776/rb/24025842316
Does anybody have any expert opinions on this one?

jobbingmusician

As mentioned before, I have the 1640z. I bought mine in Comet (it almost burst me to actually buy a computer in a shop, rather than taking hours finding the best price on the web, but I needed one urgently!) and I'm pleased to say they now have something very similar (probably the same one but I haven't double checked model numbers) in Tesco for £50 more than I paid

The Aspire 5051 looks like a good deal.... reviews are very positive, aren't they!

Stormtrooper

What about this for under £450.00?

http://www.shopacer.co.uk/pp/Acer_Aspire_Laptops/Acer_Aspire_5100_Series/Aspire_5101AWLMi.html

tkblueyonder

garym8 wrote:

can anyone help me decide which laptop to buy?

i'm setting a budget upto £ 400 and will be using the laptop mostly for surfing and putting songs onto my ipod that i got from santa aka roz =O)

the £200 pcworld one seemed good but after reading about it on here it may not have been worth it, so, i have the choices as from the following link :

http://www.acernotebooks.co.uk/asp/price-search.asp?band=0

i think the aspire ones would be best but they seem to be the same?

which one would you go for? thanks for any help and sorry to the admin if this is posted in the wrong place......cheers, gary.

i notice wherever you seem to read reviews of Acer laptops they are not the most appealing, i have just found this one http://www.meshcomputers.com/Default.aspx?PAGE=PRODUCTVIEWPAGE&USG=PRODUCT&ENT=PRODUCT&KEY=68489

A little over you budget of 400 i know but a massive bang for the buck compared to the Acer, i have dealt with these people before they are completely on the level

SeanW

I have an Acer Aspire which has served well in the last 1.5years.

The only one problem I have is the DVD writer, locked to region 2, nothing can solve that, and it never achieves the advertised write speed on even the best of media, although it's not only acer that use this "matshita" (panasonic) OEM drive.

If you are into extended warranties(which I aren't), acer charge £90 for 3 years, which on a £800 laptop (Which I paid) isn't bad compared to what the likes of Dixons group would charge (most likely around £300).

From what I recall when buying mine, shopacer / acernootbooks wasn't highly spoken of, late or no delivery, difficult to contact. This is not acer themselves or an approved dealer. This of course could have changed.

garym8

hi and thanks to everyone who replied above.........after lots of browsing last night i've decided to wait till january and stretch my budget to £ 480 to get the following from comet :

http://www.comet.co.uk/cometbrowse/product.do?sku=363286&tab=specification#spec

it appears to be worth the extra £ 80 with the meg ram and dual processors and huge memory that should keep me upto date for a few years.....also thanks to seanw as i'm a bit wary of spending this much on a company on the net i've never heard of and back of my mind if i had any problems it would result in shipment costs so comet store it is.........maybe in january it could come down cheaper - fingers x'd.

thanks again - all the best for 2007 :beer: _party_ :dance:

mjr600

Stretch it by another £20 and get a 17" widescreen from Tesco, very similar spec, not dual-core (why do you need that on a laptop ?), the screen has to be the deal clincher.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.200-9226.aspx

They have them in store as well.

Sidmon

Still think this is the better value of all the laptops I've seen and is extremely future proof:

http://www.shopacer.co.uk/pp/Acer_Aspire_Laptops/Acer_Aspire_5100_Series/Aspire_5103WLMi_-_2.html