Laptop between £350/£400

Dickdasdedly_2

Hi Formites
My daughter is looking to buy a laptop between £350/£400 tops & there's that many out there its confusing. As i don't know a good processor from a bad one or good brand from bad i thought i would ask your advise.
She is only 17 & she has saved the money her self so i would like her to get the best she can get for the money. She will be doing some collage work on it & the usual FB MSN internet stuff a 17yr old does. she doesn't tend to play games on it as we have a ps3/wii for that but she does watch online films. Any help ,advise will be gratefully received as I'm clueless.
Cheers Richard

grumpycrab

Makes aren't that different reliability wise but I'd still get a 3 year warranty. Get the best processor you can afford - everything else is upgradeable (apart from graphics). Newest Intel is something like i3-2310M or older is i3-380M.

1st choice Fujitsu for £330
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Fujitsu-AH531-15-6-Intel-Sandybridge-Core-i3-Win7-Laptop-/220895712020?_trksid=p5197.m7&_trkparms=algo%3DLVI%26itu%3DUCI%26otn%3D4%26po%3DLVI%26ps%3D63%26clkid%3D4305089232107686141
Same as this
http://www.dabs.com/products/fujitsu-lifebook-ah531-core-i3-2310m-4gb-ram-500gb-hdd-w7hp-7TFG.html?src=3
3 year warranties are about £50

Acer is worth looking at purely because their 3 year warranties are £30 here
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Acer-Advantage-Notebook-Extended-Warranty-/130594757140?pt=UK_Computing_LaptopAccess_RL&hash=item1e680dda14

Finding a reasonable spec, good value, Acer is perhaps a little tricky. How about this?
http://www.comet.co.uk/p/Laptops/buy...rlap-_-acerlap
£350 for an i3-370M, 3GB ram, 640GB disk is not bad.

OR same with 4GB ram and 500GB disk
http://www.pixmania.co.uk/uk/uk/10689650/art/acer/aspire-5733-15-6-laptop.html?Partenaire=partner&CodePromo=oui&srcid =867&key=ET98d0duaWRVXiNRc0ACUQw8Q3hbQVFnZ20bP3NCF DsNBDAGGRQgK1MnADJxLQk+NABYVw==

TakeThis

This LIFEBOOK AH531MRSC2GB looks good value at £329.94.

Already linked to above.

ridethelightning

I would go with ASUS EEE Pad Transformer. Not technically a laptop, its a tablet with a keyboard docking station. It can be used for all the things you mentioned, great battery life, touch screen, good price (look around, the link I gave is not the cheapest place to buy) etc. It comes as 16Gb or 32Gb but has a USB port and SD card slot so this can be easily expanded if needed, you can plug a normal external HD in if wanting to store loads of movies etc.

I was about to buy one myself then noticed its successor (ASUS transformer prime) is out next month so am holding out to buy that, cant wait for it now.

savepete

My first choice for laptops in your price range is the motherboard manufacturer Asus.