need a laptop but which one?

alias7

Nicky, I have to follow up on what others have said - go and get a Dell!

You can get it for about £330 and you will find it hard to find anything quite as good on the high street for less than £500.

Blacksheep1979

yup - ignore the unfounded liabelous comments on Dell and go out and buy one.

jrrowleyws

Evesham and Mesh are also price competitive and Evesham has shops around the country.

The issue with Dell is that they are still orientated around their business customers as thats how they started out, they are getting better but they arent that great.

Everyone shouts down Pcworld and dixons, but if you get a bargain they can be very good. I had a warranty repair completed by them in 4 days and my laptop was back with me and working fine! I know too many people who have waited months for a repair on a Dell laptop.

Another thing to note, Dell often use "Dell" customised parts, making a repair or and upgrade difficult as only dell can get the parts!

Dell are fine, but explore other companies too as IMO dell is not the ultimate pc supplier everyone makes them out to be!

Blacksheep1979

jrrowleyws wrote: »

Another thing to note, Dell often use "Dell" customised parts, making a repair or and upgrade difficult as only dell can get the parts!

not so true anymore - also what are you going to be upgrading on a laptop? Also with the sale of goods act on your side providing cover for up to 6 years, why would you look at repairs being made by anyone else but dell?

Kilty_2

I wouldn't touch Dell for desktops, either build my own or go to Mesh (I have a Mesh desktop and it hasn't stepped out of line in 5 years of use).

As far as laptops go though, Dell if you are looking at the budget end of the market or the extremely expensive (ie, top end Latitude "business" laptops). Mesh would be good for "mid-range" ie £600-800

lucien_roach

I have always used dell for my Pc on one principle you get the operating system disc rather than a crap recovery disc that does nothing.

i use a Dell Inspiron 6400 which is pretty awesome, but mine cost £700 (money i wish i hadn't spent, all my savings, when i looked at the cost of uni about a month after i bought it)

The big thing you need to worry about is RAM tho its worth waiting til that have a double RAM deal on plus i also got a printer for £9 from them so its worth watching their deals.

er sony are very good too but no OS disc which can be a pain if your copy of windows messes up

lucien_roach

Oh one last thing i just remembered if you buy dell its worth reintalling windows as soon as you get it. like most computer manufacturers they stick alot of rubbish programs on you will never use so wipe it and it will run at least 20% faster (well did on mine).

if you know how to create a partition (partition magic is good) then you can store your porgrams in a separate area of your hard drive meaning if you reinstall windows they all stay on for you! saves you hours.

Don't buy Norton Internet Security 2007 (its sucks) buy an earlier one off the internet (2005 is pretty good) still some floating round

that all

Blacksheep1979

or don't buy norton at all as it sucks...

lucien_roach

Blacksheep1979 wrote: »

or don't buy norton at all as it sucks...

I have to agree. but meh i get it free cause we have two computers so i get the second license. there are some free ones on here which i haven't tried but will when i turn proper student

melancholly

lucien_roach wrote: »

I have to agree. but meh i get it free cause we have two computers so i get the second license. there are some free ones on here which i haven't tried but will when i turn proper student

i'd swap now - norton slows up computers so much that you will immediately notice the difference after you uninstall it!