Help! Can I really get a decent laptop for £300?

albertross_2

Can't say I've noticed.. but I have noticed posts saying don't buy Dell etc, get a Sony, they have an excellent repair service, that has been used twice in the first year with a fast turnaround. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of Sony quality.

Zagu

I agree, you really dont need to spend £700 for a light use laptop. Personally, Id also avoid Ebay, for two reasons. Firstly, you dont know what condition the battery is in, and secondly, I got a Toshiba last week from Ebuyer for £310, and the same model is on Ebay for £380-390 inc. del. Might as well go for a new one!!

Either wait till a deal comes along, which appears to happen every couple of weeks, or go for the Dells which, I think, are about £330.

melancholly

i have a perhaps silly question - do i *really* need a dual core processor...... it jumps the price up to £430/£450 minimum, but i get the feeling it will last longer because it will be able to handle more. or is the difference not really enough to notice (for the extra £100 or so) so i should save the money?

Millionaire

melancholly wrote: »

i have a perhaps silly question - do i *really* need a dual core processor...... it jumps the price up to £430/£450 minimum, but i get the feeling it will last longer because it will be able to handle more. or is the difference not really enough to notice (for the extra £100 or so) so i should save the money?

I would personally recommend a dual core intel.

I think its worth the extra money in the long term. From my experince the Core2duo's wipe the floor against Semperon and Celeron processors.

Voted one of the best products of the year by pcworld.com and the processor has been getting hugh praise across the board for it performance.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,131925-page,2-c,electronics/article.html

Little_John

mjr600 wrote: »

People who've been daft enough to spend too much money on a laptop often don't want to admit that it has problems.

Im afraid your wrong, I have 3 or 4 customers who like to save money everyone wants to spend as little as possible on their IT but these ones flinch when I say they need to spend the extra and buy windows XP pro as they have a domain to log on to. as a result they decide to buy the cheapest dell they can, every year I get the call they are looking for a new one the screen back light has gone or the screen isnt working or the hinge has broken they just are not up to daily use some have half the keys missing others the trackpad has died.

And we start all over again I find them a great deal on a Toshiba lappy for about £600-£700 mid to high spec but excelent value for what they are getting with a small screen as they are travel agents they are always jetting off around the world on educationals (holidays at someone elses expense) and they can't bear to be without the internet and email so they take them with them. one guy insists on checking his laptop in even after the first laptop didnt work when he got there after its first flight. I managed to convince him to buy a better make which he still checks in and that has survived 4 flights that I know about.

I wont say that the more expensive laptops are always better but the ones I have converted from buying the cheap Dells and Acers are much happier and are only replaceing them every 2 and a half years. they also sell them on after and it covers the costs of a new bag, mouse and a 2nd battery. My Laptop has been knocked off the bed 3 or 4 times after I fall asleep waching a film I get up in the morning and its still running. and I did replace the hard drive just after christmas it started to play up and I then checked the driver out and its fine. I needed a larger drive anyway. BTW my laptop is on pretty much 24/7.

With Laptops you just need to sit and be paitent they are the big thing that everyone wants so the offers are comming pretty quick just wait for the one that is right.

Blacksheep1979

Millionaire wrote: »

Voted one of the best products of the year by pcworld.com and the processor has been getting hugh praise across the board for it performance.

Shouldn't that be a reason to avoid it then? You do realise that PC world only hype new technology to try increase sales. Like their adds about pentium processors with HT technology - did that do anything for most people? No, and at the time the competing AMD processors were far better - I wouldn't trust PCWorld hardware reviews any more than I would a jellyfish to choose for me.

jmc160

i have a perhaps silly question - do i *really* need a dual core processor...... it jumps the price up to £430/£450 minimum, but i get the feeling it will last longer because it will be able to handle more. or is the difference not really enough to notice (for the extra £100 or so) so i should save the money?

It entirely depends on what you're planning to use it for. If you want to run Vista Ultimate and spend all your time doing heavy-duty graphics tasks and things like that, then get the dual-core. For light to medium home use - email, internet, photos, vids etc. on XP then single core will probably do just fine.

Millionaire

Blacksheep1979 wrote: »

Shouldn't that be a reason to avoid it then? You do realise that PC world only hype new technology to try increase sales. Like their adds about pentium processors with HT technology - did that do anything for most people? No, and at the time the competing AMD processors were far better - I wouldn't trust PCWorld hardware reviews any more than I would a jellyfish to choose for me.

Why? What reason to avoid it?

It's common knowledge to anyone that did abit of research or has worked with various processors that the AMD processors were better previously to intel processors untill the new Intel multiple core introduction.

But like I said the Intel Core2duos are being praised across the board and not just pcworld and all tests have shown the huge jump in performance by these new processors. I said that in my original post.

Like I said in my original post "from my experience" so im not going from any Hype.

I have actually worked on most of these processors including various core2duo's, core duo's, AMD semperon, AMD dual cores, intel celerons, pentium m, pentium 4, pentium d, pentium 4 HT pentium 3 and on and on.

Considering I did my degree in IT and worked day and night on a whole range of computers and have owned around 10 computers personally in the last 9 years ranging from £600-£2500 from various manufacturers using various processors. I Know exactly what to expect from them performance wise as well as quality wise.

At the lower end of the market the core2duo is worth the extra money as the performance is much better than either the celeron and semperon esp if you are looking to keep the pc for a good few years.

Every person that I have speced a pc up for (ive done quite a few) have been more than happy with it. Recently speced a desktop up for someone with a core2duo 1.86ghz, 250gb harddrive, 2048mb memory, 19inch monitor dvd-rw for just under £430 and they have been smiling about how its running ever since. previuosly they brought a pc ignoring my advise to spend £100 quid extra on a better processor then moaned about it for the next 3 years becuase it was slow.

Ive had it from a few people that have come back to me and said they should have listened to me the first time around.

Again its my opinon from personal experience and you can have yours.

jena

Thanks everyone - I really appreciate all your comments and advice. I take onboard what Little John is saying and had hoped to save for a proper decent model around the £1000 but other priorities for that money I'm afraid! So I'm happily looking at Dell and ebuyer for the moment. Many thanks again.

mjr600

A sensible decision Jena, £300 will get you the Ford Focus of laptops and not a Maserati but you'll find you always catch up at the next set of traffic lights.

Buy a Dell through Quidco and you get a further 5% cashback.

The below has to be the best buy at the moment, alter the warranty and it comes out at £340, with Quidco cashback it is £327.

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&oc=N05152

I know it has more than enough power, my brother in law, an architect, is currently using some advanced CADCAM software with it to tinker with his designs for a new multimillion pound dairy whilst at home in the evenings, it will more than suffice for your needs.