Laptop recommendations? £500/ £600 ish

TTC40

In the market for a new laptop/ PC & undecided whether to spend £1100 + on a mac or just stick with something similar to current.

If we don't go with mac (in my head I know i'm paying for the badge), will probably be sensible & spend half the amount on something which will give us what we need.

It's just for usual household use. Internet, basic office package, occasional viewing on i player (although have ipad so little of this), photo storage etc.

Any recommendations for good buys at the moment?

Please don't make the thread an Apple bashing session

TIA

smssms

Bashing Apples is good, you end up with cider, cider is nice.

I just got a brand new Lenovo Ideapad Y510p from [a retailer? on] eBay, they are going for prices within your range and it seems to be a pretty well speced laptop. Only major problem is it comes with Windows 8 installed - it is TERRIBLE!

A._Badger

TTC40 wrote: »

In the market for a new laptop/ PC & undecided whether to spend £1100 + on a mac or just stick with something similar to current.

If we don't go with mac (in my head I know i'm paying for the badge), will probably be sensible & spend half the amount on something which will give us what we need.

It's just for usual household use. Internet, basic office package, occasional viewing on i player (although have ipad so little of this), photo storage etc.

Any recommendations for good buys at the moment?

Please don't make the thread an Apple bashing session

TIA

I've recently bought a Dell Latitude via the Dell outlet website and, despite Dell's atrocious lack of pre-sales advice, got a fabulous machine at an excellent price.

You need to be very patient as the offerings are updated twice daily and bargains get snapped-up fast. If you've got the time and the patience, I'd really recommend it.

criboo

I bought my laptop from Medion about two-and-a-half years ago, and it runs just as well as the day I got it!

Here are a couple roughly within your price range that are well specced:

http://www.medion.com/gb/prod/MEDION+AKOYA+P7627T+Laptop+%28MD98472%29/30016097A1

http://www.medion.com/gb/prod/MEDION+AKOYA+P6643+Laptop+%28MD98479%29/30016134A1

http://www.medion.com/gb/prod/MEDION+AKOYA+P6647+Laptop+%28MD98567%29/30016600A1

Just go to their site and take a look, they're well specced and good price laptops, shipping was very quick and cheap

Good luck

Chris

Cisco001

If you don't mind spending a bit more for good screen, you can consider customize laptop.
http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/notebooks/ultraNoteII-15/
£565
Screen - 1920 x 1080 IPS
CPU - i5 4200M
RAM - 1 x 4GB Samsung
Storage - 1TB SSHD
OS - Windows 7 or Windows 8.1

Or you could check out dell outlet for refurb business laptop.
You can find i5 laptop for £400 with 3 year warranty

criboo

Also, maybe check out DinoPC, they sell customisable laptops so if you know what you're after or what is more important to you then check them out, they do good value PCs, but I'm not certain about laptops.

Chris

TTC40

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-15-n090sa-touchsmart-15-6-touchscreen-laptop-aluminium-black-silver-21750393-pdt.html?intcmpid=display~RR~Home+%2f+Laptops+%26+Netbooks+%2f+Laptops+%2f+Laptops~21750393

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/hp-pavilion-15-n090sa-touchsmart-15-6-touchscreen-laptop-aluminium-black-silver-21750393-pdt.html?intcmpid=display~RR~Home+%2f+Laptops+%26+Netbooks+%2f+Laptops+%2f+Laptops~21750393

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptops-netbooks/laptops/laptops/sony-vaio-fit-15-svf1521p2eb-15-6-touchscreen-laptop-black-21350485-pdt.html

Thanks for the advice so far.

Went to PC world for a browse & saw the 3 above. Any opinions on them?

The advisor then said we could buy Office for £110 or their 'special offer' package for c£160 which was Office, security, cloud & set up.

I don't need anything transferring from my current laptop as it's mainly photos & I have these backed up on a separate hard drive. Are there cheaper ways of getting Office? I know I can get free security/ anti virus.

TIA (again!)

criboo

I thought Microsoft Word was part of the free trial of Office these days, but I'm not really sure.

I would take the Sony over the HP, everyone in my family who bought a HP in recent years has had it overheat and break.

However, the following on Medion are higher spec for the same/less:

http://www.medion.com/gb/prod/MEDION+AKOYA+P6647+Laptop+%28MD98567%29/30016600A1

http://www.medion.com/gb/prod/MEDION+AKOYA+P7627+Laptop+%28MD98464%29/30016092A1

Of those two, I'd recommend the second one; it's got a better graphics card and a higher resolution screen. The one minor downside is its processor is a bit slower, but only slightly. The first link is cheaper and more powerful than the Sony laptop. Whether the build quality will vary by much is debatable, my Medion laptop is the same as an MSI laptop, but in a different casing, I'm not sure about their other laptops. Though as far as I know, Sony's build quality is very good.

EDIT: Also, if you see a laptop you like in a shop, look online for retailers that don't have physical shops, they tend to have lower costs and some of those savings are passed onto you.

me0000

laptops are generally inferior compared to desktops.

criboo

me0000 wrote: »

laptops are generally inferior compared to desktops.

This is true, but it depends if OP is looking to move the PC/laptop around.

I kind of regret buying a laptop, for the money I could have had a vastly superior PC, but at the time, I thought a laptop would be better, I'm at university and I go to the library a lot, however, my laptop just sits on my desk and I can't remember the last time I unplugged it.

Perhaps make some suggestions to OP if he is looking for a desktop. In the case of a desktop, I'd definitely look at DinoPC, you can pick each part and they have a forum with helpful and knowledgeable users too that might be worth consulting over the MSE forum.

TTC40

Thanks.

I have a HP laptop at the moment. I've probably had it about 5 years & other than a virus a few months ago, no problems with it.

It's left switched on most of the time & so the battery does not store power, but it works OK when plugged into the mains.

It's slow though, hence ready for a new one.

Desktop or laptop would be fine.