17" laptop deals?

spud17

I've been asked to help someone find a suitable 17 inch screen laptop.

This will be for small business use, 4 employees.
It will be used for simple admin, invoices, QuickBooks, email etc, so nothing demanding.

Currently, he uses a desktop in his home office.
Now that the business has grown, the plan is to build an office at the workshop, ditch the desktop, and carry a laptop to and fro, from home to the workshop each day.

Budget is flexible, but I guessed £350 should do it, but not sure that you'll get 17 inch for that.
There does seem to be a price jump from 15 inch to 17 inch.

My first stop was Dell, but 17inch models seem to be aimed at multi media use rather than plain business use.

Has anyone got suggestions for places to check, besides the usual ebuyer etc?

debitcardmayhem

spud17 wrote: »

I've been asked to help someone find a suitable 17 inch screen laptop.

This will be for small business use, 4 employees.
It will be used for simple admin, invoices, QuickBooks, email etc, so nothing demanding.

Currently, he uses a desktop in his home office.
Now that the business has grown, the plan is to build an office at the workshop, ditch the desktop, and carry a laptop to and fro, from home to the workshop each day.

Budget is flexible, but I guessed £350 should do it, but not sure that you'll get 17 inch for that.
There does seem to be a price jump from 15 inch to 17 inch.

My first stop was Dell, but 17inch models seem to be aimed at multi media use rather than plain business use.

Has anyone got suggestions for places to check, besides the usual ebuyer etc?

Hi spud , it's an evening I note , does that 350 include VAT (since it's a business) , I paid 505 (inc vat from Novatech for a 17" no o/s either, but it's a big burger) I doubt there will be much around the 350 mark new , but ND will probably prove me wrong, he often does....

spud17

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

but ND will probably prove me wrong, he often does....

...and is what I was hoping, .

Hiya DCM :wave:

£350 was a pure guess, but budget is flexible regarding VAT.
17 inch is the tricky bit.
He's prepared to spend more than bargain basement in the hope that better build quality will cope with (potentially) heavy handed use and the constant moving from home to work.

A bit more info, good battery life is not a requirement, neither is an optical drive.
He's not sure if his current Office 2007 is legit, but Libre Office will be ok for simple spreadsheets and word processing.

debitcardmayhem

£379 http://direct.asda.com/Laptops-Netbooks/AD060407,default,sc.html?prefn1=screenSizeINCH&prefv1=17.3&fix=&showHits= AMD don't know about the cpu ....

or http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-X75A-17-3-inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B00FC55USA/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1406839075&sr=1-1

spud17

debitcardmayhem wrote: »

£379 http://direct.asda.com/Laptops-Netbooks/AD060407,default,sc.html?prefn1=screenSizeINCH&prefv1=17.3&fix=&showHits= AMD don't know about the cpu ....

or http://www.amazon.co.uk/Asus-X75A-17-3-inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B00FC55USA/ref=sr_1_1?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qid=1406839075&sr=1-1

Cheers, a couple to be going on with.

(Until Nifty shoots us all down)

NiftyDigits

I would suggest to throw the Toshiba back into the water.

The ASUS or this Medion Akoya E7227(MD98575) for £399 is closer to the mark.

Intel® Core™ i3-4000M processor, Windows 8.1, 500 GB hybrid hard drive with 8 GB flash memory, 8 GB RAM memory, Dolby® Advanced Audio™, USB 3.0, Bluetooth 4.0 function, HDMI®, matt 43.9 cm/17.3" HD display

Three things that make it more suitable for a business is the Matt screen, the possibility to add a second HDD and the fact that you actually get a Windows 8 recovery DVD and an Application and support DVD, as opposed to just a recovery partition on the HDD.

Either machine should be quick to start. Though of course the Medion has the superior CPU/Chipset.

macman

He may soon tire of lugging a 17in laptop to and fro on a daily basis.
There is a big price jump from 15 to 17", because I'd guess that the former outsell the later by a factor of about 20:1.

NiftyDigits

I would go for the Syncing of the two, rather than ditching the Desktop altogether.
That way if one goes down, you still have one up and running. Plus of course an external drive with those all important back up images.
Especially important if you don't have an On-Site warranty and are without a clue.

The Inspiron 17 5000 Series are about as cheap as you are going to get, at £299 and up.

teddysmum

I have a Medion 17"which I love. It's still ok, even though it's been dropped (folding table collapsed so it slid gracefully to the carpet), but is quite a bit heavier than it's predecessor , another Medion.


I bought direct, as they often have special offers.

spud17

NiftyDigits wrote: »

I would suggest to throw the Toshiba back into the water.

The ASUS or this Medion Akoya E7227(MD98575) for £399 is closer to the mark.



Three things that make it more suitable for a business is the Matt screen, the possibility to add a second HDD and the fact that you actually get a Windows 8 recovery DVD and an Application and support DVD, as opposed to just a recovery partition on the HDD.

Either machine should be quick to start. Though of course the Medion has the superior CPU/Chipset.

Brilliant as usual.
I'd forgotten about Medion.
All valid points, especially the Matt screen and proper recovery media, my personal bugbear.
500GB should be plenty of storage.

NiftyDigits wrote: »

I would go for the Syncing of the two, rather than ditching the Desktop altogether.
That way if one goes down, you still have one up and running. Plus of course an external drive with those all important back up images.
Especially important if you don't have an On-Site warranty and are without a clue.

The Inspiron 17 5000 Series are about as cheap as you are going to get, at £299 and up.

This is what I suggested as soon as he mentioned it, I said keep the current desktop and get a Zoostorm or similar for the workshop.

I've got a feeling that I'm lined up to sort backups, currently any backups of the QuickBooks files are on a flash drive.

I find it's a real pain getting through to some folk, the importance of proper backup, especially a business, no matter how small

spud17

macman wrote: »

He may soon tire of lugging a 17in laptop to and fro on a daily basis.
There is a big price jump from 15 to 17", because I'd guess that the former outsell the later by a factor of about 20:1.

My thoughts exactly, that's why my first suggestion was to get a basic desktop for the workshop.

I've also warned him that there's a big price jump to 17inch because of the lower sales.