New laptop recommendations

[oct2pus]

Hi

Following on from the thread about a poster needing a new laptop but not knowing about the different processors, I have a similar but different (!) question) - so I thgought I'd start a new thread rather than hijacking the other one...

I want to buy a new laptop for my girlfriend as she needs one for an OU course and our old Win 98 Toshiba is about to give up the ghost.

Primary uses will be word processing, email and (wireless) internet access, as well as storing/editing digital camera photos and an itunes collection. We don't need a multi-media monster or anything too over-specced/expensive.

HAS to be Win XP Professional as we're not going to go down the Vista route. Price about the £400 mark.

Does anyone know of any suitable models or have any recommendations please? Or any ideas where to look?

High street shops are full of vista models and dell only have XP on the lowliest of the low model laptops (ie, smallest screen, smallest RAM, smallest hard drive, slowest processor model, etc).

Thanks in advance,

J

[Mac the Knife]

Have you considered a MacBook?

:ok:

[airborne_artist]

Dabs.com (http://www.dabs.com/ProductList.aspx?&CategorySelectedId=11105&NavigationKey=11105&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=xp&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All) have laptops with XP - this Lenovo (http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4P9T&SearchType=1&CategorySelectedId=11105&SearchTerms=xp&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=11105) fits your budget

[Saab Dastard]

Or a Lenovo ThinkPad R60 564D878 from Technoworld (http://www.technoworld.com/productdisplay.asp?ProductID=51557)

Specs here (http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=2961&review=ThinkPad+R60)

It looks a good deal!

SD

[Octane]

I'd be surprised if you need to spend 400 quid for a suitable laptop. Your requirements are pretty much word for word the same as mine and my 2 1/2 year old laptop has performed flawlessly, never had an issue of any kind. By todays standard the specs would appear a bit ordinary (it was a baseline model at the time) i.e. 40 G hard drive, 1 G Ram and 'only' 1.4 G processor, but it does the job. I've never considered it to be slow or not up to it, probably because like you I don't have any serious demands of it..
My machine is a Toshiba Satellite L10, and contrary to other's opinions, I would not hesitate to buy another Toshiba if I needed a new machine. For example today I got some junkmail offering a Toshiba Satellite Pro A200 with 1.6G processor, 1G ram and 80G HD for A$700 or about 300 quid. Probably all you need?

Cheers
Octane

[seacue]

In the USA, the Dell "small business" site has at least a half-dozen laptop models with a choice of XP Home, XP Pro and various flavors of Vista. Some are also offered with Linux. I'd expect they are also on offer in the UK if you search far enough. Some desktops are on similar offer.

Pardon the US spelling, but it is a mention of a USA site.

[BigEndBob]

I could recommend HP 510, comes with Xp Home. Intel Centrino 2.23Ghz (not 2.13 as advertised on every site that lists for sale), 60g hard drive, 512 ram, altough did upgrade later to 1gb but made no noticeable difference, multi DVD, wirless, Brightscreen.
Selling about £350. Yet to see any game not run smooth and with the right codec plays just about anything.
Seen a few reviewers running 3d design programs ok.
Only down side battery life, about an 1 hour, which for a laptop on the move you need some decent battery capacity.
But then i begin to think, what would a £800-1000 laptop do any better?
A bit like everything else in life... think we are conned in to thinking more£££, it must be better?
Recently saw a Dell, similiar spec, £300.

[Background Noise]

Do you mean XP professional or just XP - sounds like XP home might be more appropriate. Here's a basic model which would do what you want I think, with a large HDD for all your music and photos and a built in card reader which is very useful. There is a more basic model which appears to be sold out - doesn't say if they will get more. Novatech (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NNB-587)

[Keef]

I'm still using a ThinkPad R31 that I bought about 4 years or so ago. It's been excellent. Compared with the other brands that I've repaired for friends and colleagues, it's well ahead.

You can get a nearly-new later model (such as those mentioned above) for well within your price bracket. You get more for your money that way than buying new.

Some firms are refurbishing ThinkPads and sell them with "new" hard drives etc. I'd like one of those, but this one just keeps on working.

[planecrazy.eu]

I had a similar problem. Had a 5yr old laptop and a more or less new one, but the new one i used for downloading and rebooted it regualry from viruses, and also it was a little chunky to take to uni each day (15.1" screen)

So i have just got of ebay a 14.1" IBT T43, cost £300 with delivery, and has all the specs i wanted.

I looked at new lenovos for £400 but found i can get a better secondhand ibm for around 300 that has warrenty and much better spec.

It has 16 month warranty, a 92% battery, and spec wise, 2ghz centrino, 2MB Cache, 80GB HDD, 1GB RAM, DVD-RW, 64MB Dedid graphics

and has the usual ibm trimmings of wifi, bluetooth and finerprint reader.

Its a really light machine, great battery of 4hrs in current state and the build quality compared with Dell and Acer is far far superior, and the build quliaty compared with Sony and HP is still better.

Nice solid machine, just its second hand and is just normal centrino.

OH - It has windows XP too which might be a result for some people...