Laptop Advice

[gehenna]

Folks

Am looking to buy a new laptop, but am undecided as to where to start.

I have around £650 to spend (student!) and have been advised to buy a Dell, with XP. I gather that XP will be supported until 2015 and is far better than Vista.

Any comments about Dell reliability and support etc would be much appreciated, or another make that has served you well.

Thanks ...........

[Farmer 1]

I have a Toshiba.

They have not served me well.

[MacBoero]

If I had £650, I'd be saving the extra £50 to get myself a new Apple MacBook, the cheapest one is £699 from Applestore...
Link to Apple Store UK - MacBook page (http://store.apple.com/Apple/WebObjects/ukstore.woa/wa/RSLID?nnmm=browse&mco=7B723665&node=home/shop_mac/family/macbook)

[Pontius Navigator]

I would buy a Medion at about £350 from Woollies or other under £400 LT. They break, they date, they get stolen.

Better to save the £300 drinking tickets and don't forget you will need a printer too.

As a Stude there was a shop in High Wycombe selling non-portable laptops - no battery - in a rather unappealling yellow. Put another way, they were not attractice to a thief.

[Oneil]

Having ordered 4 of them on behalf of other people at Christmas (colleagues and family memebers) I can reccomend the Dell- I have a more expensive model but the Inspirons I oredred were all about £400 and served the purpose intended- Internet- word processing- DVD's- and some of the older games.

it depends on what you want it for but if its general purpose then the inspirons are good- or for something a little extra the XPS systems are worth it

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/notebooks?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

[Mac the Knife]

I'm very happy with my black Macbook.

:ok:

[spannersatcx]

I'm happy with my Acer.

[PAPI-74]

Toshiba Satellite
Have a look at
www.pcworld.co.uk

[Oneil]

PC world- bah

[A2QFI]

I bought a Medion laptop as a special offer from Aldi. £450 with 3 years repair and warranty thrown in so not expensive. However, the keyboard is rubbish; I am a 2 fingered typer and hit the keys firmly and I still get letters left out of the stuff I enter on the Medion. It is cheap but is only worth what you pay for it, or a bit less, IMO

[Eagle402]

Gehenna,

I imagine (you state you are a student) your primary use will be research and report writing and you probably will be carting the machine around a fair bit.

Even the entry level MacBook is almost £300 over your budget and I wouldn't recommend them in terms of reliability anyway (I've had some very expensive experiences with out of warranty Mac's including a £500 repair for a 'backlight' on a Powerbook!). I have just bought an Air though and it is a seriously nice piece of kit, albeit expensive.

I would go for a Toshiba or an Acer at around £400/450. Robust machines that should serve you well.

Regards,

Eagle402.

[Keef]

I would save more of the basic cash, and get something like an IBM/Lenovo ThinkPad T43 or thereabouts. Make sure it has XP (not Vista). Then buy a docking station, a USB keyboard, a USB mouse, and a printer and you're very well set up. The ThinkPad will cost you around £300.

Then you'll need software - MS Office (Student Edition) is the most likely, but Open Office ain't bad - and it's free.

I still have the ThinkPad R31 I bought 4 years ago - it just keeps on working. I'd like something newer, but can't find an excuse to upgrade.

With the docking station etc, it's like a desktop when you're at home. That's a lot better than messing around with those little keyboards and funny tracker things.

I've heard good and bad about Dell, not much good about Toshiba, and hardly a bad word about ThinkPads.

[Saab Dastard]

I second the Thinkpad! If it were my money, that is what I would go for.

I have been satisfied with the Compaq / HP corporate laptops I have / had.

SD

[Oneil]

also worth noting that if you do go down the mac route that you get a really good discount for being a student- all you have to do is go on the website- (unfortuantely you can only do this on a university network pc as this is how it verifies your student status- a couple of years ago you could just do it at home but the caught onto that one) and order directly, i think the discount is 25%- but you should check that

[Wader2]

also worth noting that if you do go down the mac route that you get a really good discount for being a student- all you have to do is go on the website- (unfortuantely you can only do this on a university network pc as this is how it verifies your student status- a couple of years ago you could just do it at home but the caught onto that one) and order directly, i think the discount is 25%- but you should check that

You might be able to do a deal over the phone - send university paperwork, that sort of thing - after all a sale is a sale.

[a346driver]

Hi

The base model MacBook will last you longer than the equivalent priced pc. I have a 4 year old G4 iBook which happily runs the latest Leopard OS and is still worth selling on ebay for a few hundred quid, should I wish(which I don't). I doubt a basic 4 year old pc laptop would run Vista or be worth much secondhand.

You won't have to stump up for an antivirus subscription or program.

The Computer comes loaded with all the software you need to play with photos,music, movies, etc. Not add ons but really good software.

If you want to write or read word docs then buy iWork which......
includes three applications:

Pages ’08 for word processing (which can read and save word docs)

Numbers ’08 (which can read and save excel files)

Keynote ’08 (which is superior to powerpoint but again is fully compatible with it)

and it's £55! you may also be able to get a student discount on hardware and software.

Happy Shopping

[flycats]

Im considering to buy one soon as well.
Mac / Sony / Dell ?
Im quite fussy with appearance.
Is Mac better than PC?

[Saab Dastard]

Im considering to buy one soon as well.
Mac / Sony / Dell ?
Im quite fussy with appearance.

Please use the Search facility - there have been umpteen threads on laptop advice.

Is Mac better than PC?

We've had this discussion.

SD

[NRU74]

Have just bought an ASUS 701 -bottom of the range - £202 inc vat+delivery[UK]
Absolutely cracking value.
Not strictly a laptop, apparently, but a UMPC - open source software but enough memory to run XP -very light weight and if it's stolen it's not a huge loss

[Mac the Knife]

" If you want to write or read word docs then buy iWork......."

Or you could install NeoOffice (OpenOffice ported to OS-X) which works very nicely thank you and won't cost you a penny.

:ok: