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One for the computer people....

I want to buy a decent new laptop, mainly for internet, photos, music etc but also i want it to be strong and fast enough to play championship manager at a decewnt speed (it seems to take ages on my current laptop).

What is the type of spec and processor im looking for....and the best place to buy it? Im looking around the £400 mark.

I always see tempting adverts on pc world but have always been told to stay away from them (although im not bothered about the helpdesk and shit, ive got enough geeky mates to fix my problems).

Something like this (http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/225850) looks ok to me, but i havnt bought a laptop for ages so dont know what is good any more.

If you want something decent to run Champ Manager then I'd recommend something like this Acer. (http://www.acer.co.uk/acereuro/page4.do?sp=page3&dau22.oid=26798&UserCtxParam=0&GroupCtxParam=0&dctx1=17&CountryISOCtxParam=UK&LanguageISOCtxParam=en&ctx3=-1&ctx4=United+Kingdom&crc=3596046900#inu57_43683) It's got a dual-core CPU and 1gb of RAM so will run Champ Manager easily.

You can get it from Dabs (http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4LJ3&SearchType=1&SearchTerms=acer&PageMode=3&SearchKey=All&SearchMode=All&NavigationKey=0) for £399.98

seems like a good deal to me.

If you can afford it, get something with 2gb or at least the potential to upgrade to 2 fairly easily

If you're going for 2gb memory do it straight away as its a right pain to put more in later on laptops. Dell quality is good but their support is poo, saying that they have low failure rates, otherwise as above Acer normally solid

Yeah ive seen a 2gb one on pc world for £450 which seemed quite a good.
Is a 2gb ram laptop better than a 1gb with dual core?

What processor has the £450 one got?

Intel Pentium Processor T2080  (Link: http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/538559)

Not sure if thats better or worse....to be honest im pretty crap when it comes to the performance of computers

Get XP (not that you easily can), Vista is for cunts, you'll also not need so much RAM etc for it to work.

Just for those that might want to argue, my laptop uses 105mb RAM when static with Zonealarm and AVG running (XP SP1a).

A friend bought me round his Vista Laptop the other day to format it and put XP on. That used a touch under 750mb.... Oh and Vista scans itself 30 times a second to make sure you're not stealing premium content. Nice.

Dell are pretty shit, as an owner of many laptops over the years, including (sadly) a Dell they are over priced tat. You pay for a badge on a piece of hardware worse than most of the cheaper laptops.

I recommend Sony and HP, i also think Acer are fucking excellent value for money and also highly recommended.

That's dual core as well, so I'd go with that, Bob.

EDIT: The Intel looks to be a better processor as well.

I bought a Dell Inspiron 1501 direct from Dell about a month ago (with Vista). £340 and works fine for me.

I was a cunt before that though.

Nice one cheers for the advice...quick question though, how do you know thats dual core? It doesnt specifically list it....

and im not sure where to get a laptop without vista these days...

http://processorfinder.intel.com/details.aspx?sSpec=SL9VY

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

i did actauly soapy tit wank there

I assume that was a sly dig at me? :D

Wasn't intending to offend, just my opinion. £340 is good though i didn't think Dell sold Laptops at that price... Show's what i know.  :oops:

Vista is horrid though. ;)

Fuck Vista. At least until it can be toned down a bit and a few service packs have come out. I only installed XP 2 years ago. Stuck with Windows 98 until then. I still have '98 installed for emergencies. I'm super cool.

Same as, i kept 98 until i was forced to accept XP.   :x

Can't see Vista being a requirement anytime soon. Not until some crazy DirectX11 shit comes out anyway. Having not played a new PC game on my computer since Dungeon Siege (which is shit) I'm not bothered.

'98 struggled a bit because it was shit at handling networks, something which XP is a bit better at.

Although as my computer is now nearly 10 years old it's going to be time to start thinking about replacements soon :(. Of course there are no original parts left from when I bought it. Not even the case.

 :Ride On Fatbury's Lovestick:

how the hell can it be the same bloody computer then

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSmSTpRUeLs

You'll have to watch the whole clip!

I knew it was going to be that. I have slowly replaced everything bit by bit it's a bit crazy, and not that much better.

when you said, my first thought was of course, Triggers broom in only fools and horses, had to post it.....had to

although I dont suppose anyone has given you a medal for having the same computer for 10 years

No, not at all  :)

Just that when anyone asks for laptop advice, an IT geek on here will usually pipe up with "oooh, stay away from a Dell"

Have used a mac for the last ten years so I wouldn't know if Vista's crap or not. It connects to the internet = Job done!

I'm typing on a Dell laptop as we speak. It's shit. And I'm an IT geek.

It worked really well for about 7months though.

Ace. In six months time I'll plug the mac back in while the Dell goes in for repair then. :D

Meh, I've got a Sony Vio. Don't know if they're supposed to be any good or not.

But as all I use it for is to spout shit on here, watch shit on Youtube, buy shit on Ebay and shit like that, it does for me...............

The Sony Viaos are really good in my experience. You gets what you pay for though as they aren't cheap.

HP laptops always seem to go wrong.

All I know about PC's is what stickers are on it!  :D

Mine is apparently a Toshiba Satellite Pro with Vista.

Seems ok but I wouldn't know good from bad anyway!

If it has a sticker with "WANK" on it you know you've been mugged by the shop. On the other hander Acer laptops are clearly the best.

Would you buy a laptop from Derek Trotter?

 :soapy tit wank:

probably!  :D

I have been in IT building PC's for many many years for my profession, Dell use substandard bits and all the peripherals and sound and graphic handling is done by dedicated onboard systems (usually) they had a hugely bad reputation in the ndustry for using low standard Chinese parts which to a certain extent they still do, I personally would never ever buy a Dell.

2gb memory is pointless in a laptop unless the bus can handle fast memory in my opinion 1gb of pc5300 fast memory will outdo 2gb pc3200 of poorly matched slower memory.

As for the advert from PC World.....the 2gb memory in the add

"DOES NOT provide you with plenty of room to store your photos and CD collection."

As that job is done by the hard drive, of which you need to get one with and SATA drive of minimum of 80gb but the more the merrier! 120gb is pretty standard these days.

Dual core processors are good as they provide future expansion and Vista dual core compatibilty....avoid Celeron processors as they are outdated and being phased out and not as fast as the newer processors, I always go for a good Intel or AMD processor and they are pretty well matched these days.

17 inch screens are nice but add weight to the laptop but can be picked up very cheaply these days, less than £400 inc VAT from DABS or EBUYER.

Vista really is pants, I have instaled it on 10+ PC's now and not one customer has been happy with it and all have requested going back to XP. It has little support for drivers and there are huge compatibilty problems with games and software so for now I would suggest either buying one with XP on or replace Vista with XP certainly until all the teething problems with Vista are healed and thats usually well after service pack 1 comes out.

A bit long winded but pretty much my guidelines when anyone asks for my opinion on Laptops :)

I have had a Toshiba for 2 years, and i can safely say, i'll never buy any product from them ever again as long as i live.

So JJ....as a bit of an expert, where would you recommend looking for the best laptop for that amount of money? 80gb is plenty enough memory for me, but i mainly want it do be as quick as possible so i guess i need a half decent processor with dual core?

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/128684

Theres a nice core duo with an 80gb dual layer dvd writer, only 512mb of ram but ram is peanuts to buy ....there are cheaper on ebuyer but this is the cheapest dual core at £329.69 inc VAT and free delivery too.

I personally would go a bit more and get at least 1gb of ram with it, whch knocks the price up to around £350 inc.

Hope that helps bob :)

:bump:

OK, a bit of resurection...

I'm now looking at a laptop myself, not got loads to spend.  My dad has been in the business since before I was born and he reckons that a laptop with XP Pro with a single core would be better value than a dual core Vista machine.

I've been looking at:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=0&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X3Jldmlld3M=&product_uid=128981

and:

http://www.bluepoint.net/HPXNOT11W

All I want is for a laptop to access the internet, mess with photos, listen to music, watch films and play FM.

Field advice as you see fit, thank-you please. x

www.novatech.com do laptops with operating systems.

i was looking at this (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?nnb-567%20%20%20&P=1) but it might be slightly beyond your requirements. this (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NNB-540) might be more suitable.

have a look at dell's business range at www.dell.co.uk/b2b. their business range are a bit sturdier than the normal range.

for an extra £10 http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/131199

The dual core will out perform the single core sempron or celeron 100% of the time and has 40gb extra storage.

i got an advent one the other week £400, i only use it to play fm, internet, music and photos, no problems so far. Duo-core with Vista, 100gb HD and 1gb Ram.

Cheers, bit too much for me at the moment unfortunately, was only looking at the other one because of the £50 cash back which makes it cheaper than the Bluepoint one.  Not too worried about HD space as I already have an external drive.

If it were a straight toss up between the two I've been looking at which would you go with? As I said the old man thinks Vista is whack and recommends I go for the one with the Sempron - I'd never heard of Sempron before mind...

personally I would avoid Vista until SP1 comes out and get XP while you still can as OEM XP is stopping being sold and ditributed by Microsoft in January (MS cutting off own nose to spite face again)

Sempron are better than the equivalent Celeron and to be fair for your needs its an ok spec. Worth a go as its about 50% cheaper than the nearest Rip Off Worlds lappys :)

Cool, it's for when I return to France for the winter season, gonna pay for it on the credit card so the money will be taken from my banc acc while no money will be going in, that's why I've got to be a bit tight.

Thanks for the advice, think I might go for Sempron.