Thetownend.com

Sorry to start another thread bout laptops, but I'm after advice please geeks.

Got around £350 to spend on a new laptop, not a huge budget I know but should still be able to afford something half decent. Been thinking about possibly buying a refurb or reconditioned one.

Must have > 2GB RAM and 120GB HDD. DVD/RW would be nice too.

Don't buy refurbs Sam, get brand new from Tesco and get the clubcard points and a full warrenty.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.206-3108.aspx

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.206-2983.aspx

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.206-7130.aspx

All Toshibas and nice little spec for around your budget mate.

I was looking at laptops in Currys earlier. Pretty sure they had one with 2GB RAM & 250GB HDD for just over £350.

Think I started the last laptop purchase thread back in April!  I ended up with and acer aspire 3gb / 250gb hard drive, dual core processor for £380.  But they are down now to £350 I think.  Not had any problems.  Mind you I was transferring from a laptop which had 30gb hard drive s It didn't have much to live up to.

I now have a phone with more memory than my old computer.

I do like the Toshibas. Had one before and the build quality was pretty good.

Am I right in thinking the one in your first link is an x64 John?

If you're buying a cheap laptop you really want to make sure the build quality is good - I've had a few cheap laptops over the years which literally started falling apart after a year or so. Its not so important if you're going to use it more as a desktop but if you'll be moving it about a lot it is.

Yes sam its a 2.1ghz dual core Athlon (or Turion).

Cool. Thinking of possibly getting an x64 because I've got my hands on the Windows 7 x64 RTM. I'd rather that than Vista any day.

I ran trials on Win7 a few months back and was pleasantly surprised by it....x64....but be aware that when retail comes out in a few weeks the RTM's will have a period of grace of a few weeks and then cease to work fully or they will restart every 2 hours randomly.

But having tested Win7 I can confirm that it is 1000% more stable and nicer to use than Vista...even so I will be sticking with XP for a while yet :)

Windows 7 is a lot better than Vista speed and performance wise.  A mate has got the 64bit version on his 64bit laptop though and has had a few probs with it restarting and shutting down off the cuff!

You can buy mine if you want Sam? :) I'm selling the love of my life, it's a few years old, a bit tatty, but has never let me down, well, until a screw fell out last week, but that's fixed now.

It's a mildly upgraded Sony Vaio VGN S4XP (http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/laptops/75048/sony-vaio-vgn-s4xp) with port replicator. If you're interested just pm me and i can tell you more, unless i bottle it and keep it. :)

Also, my old man just bought a good laptop from Staples for £280 after knocking £20 off them, so might be worth sticking your head in there as they do seem to have some cheap lappers.

Goos shout on Staples, just had a look on their website and they've got a Compaq Presario with 3GB RAM, 160GB HDD and a 2.1Ghz Sempron for £300.

and you might get a free gift like a picnic hamper or some shortbread?

Deal breaker !

I think at the moment its a pannini maker!!!

Casn you tell Im in charge of stationary ordering at work?

I bought an acer AS5338 this weekend, 4GB RAM, 250 GB hard drive £379 in Tesco.  Don't ask me any follow up questions as I know nothing about computers.  Its brilliant compared to my 2001 desktop thing though.

I'd look round a bit more for a dual core processor.

As Doore says, Acer have some very nice laptops for the money, I know some people say adverse things about build quality but nobody I know has had issues.

Acers are fine IMO but I find its not so much the build quality as such but they do feel very flimsy in comparison, but spec wise they are fine.

What is eveyones opinion of ordering from Dell then? I was seriously thinking of this but as no-one has mentioned them yet i'm having second thoughts!

Ha ha ha good one GR.

Sussex swears by them.....but hes the only one ;)

The Dell lappy's still going strong three years later JJ. A whole 1gb of RAM and a 120gb HD. It's fucking awesome!  :)

I got a Dell 2 years ago and it's great, had no problems and it's got a beautiful 1920*1200 screen. Those toshibas are really ugly.

This is the one i was about to decide to buy,but they're sold out & the lower spec version of the AS5338 is alot of money more. Haven't found anywhere that sells the same spec as Tesco :( .

I had to go to three different stores to find one in stock.

*Bump*

Just to let you know I bought an Acer 5536 today. AMD X2 2.1Ghz, 3GB RAM, 250GB HDD and dedicated ATI Radeon graphics. All for £370 :)

Oh and I get an upgrade to W7 for £12.

Not a bad spec for less thna £400 notes. Think you'll find the graphics are integrated but it'll be good enough for high def videos and the 'sexy' Vista menus.

Yeah, it is onboard graphics. What a twat.

Runs quite nice after I've uninstalled all the Acer bloatware.

Dedicated graphics on laptops can be quite hit and miss anyway and I'm sure you didn't get it purely for games.

Going dual core is probably the best thing you can do for your laptop.

You cant beat ATI onboard graphics on lappys (unless you get 9800 nvidia), my sis in law just bought one with HD4000 graphics.....can play almost any game out there but a bit pricey at £800 :(

Should've saved and got a Mac

I read a piece in a pc magazine where they tried to outdo a Mac desktop for the same price. They based the article on a lot more than just sheer performance (a pc pound for perfomance will always win) and it was surprisingly close. So much so that the magazine almost recommended you just buy the Mac.

Apple is just as bad as Windows when it comes to cost and restictions though. If I had the patience or indeed could be arsed I'd switch to a Linux operating system for day to day tasks. Big up the open source goodness. I'll have to set up a dual boot system when I can be bothered one day.

In some ways Apple's worse. Just look at iTunes, and the iPod. Talk about sewing everything up tight and restricting everthing to something they make money from. I tried to remove iTunes the other day using a third party app and it warns you against it due to the way it's sewn so hard into the OS. Saying that though M$'s DRM crap that was launched with Vista, along with it's plans for becoming the iTunes of Video, has thankfully not taken hold.

Anything Apple is Satans own sputum.

Yep, Apple pretty much sucks goat. Trying to transfer my iTunes library from my old PC to my laptop proved to be a right pain in the arse.

iPhone ?

I'm not denying that I love my iPhone. Like all Apple products, if you use it the way they tell you it should be used it's great. But if you want to have say a custom message alert tone, like you could on a 15 year old Nokia, you can't do it as standard on an iPhone - it's always fiddly workarounds.

Stop meddling with it then.

If you want some gay custom message alert tone, go retro, get a 15 year old Nokia and stick your bloody Haddaway or whatever on it.

cant go wrong with Dell. ;)