Jav_NE Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 Right, i'm buying a laptop with the price range of only up to £500. Now, i know there's not much choice but i was wondering if i could get your opinion. I've been teetering on getting a Dell from their website. If i make one with the stuff i'd need i think it comes to £440. the question i have is, are Dell's any good? My g/f's dad seems to think they are prone to problems with poor customer support. The problem is, the only other options are makes i've never heard of and don't trust anyway, like some EI Systems laptops from PC World. Or do you know of any offers at the moment? I just need it for internet access and word purposes really, though a nice quality screen for watching DVD's would be nice, and being able to burn DVD's would be good. Memory isn't so much an issue but i guess it helps performance. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shorty Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 A few of my friends, my sister and my cousin all have Dell notebooks and have never had problems with them, in fact they've all been pretty impressive, though sub-£500 leaves out the best ones. I don't usually have much love for Dell but they seem to do notebooks better than desktops. Never thought I'd suggest this but... have you considered the dark side? For your purposes you might find it ideal. Plus, all the cool kids are doing it these days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caris Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 Shorty i wish you would stop talk about macs in every post . refurbished macbooks on the apple store are gr8 value. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jav_NE Posted January 31, 2007 Author Share Posted January 31, 2007 Macs are too expensive, though i do like them. Whats the difference between desktops and notebooks? I know £500 is tight but it's all i can afford for the time being. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Charlie Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 I assume you mean laptops and notebooks as a desktop is a big tower PC with a separate monitor. Laptops and notebooks are the same thing with a different name, basically notebooks are the ones that get too hot to put on your lap so they call them notebooks instead. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caris Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 Macs are too expensive, though i do like them. Whats the difference between desktops and notebooks? I know £500 is tight but it's all i can afford for the time being. £550 Macbook? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thirtynine. Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 you will get a beter spec laptop for the price of a mac. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ten10 Posted January 31, 2007 Share Posted January 31, 2007 from experience if you want a coolwe laptop go with an intel based one, If you want to go for power but don't mind overheat issues down the road go for an amd based one. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
McPhee Posted February 1, 2007 Share Posted February 1, 2007 http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk Should find what you're looking for on there and you wont be limited to Dell or paying the PC World mark-up. An Acer or Fujitsu-Siemens would probably fit the bill the best Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pookiablo Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 Go with Dell, they sell some very nice and reliable laptops and are usually cheaper than everywhere else in regards to what you get. Furthermore they do a lot of offers such as free double memory which is a great bonus! Plus their customer service is very good. I bought a Dell XPS notebook last summer. Although it cost me almost £1300, I use it for gaming and it actually performs better than most of my friends desktops. Back to the topic, I'd recommend Dell. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emasher Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 if you can add about 50-75 pounds to your budget you could get a mac book Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Choze Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 macbooks are great. The normal macbooks are competitively priced. Although i think the Pro's are abit expensive but nicer. Check out Samsung too. They do great small lightweight notebooks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pit-Jr Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 Dell is a good choice. I actually have a sub-500 Dell laptop for over a year and havent had any problems with it. You might want to wait until they have them preloaded with Vista though, because they keep bugging me to upgrade Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
That dude Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 There are plenty of great dell laptops with Vista. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Choze Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 Some of Dell's stuff is killer. Lenovo are also good for business type laptops. HP have a killer tablet/laptop right now called TX1020. Also check out Sony. Models like the SZ series have no competition as they are lightweight yet powerful. You have to pay for the honour however. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jav_NE Posted February 20, 2007 Author Share Posted February 20, 2007 Thanks guys, i went with laptopsdirect in the end and got me a B-series Sony Vaio Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Choze Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 Thanks guys, i went with laptopsdirect in the end and got me a B-series Sony Vaio Let us know what you think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jasper Posted February 25, 2007 Share Posted February 25, 2007 you will get a beter spec laptop for the price of a mac. You know (here I am all mac again), hardware is as good as it's software. Macs might not be the most powerfull books in the world, but they've got a great, optimized, operating system. So you can do things as good on a mac as on a 'better' windows computer. That's why you're wrong, thirtynine. And your avatar annoys me like hell. Anyway, it scares the hell out of me. I've got a iBook G4 and compared to recent windows computers mine is as fast as a nine-medal olympic runner. Compared to the bronze medal for the 100-meter, that is. Sorry. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ginger_Chris Posted February 26, 2007 Share Posted February 26, 2007 You know (here I am all mac again), hardware is as good as it's software. Macs might not be the most powerfull books in the world, but they've got a great, optimized, operating system. So you can do things as good on a mac as on a 'better' windows computer. That's why you're wrong, thirtynine. And your avatar annoys me like hell. Anyway, it scares the hell out of me. Its called linux my friend. (writing this on 3 year old P4 3.2Ghz, 1024Mb, Radeon 9600M laptop) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Stefkov Posted February 26, 2007 Share Posted February 26, 2007 I really want a laptop, a cheap powerful one. One that would run photoshop but also WoW and other games. However I dont know what to look for. I've had my mind set on an alienware for a while, however flicking through a laptop magazine in WHSmith said the battery life for one of them was 88 minutes. I remember a long while ago Jordan posted a pic of the latop he had, someone else had the same howerver I cant remember what it was. I wish I knew what to look for for my specs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caris Posted February 28, 2007 Share Posted February 28, 2007 I really want a laptop, a cheap powerful one. One that would run photoshop but also WoW and other games. However I dont know what to look for. I've had my mind set on an alienware for a while, however flicking through a laptop magazine in WHSmith said the battery life for one of them was 88 minutes. I remember a long while ago Jordan posted a pic of the latop he had, someone else had the same howerver I cant remember what it was. I wish I knew what to look for for my specs. It was me, and just make sure it hasnt got intergrated graphics, look for Geforce go in the specs. If you need any info just PM me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Stefkov Posted February 28, 2007 Share Posted February 28, 2007 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5200 (1.60 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB) Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium Basic Package, 2 Year At-Home Service 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™ 1024MB 533MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x512) 160GB (5,400 rpm) Sata Hard Drive Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software 256MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1400 HyperMemory™ graphics card (Is this any good?) Caris I took your advice and went onthe Deel website and this was conjured up. The RAM and the HDD are upgraded, offer ending today. I just had a chat with my dad who sounds like hes trying to persuade me out of getting a laptop. I really want tone, but I actually cant think of any other eason for getting one. MY pc is alright its not struggling. I dont need one for Uni fora while. But I want one, and thats not a valid enough reason damn. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCK Posted February 28, 2007 Share Posted February 28, 2007 The graphics card is not stellar. You should get at least an X1600 or 7600 (GF) for any real graphical performace. An X1400 is as good as an integrated chip. Also, if it says 'HyperMemory technology', it's PR-talk for this chip is cheapass. The rest of the system is ace though. What's your target price? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Stefkov Posted February 28, 2007 Share Posted February 28, 2007 Damn right thanks. Thats annoyed me. Gotta look for a new one now. What about a 128MB NVidia GeForce 6100 Graphics? Thats on the laptop Caris bought. That comes with AMD Turion 64 X2 TL 50 Processor 1.6GHz though, thats not a very good chip isnt it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DCK Posted February 28, 2007 Share Posted February 28, 2007 Damn right thanks. Thats annoyed me. Gotta look for a new one now. What about a 128MB NVidia GeForce 6100 Graphics? Thats on the laptop Caris bought. That comes with AMD Turion 64 X2 TL 50 Processor 1.6GHz though, thats not a very good chip isnt it? CPU is fine (though Core 2 Duo is much better), but if the type number ends in something below blabla-600-blabla for either brand, it's only suited for office work. For WoW and Photoshop you should really look for the X1600Pro or 7600GS or up. Thing is, GPUs are especially pricey in laptops because they're not sold seperately. Therefore, powerful chips only come with powerful other hardware, making the package far more expensive. If you could wait though, it might be worth it to wait for the DirectX 10-compatible chips to come out. They should make things run more smoothly and be more powerful for their price in general. EDIT: I've found the first laptop you posted and you can upgrade the graphics to a 7900GS, which is a great chip. It's pricey though. The system now comes with a free extra gigabyte of RAM (at least in the NL) which is excellent for Vista. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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