Club Arnage

Help please!!

I'm after a cheap laptop - I've got a decent desktop machine kitted out to edit video and I want a laptop to allow me to surf the internet from the sofa and to work remotely over the work vpn without having to be next to the main PC. I don't need to be able to burn DVDs, play games or run video, I'm probably not even going to store very much on it.

I've looked at Del and (yuck) PC World but I am really out of touch with what spec is reasonable and what laptop might last me a couple of years.

What about Vista - good, bad? I'm happy with XP which seems to be an option with Dell?

Price is a pretty big issue so the cheaper the better but I'm aware that the cheapest isn't always the right solution.

Any thoughts on http://www.laptopshop.co.uk/compaq_hp-6720s-hp_672...

I used to work for HP and my last lappy was HP....

Cheers

I've been thinking about buying one too, again nothing exotic, as something to hook up to the camera to burn CDs, surf, play DVDs & MP3s and a little engine management adjustment.  So I'm interested to see what's said.

The secondhand market does look expensive now the £250 laptop is here, but I wonder how robust these are.  My wifes Dell was about £400 a year ago and isn't dual core.  It seems better than my works one that is a 1.8G dual which must have cost twice as much and looks cheap and nasty.  Dell do have some cheap laptops in their business section.

Has anyone used Vista?

My 6pPretty much just a web-browser/email machine then?Figure Dell & PC World are no bad thing for establishing a baseline that you should be able to improve on with a bit more effort. And often recommend Dell to 'novices' because you actually can get customer support. But agree with your reservations.

It seems there are quite a few folks trying to meet the £299 price-point at the moment, with a couple at £279 or so. From a spec point of view they are pretty much all 15" monitor, 80 or 120Gb HDD, 512Mb RAM (maybe 1024), have wireless LAN and some form of optical drive. The thing that floats my boat is the CPU - virtually all are Celeron M which is not great on a performance/battery life curve. Personally would look for a mobile AMD but they are scarce, but have to admit (despite being an AMD fanboy) that the Intel Core-2 duo is probably the real thing for good oomph/battery life. Unfortunately that 'requirement' bumps you up to more like a £399 price-point.

Based on sofa usage weight may well be an issue - unfortunately shaving significant amounts of weight costs significant cash. But may be worth comparing the weight of those at your price point and maybe saving 300g by having one with no optical drive or floppy at all?
I would avoid Vista like the plague - still relatively new, buggy but especially bloated. How about Linux? Could be worth a look if Firefox & Thunderbird will meet 99% of your needs, and epecially if you can get £20-£50 off the price for a 'no-OS' version.

Cheers Dukla

Very much only for web browsing and for connecting to work.   I need to read documents for work but would probably switch back to the main PC with big screen to do that and at the moment I only work from home occasionally.

What about this......http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Lenovo_3000_N200_0769_TY2BMUK/version.asp

From Googling Lenovo seem to get good rep AND it's XP?   

Thanks for the comment on Vista.  Dell want another £30 for XP, it could be worth it.  I hear that Vista is memory hungry, and 512m is a bit light for XP

Linux copes fine with Microsoft Word, Excel & Powerpoint stuff as long as there are no fancy macros, also Acrobat docs etc.Looks like a damn fine baseline to try and beat. I like the 1Gb RAM and XP as well as card reader. The camera and fingerprint reader are candy. 2.7Kg seems to be the ballpark as well. Similar but slightly different is Novatech (http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NNB-559) - you get 2Gb but no OS. Actually I figure 512Mb RAM is fine for basic XP stuff (or Linux), 1Gb is tons and 2Gb is candy.

IIRC Lenovo started as a joint venture IBM and/or Toshiba to create a 'value' line without trashing their main product, so yes, is arguably better than some weird brand. But then again there are actually very few laptop motherboard & case manufacturers and even Dell, HP et al are sourcing from these few.

Lorry - paying Dell extra to provide XP instead of Vista is something that I figure should actually be classed as extortion - it is patently sponsored by Microsoft for their corporate reasons rather than user benefit. However Dell do have a bit of upside that they will ship with Ubuntu (often quite hard to find as they try not to anger Micro$oft) and also usually have vouchers or specials that keep them very competitive.

ps - was just browsing Dell and a few others to see if I could find a 'must buy'. Didn't find a killer - did see that lenovo is £420 at Dabs. As an AMD fanboy may be tempted by this HP at Dabs (http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4V3Y&CategorySelectedId=11105&NavigationKey=11105,43570000#specifications) but would immediately format the disk to purge Vista and load SuSE Linux  ;D (did you guess I am a Linux fanboy yet!)

pps - based on my prejudice that I hate Microsoft more than Intel, if I had to buy today I may well go for something like this Toshiba (http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4TGS&CategorySelectedId=11105&NavigationKey=11105,46400000) (only 512Mb RAM, 80Gb HDD but £330 and Core duo) and put Linux on it.

Cheez - I've started and this is more fun than my tax return!  :)

Looking at HotUKDeals (http://www.hotukdeals.com/?pagenumber=2&page=2) turned up this Dell deal till 30th. (http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=uk&fb=1&l=en&oc=N0110007&s=dhs) Dual core AMD mobile, 2Gb RAM, 120Gb HDD, XP at no extra cost. If you change the warranty to 1 year basic, you can clock the CPU up to the TL58 and still get 5p change from £335.

I had a quick look and found this

VostroTM 1000
15.4" Display - Windows Vista® Home Premium, 1 GB Memory & 80 GB Harddrive Price From  £189 + VAT (£33)

Dual core (AMD) and XP are both another £30
 
 
 

We've always had Dell PCs at home (and Mrs B has a Dell laptop supplied by her employer - Microsoft, BTW) http://blogs.technet.com/eileen_brown/ (http://blogs.technet.com/eileen_brown/)

We've always found them very good on price and performance.

My friend up the road ordered a Dell laptop, recently, on line Friday, delivered the following Tuesday.  Dell do a base Celeron laptop for close to £300.  He went for a bit of future proofing - Intel Core 2 Duo at 2 GHz with 2 GB RAM, 160 GB memory, 15.4 TFT screen, wireless ready, etc etc, £399 (Dell are having 10% discounts running at the moment on certain products).

As regards Vista, Microsoft advise 2GB ram (which is included in the Dell above).  I run Vista Ultimate on this PC without problems, my better half has run Vista since it was being Alpha tested (Vista service pack 1 is currently in Beta).
A lot of the perceived issues with Vista problems is down to third party hardware and software providers not being quick enough off the mark writing driver updates for Vista (as opposed to XP).  Microsoft always provide the relevant code to third party vendors well before the release of a new operating system so that this problem is avoided - the fact that the third parties can't be arsed is not Microsoft's fault surely.  This very same scenario occured a few years ago when XP replaced Windows 98 / 2000 / ME.

My parents got the Lenovo C3000 Laptop a couple of months ago and it is really good. The only problem was it only had 512Mb of RAM, if you are going to run Vista it really must be 1Gb but I would recommend 2Gb, it is actually quite cheap to upgrade, usually cheaper then the manufacturer!

Dell are good but you have to watch the bits they can cut corners on, weight, battery life etc.

Bought Dell at work for about 5 years now. Spec's are good, prices are low.

As with all computer equipment it's best to spend as much as you can but if you're tight for cash then memory comes first, then processor then disk speed.

I've got Vista on my new Dell and have had no problems at all but then XP is just as good.

You must buy extended support with Dell though as nearly every bit of kit I have bought has had something go wrong during it's life. They replace everything immediately but it's a necessary extra cost. Go for Next Business Day otherwise you'll be sending it back yourself.

I'm not sure but I think most other manufacturer's base warranties are pretty crappy as well.

I've been running a Dell Inspiron 6400 for about 9 months, on Vista, with 1GB memory and all seems fine to me. I'm reasonably computer-literate (even if i say so myself  ;D) and have a pretty good idea what i'm buying. Vista seems fine, it does take a bit more effort to tweak than XP did, but probably no more than Ford Focus owners found after trading in their Escort.....  :)

I'm also running Office 2007, and would say that i've had more grief with that than i have with Vista. Vista is known to have some compatibility issues with old hardware/software, but i've not found any problems with anything i use. I bought it through the business side of the Dell website, which offered the exact same machine as the personal user side but about £50 cheaper, even taking vat into account (so bought a longlife battery, 6hrs+  :o). Also, our company uses Dell throughout, workstations and laptops, and have seen very few reliability issues across hundreds of machines.

Service Pack 1 now available for Office 2007 http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9EC51594-992C-4165-A997-25DA01F388F5&displaylang=en (http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=9EC51594-992C-4165-A997-25DA01F388F5&displaylang=en)

Rightho - thanks all - I'm just about to order the Dell Vostra from Dukla's link.  £431 (but 5% Quidco cashback on that), including XP Pro (I'm a creature of habit...), 3 years onsite warranty (thanks Mr Brown for the reminder), mouse, middle spec processor and "Truelife" screen.  Could have gone for the cheaper spec but hopefully this gives me what I need.   

How about this for small laptop, and cheap.

http://eeepc.asus.com/uk/product.htm

(http://eeepc.asus.com/uk/images/701f.jpg)

I know someone who has brought one, not sure is views on it, but aiming to look at the laptop at the weekend.

Good for travelling.

Surely you mean this one, Neil?

(http://images-eu.amazon.com/images/P/B0000SVQY6.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg)

Ha Ha Ha,

I've checked that out already. - And guess what - it does not windows! So it's no good -  ;D

I like the look  of the of the Asus but I wouldn't want one in place of a laptop.   To me it seems to be more of a replacement for my IPAQ rather than a laptop replacement.

If I was only surfing on it I guess it would be fine, but as I need to connect to the vpn to work etc. I think that might be a problem and the screen and keyboard would be tricky for document work.

I'd like one "as well" though  ;D

Anyway, back to me what about the Dell I've ordered?  Please tell me it's OK?  ;D

Anita, I've had no real experience of AMD based machines (always had Intel inside).  I assume from your post you went for the Turion.

2 GB RAM should be very good with XP (I'm running 4GB on this Intel Xeon 64-bit machine with Vista - but the RAM modules seem to always run at no more than 50% capacity).  I have a Pentium 3 machine running 512 kB with XP and a Pentium 4 running 1.5 GB on XP so you shouldn't ever run out of resources.

120 GB hard drive is plenty for a laptop - assume you'll store large files on AN Other PC / hard drive.

Did you upgrade the battery to the 6 cell? - has the same form factor as the 4 cell but nearly twice the capacity.

It's got inbuilt 802.11b/g wireless, all you need is a wireless modem / modem router if you haven't already - don't forget to set WEP security to stop your neighbours nicking your ADSL.

Do you currently VPN to work with a card reader?

Thanks Steve, yes I went for the Turion - I have no idea of the difference between the Athlon and the Turion but it was only a few quid more (I guess that's how Dell make their money!).   I'm hoping that as I'm planning to do very little on the machine (relatively) that the processor will be fine for the job...

Storage will be on my main PC or on one of the collection of external drives that KK has attached to various bits of our network, the idea of storage anything of note or of value on a laptop has always worried me and we tend to store everything in duplicate to avoid problems.

I went for the six cell battery, I found a couple of reviews etc. where the performance of the four cell was criticised, I wonder whether I should have gone for the nine cell and not bothered with the screen upgrade but tis done now. 

For work I have one of those fobby things that creates a password every 30 seconds so I don't have to plug anything in. 

We have a wireless router anyway (with a WEP key) so that's OK (as an aside, my friend's kids (who don't have broadband because they are "between houses") have worked out that if they take their PSP's and sit outside my Dad's window they can connect to his wireless (they have the WEP key as they use it when they visit) - Dad is away at the moment so I think has a garden full of 13 year old boys!   They've been warned - download nasties and we'll change the encryption!!  ;D )

I'd stay away from Vista if you're used to XP, and still using it elsewhere. Got one Vista in the family, and always gives the most problems. Was bought with a brandnew Dell lappy last year, so I'd figure the trouble doesn't come from incompatible hardware. ;)

Dell is very much prefered for lappy's at work, the displays are truly awesome. Lenovo is what used to be IBM, not bad either. Our main shareholder is pushing us towards the Lenovo's at the moment, we will have to live with it.

The Turion is the special mobile processor from AMD based on the Athlon, as where the Celeron M is based on the less powerfull Celeron processor.

No real reason for staying off Vista now - after all, XP will be phased out at some point on the future so you'll have to get it sooner or later. I have one Vista PC, it really isn't that different to XP - really "look and feel" rather than functional changes, for your average user. And most routine software is now compatible.

And on wireless security, I don't bother with WEP keys, I just only allow specifed MAC addresses, and don't broadcast SSID or whatever it is. I had a hole in my secority once before, and a guy about 15 houses along the road from me had got in. On the basis of that, there are probably getting on 100 houses in the same radius who could have used my connection. Weren't BT trying to promote the idea of leaving your wireless open for all and sundry to use?

Hmmmm....Vista and Office 2007.

According to Microsoft/Hp etc, they recommend 2Gb of RAM to use Vista and Ofifce 2007, so you need 2Gb of RAM to write a letter!!

<cynical mode off>

Anita, your spec of PC shopuld be seriously more than needed to meet your requirements! If I'd read this earlier I'd have recommended a much lower spec machine (even a second hand one I have available for £100  ;)) but you will be seriously futureproof with what you will get!

Memory is pretty cheap at the momemnt so I'd recommend a memory upgrade (but you'll need to change some system settings to make XP recognise more than 3Gb.

6 Cell Battery.......very good idea. What's the point of having a "laptop" if you need to plug it in every couple of hours!

Cheers Mark, the trouble is I'm a closet gadget freak so I always end up over spec'ing!  I have no idea why I paid an extra 17 quid for Truelife screen ???

Having said that my first laptop still works now and I bought that in 1999 when I went back to Uni!   It was a stonkingly expensive and light (for it's time) HP which I got on employee purchase just before I left HP. 

I'm hoping to put Office 2007 onto this one with the XP Pro so hopefully it should do me a good few years of sofa surfing and working from home in my pyjamas! 

Estimated delivery date of 14/2 for new toy  ;D

Anita, if you're used to the layout of the drop down tabs / menus etc of Office XP / 2003 etc, Office 2007 looks 'different' (all the features are there though).  It'll take you a few days to feel comfortable with it (I'm currently going through that 'migration' process).

Ditto. Except I'm not starting to feel comfortable with it. I hate it.

Granted there are some great new features in 2007 but I can't bloody find anything!

Rob, from the 'Help' section in Word 2007 -

Steve, I'm there with you, man! This is what it must feel like when you join AlcoAnon and you realise other people can't handle their booze either  ;D It really is just a question of persevering, after a while you start to remember that things which were in 'x' menu on 2003 now appear inside the 'y' tab on 2007. I've actually got to quite like it now; just need to remember that those with pre-2007 office cannot immediately open 2007 documents (.doc becomes .docx, .xls beomes .xlsx etc etc) without them installing a patch. Hey ho.

If you have get use to a new menustructure anyways, give Openoffice a try. It does the same as an MS Office, can op MS Office files as long as don't have to much fancy macro's in them, but costs nothing.
The main reason people in our company don't like Openoffice is because they can't find the menupoints on instinct, but they still want MS Office 2007, which has the same problem. So if they want a new thing I just give them Openoffice in stead. ;D

Oh great, so I've gone for the safe option of sticking with XP but lumbered myself with software that requires a learning curve  ;D

Maybe I'll stick with 2003 for now - I don't like change  8)

By way of update, shiny new Dell laptop appeared last Tuesday, the advantage of Dell is that it all worked out of the box and (for a non tekkie) was easy to set up.    MS Office 2007 arrived midweek and is now on there, I've had a bit of a play with Word but haven't had to do anything substantial.  I think the new menu system seems to  make sense but ask me again once I've tried to work on it! 

NOW I'm on the scrounge....I've donated my old HP laptop to my nephew who just wants something to chat to his friends without leaving the sofa (bit like his aunt really!).....but I'm in big trouble as my friend's twin boys REALLY want a laptop to use and apparently had plans for my old one but got beaten to it!!

Does anyone have an old laptop that they'd be prepared to flog off for a few quid?  The kids just need something with basic graphics and a wireless card that will do basic surfing and stuff (mainly You Tube and porn I imagine - they are 13 year old boys!). 

Cheers!

Anita. You are a month too early. I am planning on buying a new one end of March time. If you havn't got one by then I will have one for you

That would be fab if you have Bob?  I'll keep you updated - can you let me know what it is and what you'd want for it? 

It is a Hewlitt Packard notebook. I don't know offhand what spec it is but will find out when I get home. It hasn't got a wireless caed but usus a Belkin thingy that plugs into a USB port.
The reason I am waiting until the end of March is that I intend to buy myself a new pair of skis when we are away in March and until I know what I spend on the skis I won't know how much I will have to spend on a laptop.

As for selling price - I would think a crate of beer at Le Mans would surfice

Thanks Bob, that sounds very much like my old HP that has just been recycled to the nephew - that has a plug in wireless thingie as well. 

We'll wait until you've spent your ski money and see what happens from there.

Cheers  ;D

HP in my opinion.... superb! XP suits me too!
PP