Laptop buying help please

[Piglet]

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

[Lorry]

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?

[dukla]

My 6p

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.

Pretty much just a web-browser/email machine then?

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.

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?

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

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.

[Piglet]

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?   

[Lorry]

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

[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.

Linux copes fine with Microsoft Word, Excel & Powerpoint stuff as long as there are no fancy macros, also Acrobat docs etc.

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?

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 - 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 but would immediately format the disk to purge Vista and load SuSE Linux  (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 (only 512Mb RAM, 80Gb HDD but £330 and Core duo) and put Linux on it.

[dukla]

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

Looking at HotUKDeals turned up this Dell deal till 30th. 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.

[Lorry]

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
 
 
 

[Steve Pyro]

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/

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.

[rcutler]

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/

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.

[Robspot]

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.

[paulydee]

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  ) 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+  ). Also, our company uses Dell throughout, workstations and laptops, and have seen very few reliability issues across hundreds of machines.

[Steve Pyro]

....I'm also running Office 2007, and would say that i've had more grief with that than i have with Vista. .....

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

[Piglet]

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.   

[nopanic - neil]

How about this for small laptop, and cheap.

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



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.