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need some advise on Laptops


mplavery

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Hi people, Not having a good time at the mo :(, My Acer laptop died on me from just over two years of buying it, mother board has gone. NOT HAPPY Acer have wiped there hands with me too after spending £600 and due to the complications im having in my life at the mo this is the LAST thing i need stressing me out... but its my fault for not getting any extra warrenty with it..

 

Any how

 

I dont have the best of knowledge for whats the best processers etc etc to have so any help what you would choose would be great

 

This is the spec i had before

 

Processor: AMD Turion 64 MK-38 - 2.2GHz

Memory: 1024MB

Hard Drive: 120GB

Optical Drive: DVD-SM Super Multi

Graphics: nVidia GeForce Go 6100 128MB

Screen: 17" WXGA+

Network: Gigabit Ethernet / 802.11b/g Wireless

Card Reader: 5 -in-1 card reader supports SD/MS/MMC/MSPRO multimedia storage cards.

Web Cam: 0.3MP Orbicam, 5-in-1 Flash Memory Card Reader

Operating System: Windows Vista Home Premium

 

Now looking for another laptop i have noticed that PC World do refurbihed laptops and was wondering if people can give me some advise what to buy in this link of Pc Worlds refeb laptops

 

Dont really want to go any lower spec what i had before and i still want to have a 17" screen, my budget is £300 - £400

 

here is the link

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0358100263.1252530720@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccciadeifgkehemcflgceggdhhmdfhk.0&page=ProductList&category_oid=-28487&show_all=true#(any):(any):(any):(any):150:900:PageNo_0:SortOrder_DOWN

 

Thanks again people

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All depends what you want to do with the Laptop as to the spec you'll need.

 

My advice is get the cheapest you can. they all generally have the same bits in them anyway.

 

The main thing to watch out for is the processor. this is the biggy as most of the other hardware is upgradable.

 

Peter

 

Its for just general home use really mate, Just wonderd with the budget i have what would people get from the range....

 

cheers anyway mate

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Give Toshiba a wide bearth, my Satellite has been back under warranty many times, two yrs old and had the following replaced:

 

3 Mother boards

1 HDD

1 CPU

2 cooling fans

1 card reader

3 outer casings for screen (fatigue cracks)

 

Basically it's a pile of poop :D

I've had Toshiba laptops before that have been great, the feel and quality of this one however is a joke.

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Firstly what do you plan on using it for? Im guessing like most, bum around on the net, send some emails watch the odd video. If that is the case then a lowly spec will be more than enough.

 

You old one wasn't bad.

 

Secondly, don't even bother with the refurb option. You have seen what happens when lappies go wrong, they are expensive to fix, the less risk the better.

 

Thirdly, dont bother with PC world ;) shop online.

 

Brands, I get asked this on a weekly basis. There are two I can only recomend. HP and Toshiba. The tech support on them is superb, other brands imo is questionable.

 

You going to want 2GB+ ram, ideally more if you plan on running vista. Processor - 2.2GHZ plus, ideally intel based core 2 duo (slightly more than the AMD equivalence).

 

If your into music, films then a nice big hard disk, minimum nowadays is 120-250 ish. If not, then whatever you get you will not fill.

 

Unfortunately I do not build laptops, otherwise I could punt you something up, but if you find something, give me a shout and I can cast my eye over it for you :)

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Firstly what do you plan on using it for? Im guessing like most, bum around on the net, send some emails watch the odd video. If that is the case then a lowly spec will be more than enough.

 

You old one wasn't bad.

 

Secondly, don't even bother with the refurb option. You have seen what happens when lappies go wrong, they are expensive to fix, the less risk the better.

 

Thirdly, dont bother with PC world ;) shop online.

 

Brands, I get asked this on a weekly basis. There are two I can only recomend. HP and Toshiba. The tech support on them is superb, other brands imo is questionable.

 

You going to want 2GB+ ram, ideally more if you plan on running vista. Processor - 2.2GHZ plus, ideally intel based core 2 duo (slightly more than the AMD equivalence).

 

If your into music, films then a nice big hard disk, minimum nowadays is 120-250 ish. If not, then whatever you get you will not fill.

 

Unfortunately I do not build laptops, otherwise I could punt you something up, but if you find something, give me a shout and I can cast my eye over it for you :)

 

Sorry Damo, I thought you put them together aswell....:innocent:

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Give Toshiba a wide bearth, my Satellite has been back under warranty many times, two yrs old and had the following replaced:

 

3 Mother boards

1 HDD

1 CPU

2 cooling fans

1 card reader

3 outer casings for screen (fatigue cracks)

 

Basically it's a pile of poop :D

I've had Toshiba laptops before that have been great, the feel and quality of this one however is a joke.

 

Mate, just wait until your power cord fails and see how much they charge. I've almost gone through my second one now.

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i have a Sony Vaio VGN-A517S for around 4 years and never had a problem, still going strong!

i paid on that time £1400 for it.

very nice laptop.

costumer service from Sony is great, if for some reason you have a problem under warranty, they will cover all cost to repair inc delivery cost to.

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I wouldn't buy anything but acer. Theyre the best budget laptop IMO. The equivelant HP spec of my laptop is far more expensive than what i paid.

 

I can understand you having a bad taste in your mouth though, and technical support isn't usually an issue for me.

 

Have you had it for over 2 years or under 2 years, precisely?

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Mate, just wait until your power cord fails and see how much they charge. I've almost gone through my second one now.

 

 

LOL, forgot that one, yeah the power cord was the first to fail after about 9 months :D

Forgot what they wanted, about £60 I think but I ended up sending it back to head office and they replaced it under warranty after establishing that it wasn't misuse that caused it to fail :banghead:

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If you have a £400 budget then you should be able to get a decent DELL laptop.

They are very good machines & for the price bracket I would recommend them.

 

See of the Inspriation 15's below

 

http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home/laptops_great_deals/fs.aspx?refid=laptops_great_deals&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&~ck=mn

 

Crap for the money, celeron processors etc etc. A few years ago i would have said they were good value, they aren't now.

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I've used Toshiba's and HP's for several years (we buy them in for our users at work) and I've had no real issues with any of them.

 

take a look at http://www.ebuyer.com they usually have some pretty good deals going and you can filter the laptops out on price.

 

As others have said aim for 2gb+ RAM if using Vista, 2.0ghz+ Intel Duo Core if possible.

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I found the cheapest place to buy a laptop was comet :blink:

 

Quite strange but it was true in my case.

 

My pre-requisites for buying were:

 

Min 2ghz core2duo

Min 3gb ram (preferably DDR3)

Stand alone GFX

Min 300GB HDD

15-17" screen

Wireless-N

 

Other than that i wasn't really that fussed. The laptop's for that spec were all around the £500-£600 mark.

 

I got the Acer Aspire 6930G which ticked all the boxes other than DDR3 ram. I had a choice of DDR3 or a better processor. Decided on the processor.

 

My scores on the "Windows Experience Index" are:

 

Processor - 5.7

Memory - 5.7

Graphics Aero - 4.9

Gaming Graphics - 6.2

Primary Hard Disk - 5.3

 

IMO thats an unbelievable score for a laptop so i'm very chuffed.

 

Total price was £550 too.

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I agree on the HP / Toshiba front.

 

However, after having a mixure of them two and IBM's in the college I work in, (and a ibm thinkpad as my personal laptop for the past 10 years) I can strongly vouch for them.

 

Theyre the Volvo of all laptops, built like brick sh*t houes, excellent warranty (most come with 3 years), and theyre cheap too.

 

Last year I brought a refurbished R61 with the following:

 

2.2 core 2 duo

4gb ram

120gb hdd

dvd burner

wireless - 3g - bluetooth

6 cell battery

3 year warranty (remainder of)

nvidia quadro graphics and a screen res of 1440 x 900 on a 14 inch widescreen.

 

Its a year and a half old now and it still out performs new dells, advents, acers etc.

 

I paid £420 refurbished from an IBM outlet.

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