laptop imfo required please

[minty0_10]

right i now naff all about pc,s im after a laptop the only thing its going to be used for is storing photos and surfing the web so to speek. mainly for me to use when im away from home.

up not after anything fancy around £200 used or new
so can anyone give me a few tips as to what i will need ie, spec wise

[davegwynn]

right i now naff all about pc,s im after a laptop the only thing its going to be used for is storing photos and surfing the web so to speek. mainly for me to use when im away from home.

up not after anything fancy around £200 used or new
so can anyone give me a few tips as to what i will need ie, spec wise

Well, for storing photos and surfing the web you can use pretty much anything. If second hand, make sure it has >512MB of RAM and a >1Ghz processor, and then you will be sorted. Buying second hand laptops is always a bit of a gamble though. If you could stretch to £400, you can get a brand new dell Inspiron 6400 (plenty good enough for all your needs and what I am writing this on!, and a years warranty). I'm always a little wary of second hand laptops (having been burnt by ebay scammers in the past), but if you did get one I'd be happy to help sort it out for you. Also, you can get removable hard drives which are dead useful to store important stuff very cheaply now. Is always a bit sad when you drop the laptop and all your pictures are lost! Typical example, new cheap laptop has 60 GB hard drive (plenty big enough for pictures etc), but for £70 you can get 500GB external drives.

If you did get a new pc, absolutely any new pc of any kind will be vastly more powerful than you need, unless you want to play games/do lots of video editing etc. Don't let salespeople fool you. I'm a geek and computers have got really quick in the last couple of years. I built a go-faster specialist PC in 2005, and made it 1/3 faster than it should have been, and it is slower (processor wise) than the crappiest laptop dell sell nowadays.

If you did want second hand then something like this:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/IBM-THINKPAD-X30-P111-LAPTOP_W0QQitemZ290128029517QQihZ019QQcategoryZ177 QQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
from ebay would suit you fine. Stick to brands like Acer, toshiba and IBM and you won't go far wrong. If you do get a machine like this, make sure it doesn't say 'windows installed for demonstration only' because that probably means that they haven't bought a code for it, and you will have to give microsoft £130 to get it working. (Unless you reinstall windows, pm me if you need a hand)


Hell, I'm going to stop writing now.

Cheers,

Dave

[RickT]

Hi,

In my own opinion, keep away from the low end Dell PC's due to their customer service.. (but thats just me).

If you want an ideal plug and play laptop with wireless lan, good for using the office package, internet, photos, and a general tool for getting online while away..

PC World... (yes PC WORLD), have some good deals, you get 12 months PC World warrenty, plus manafactory

have a look below to see what £299.00 can get you...

I know is above budget, but you are getting a little laptop which will work for you..

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0182454647.118186148 6@@@@&BV_EngineID=cccgaddlekljhdjcflgceggdhhmdfhm.0&page=Product&sku=922725&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&tabIndex=1

Features for this EI SYSTEMS 3089 http://www.pcworld.co.uk/store_doc/images/spacer.gif-Intel Celeron M 420 Processor 1.66GHz-533MHz-1MB Cache-256MB RAM-40 GB Hard Drive-DVD ReWriter MultiDrive-15.4" Widescreen Display-Microsoft Windows XP Home-64MB Intel UMA Integrated Graphics-1 year FREE warranty
Specification for this EI SYSTEMS 3089 http://www.pcworld.co.uk/store_doc/images/spacer.gifProcessor TypeINTEL CELERON M 420 Processor speed1.66 mhzMemory Size256 MBMemory TypeDDR2 Hard Drive Capacity40 GbOptical DrivesDVD +/- RW Drive CD-ROM Speed48 xCD-RW Speed.24 xDVD-ROM Speed24 xDVD-RW Speed8 xFloppy Disk DriveNoScreen Size/Type15.4" Graphics Card TypeINTEL UMA Graphics MemoryUp to 64 UMA MBTV-outNoSound TypeAC97 Modem Type56k Wireless EnabledYesNo. of USB Connections3 No. of Firewire Connections0 Infrared Port IncludedNoOther InterfacesExpress Card Slot Battery TypeLI-ION Battery life (up to)2 hoursSoftware Titles IncludedWorks 8.5 Operating systemXP HOME Weight2.8 kgHeight36 mmWidth358 mmDepth258 mmColourBLACK






RICKT





RicKT

[davegwynn]

'tis a good point about dell customer service, I guess at least with PC world you have someone to shout at face to face if it goes wrong.

I've had a look at ebay, and there are actually a load of reasonable refurbished laptops in the £100-200 range. A lot of these companies offer 30 day rtb warranties too!

[Captain Answer]

I'd rather have an abacus than a 2nd hand laptop, every person I know who's bought one has been burned.

Save some cash and get a VAIO :D

[dessimpson]

My first laptop cost me £1300 and served me well when i was abroad for a few months but when i came back i hardly used it as i got a laptop from work.
The battery died due to lack of use and the whole thing packed in a few months ago. Just out of warranty :mad:

I bought a little dell c400 on ebay for £170. 1.2 Ghz PIII mobile, 512Mb of ram and XP pro (legal copy). It's a great size and weighs next to nowt. The
only bad thing is that the cd/dvd is external and the cable is pretty short. That doesn't really bother me as i just install games then get the modified
.exe file from gamecopyworld so you can play it without the disk.

As you can probably tell i only bought it to amuse me when i'm away from home and it's more than up to that task. I kept the hdd from my broken laptop
and put it in a caddy and now rip the odd dvd onto it to take with me. :D

[Dozz]

I've got 2 I've got a ROCK extreme ctx pro for gaming and the such cost a bomb so to save it from taking a beating when I do stuff on the car I got a re-furbed Dell Latitude 100L from ebay. Came wireless ready 512 meg of ram a 30 gig hard drive with a legal copy of xp pro It would do what you want it to do and only cost 240 delivered. Got a few scratches but runs well and if i drop it.............HOINK!!! straight in the bin!!!!! Only thing the seller made it very clear they don't guarantee the battery. Seems to last an hour OK and there only 40 quid of ebay so I'll wait till it's down to 15 Min's and just get another one

[minty0_10]

well thanks all for the imfo so far i think i have a better idea as to what i need. i think i will probably end up buying a new one. like said its always better to have someone to shout at when things go wrong. 1 other thing how long do the batterys last?

[RickT]

Just remember... if you are wanting to keep it simple buy a cheapy.. dont get stucked in!!

RickT

[Sam]

well thanks all for the imfo so far i think i have a better idea as to what i need. i think i will probably end up buying a new one. like said its always better to have someone to shout at when things go wrong. 1 other thing how long do the batterys last?

My 4 year old HP battery is now only lasting an hour and half at most. It used to run for 6 hours solid.

Make sure you use them (the battery) 'til they're completely empty and then charge them fully to preserve battery life.