Buying a laptop

[elbowpatches]

Any ideas on where to buy a decent laptop for under £500? Any advice on what to look for or how to get a decent deal would be appreciated.

 

[clippedgull]

WhatLaptop is a decent guide if you are clueless.

 

[Bozza]

If you only want to do web, email, music and photos anything around the £300 mark will do you fine.

 

[bhaexpress]

Seriously, consider a Mac too.

 

[seagulls4ever]

This laptop is QUALLA.

Toshiba A300D-13X Laptops - Cheap Toshiba Laptops.. Buy the Toshiba A300D-13X laptop at PC World.

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

get a ma.... oh no wait you said under £500 didn't you....

I'd recommend NOT going to PC World... after that I'm pretty stumped..

 

[Nibble]

If you are physically going to look around shops I highly recommend the LapTop shop at the top of Queens Rd. The two guys that run it are extremely helpful, order all the stock themselves and will give you great deals. Check it out. They will also install all software you like for £20.

 

[bhaexpress]

It's hard to beat a Dell, cheaper as it's direct sales only.

 

[TWOCHOICEStom]

It's hard to beat a Dell, cheaper as it's direct sales only.

To be honest, judging on the Dells both myself and my mates have had... I'd say it was pretty easy to beat Dell....

 

[elbowpatches]

I have a dell at the mo and it is ok but will be left at work before I start a new job. It is alright but can be slow.

Laptop shop sounds promising but I'm stuck in Cambridge for the mo

 

[brunswick]

ebay - IBM T41 with 1Gb Ram.

decent chip set, decent power management, light, light, small, quick, under £200.

 

[house your seagull]

i've just purchased a second hand powerbook g4 12" from a place here in manc. £300 and will piss on anything with windows.

this might turn intoa mac vs. pc binner.

 

[Arthritic Toe]

Buy a Toshiba, they are consistently great value for money. For example, this one from dabs.com:

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4YKF

 

[Scarface]

Got a 17" widescreen dell inspiron for £700 earlier this year and its been fine. Specced up more than you would need for basic browsing, there were plenty of much cheaper ones and that was 4-6 months ago.

Its also worth doing a search for online discount coupons. I had a quick look and found one, didnt think it would work but made a note of the number, put it in when I made the order and saved myself 10%!

 

[bhaexpress]

To be honest, judging on the Dells both myself and my mates have had... I'd say it was pretty easy to beat Dell....

Well the many hundreds I've worked on seem to be pretty reliable and easy to fix.

 

[beanbag]

i got mine from mesh computers on-line and its fantastic - highly recommend - i think the site is http://www.meshcomputers.co.uk

I also got an HP Pavilion from PC world which is a brilliant machine - not a great PC world fan but I can't knock this machine

 

[Aristotle]

Any ideas on where to buy a decent laptop for under £500? Any advice on what to look for or how to get a decent deal would be appreciated.

I got one last week - checked out 'what laptop' and in most categories they were recommending at least one from Acer. As it happens Amazon was (is?) doing a deal on the Acer Aspire 5920G. Got one for £450, reduce from £600. Have been very impressed so far - very quick, all the basics, and very good for multimedia (HD DVD, good graphics card, surround sound etc)

 

[Simster]

Maplin are doing a very small one with built-in Wi-Fi for £169.99
(code: A98HX)

 

[London Calling]

 

[pasty]

Don't go to Comet. Bought one for my step-daughters birthday in June and the power unit blew after about 10 days. Took it back and they said it would be away for 2 weeks. Got it back yesterday with a note "Power unit failed, unable to test further as password not supplied"

It took them 2 weeks to find that out, and not even bother to ask about passwords ? ? ?