OT - what's the best laptop to get for £500 or under?

[Mendoza]

Any other recommendations? I'm looking at buying one today.

Just seeing if theres any other ones cropped up in last few months since this thread was started

Needs to be good for video editting (camera films .mts files), my pold laptop used to struggle a bit. Dont want to pay too much more than £500

 

[Billy Whizzkid]

I bought this decent Toshiba laptop for just £250. Ideal for web surfing, e-mails and media storage. Probably not a good idea if you want to play hi-spec games though.

As I have under 25 posts I cannot post the link apparently so you'll need to go to the Sainsburys (yes Sainsburys!) website and search for "Toshiba Satellite C660-15Z Intel Celeron M925 2GB/250GB 15.6" Black Notebook"

 

[desprateseagull]

i'm looking at this HP one, £249 from currys, £249 (seems to be the same price everywhere?!)

HP G62-451SA Core i3 laptop with 3GB memory - Black buy online | Currys

>HP G62 451A
>Intel i3 core processor
>3gb ram, 320 h/d
>LED widescreen
>HDMI, 3 x usb
>, wofi b/g/n,
>card reader
>

 

[Billy Whizzkid]

Looks like a decent machine - big discount too! No need to spend £500 when the likes of these are knocking about.

 

[CheeseRolls]

What are people's views on Asus EEE PC Netbooks?

Anyone in this price range should seriously consider Asus. I have a 10" EEE at home 2 years old and an EEE tablet 6 months old, both are great little machines. Mine are used by my kids one runs Ubuntu and one Android, but there are also plenty of Windows models available.

 

[djm21]

I got my Acer Aspire 5742 series for about £400 odd reduced in Argos. Perfectly happy with it.

 

[Sausage]

Acer 5738. Very pleased with it. (couple of years old so maybe they don't make this model anymore - but I'd recommend Acer).

Got an Acer Aspire One notebook and that's good as well.

 

[Springal]

I'd avoid anything with an i3 processor if you want to do anything remotely difficult. Plenty out there for a smidge over £500 that will keep you going for a couple of years at least, and be decent enough to do most tasks!

 

[Springal]

I recently told these were pretty good. Note prices aren't guaranteed to be the best, but are from reputable retailers so do your own shopping around:

HP Probook 4530s Core i5 2410M 2.3GHz 4GB 320GB 15.6 Windows 7 Professional Laptop (LH282EA) - dabs.com

Lenovo G570 Core i5-2410M 4GB 500GB DVD-RW 15.6 Windows 7 Home Premium (M513FUK) - dabs.com

HP Pavilion G6-1155sa Laptop - Laptops | Ebuyer.com

Samsung RC520 Laptop - Laptops | Ebuyer.com

Dell Inspiron 15R — Read Reviews, Specs, & More! | Dell UK

 

[The Original]

Hewlett Packard (HP) g6 - 1061sa / Core i3-380M / 4GB / 500GB / 15.6 inch / Windows 7 Home Premium / Laptop / Notebook (PC Shop)

Bought one of these about 3 months ago (£409 on Play.com) and has been fantastic purchase. Spent a bit of time researching in this price range and this kept coming up as a top buy.

Also if you need MS Office software you can save yourself a fortune at software4students (assuming you, or a family member, or your dog/rabbit/guinea pig are eligible )

 

[Pondicherry]

According to Novembers PC Advisor - the best at around £500 is the Samsung RV511.

Intel Core i3 CPU
6GB RAM
640 GB Hard Disk
15.6 in screen
nvidea geforce 315M
Battery Life 5 hours

The Lenova G570 (listed in post above) is their top laptop but retails at £599 according to them.

 

[Easy 10]

Anyone in this price range should seriously consider Asus. I have a 10" EEE at home 2 years old and an EEE tablet 6 months old, both are great little machines. Mine are used by my kids one runs Ubuntu and one Android, but there are also plenty of Windows models available.

I ended up buying an Asus lappy, its red and everything.

VERY happy with it.

 

[8ace]

Anyone in this price range should seriously consider Asus. I have a 10" EEE at home 2 years old and an EEE tablet 6 months old, both are great little machines. Mine are used by my kids one runs Ubuntu and one Android, but there are also plenty of Windows models available.

This is what I got in the end, with Windoze on was about £250. Thing is I'd prefer Ubuntu but would like to have Windoze as well on a partition - problem is I don't have a backup copy of Windoze to install once I've installed Ubuntu :\

 

[Falkor]

i have the aspire 5336 and i really like it.

 

[Bedsex]

Just ordered a refurbed packard bell easynote ts11 hr 040uk through the currys website. It has an i5-2410m processor, 4gb of ram, 500gb hard drive and includes a USB 3.0 port. I thought this looked like good value at £350.

 

[desprateseagull]

or therels this Lenovo G5603, £234 at viking, with a free laptop bag- quidco doing 9% cashback too.. might tease the guys at pc world with this one, ,hehe

Lenovo Essential G560e 156 2GB 250GB Intel Celeron Dual Core T3500 Black Laptop by Viking

2gb ram (2.1 ghz)
250 hard disk
dvd etc

 

[mxs_harrow]

Try these two possibilities:-


Unbranded (Zoostorm) from ebuyer (dotcom)
Intel i3 2.1 GHz 8 GB RAM (yes - 8 GB RAM) 500 GB HDD £399.

Although it's unbranded it sports HDMI/WebCAM etc, internally has the same processor, chipset and features of it's branded competitors, and is essentially later technology - unlike a lot of stuff that all the vendors/web sellers/supermarkets are trying to dump on the public. Bought one for my wife -runs 64 bit Windows 7 very well.

Also try Sainsburys for the eMachines (now owned by Acer) E732 = sold out on Sainsburys web site but could be some in a few stores (in London a lot of stuff got pulled off the shelves and put in the stock rooms after the riots).

Spec is still on Sainsburys web site.


This is i3 2.4 GHz but only 2 GB RAM and 250 GB drive. Price, however is a very low £279. Can be upgraded cheaply as required. The whole back of the laptop needs unscrewing to do this but does not invalidate the warranty as no seals broken.


My local Sainsburys in Pinner, North West London had three left last Tuesday.

All current laptop prices are a rip off as very under-specified, bearing in mind 8 GB DDR3 laptop memory (2 x 4 GB pieces) from Corsair (one of the best makes with lifetime warranty) costs about £35 from EBuyer and a 500 GB SATA drive about £35-40. Any manufacturer fitting 3 GB RAM is only spending about £20-25 on memory in a product sold for £349-449.

Buying second-hand is a hassle, the laptop batteries will inevitably be degraded and any decent business/enterprise products (HP, Lenovo) will cost more than buying a new unbranded laptop. Older laptops may max out at 4 GB RAM and use more expensive DDR or DDR2 memory. Windows 7 64 bit needs 4 -8 GB RAM.

Stepping up from these, decent i5 processor laptops with enhanced graphics will be in excess of £500 and i7 (quad core) processors and gaming-level grahics will cost £800-1000

That's enough computer nerdiness for now..... mxs_harrow

 

[RichieBowen]

In the laptop industry abounding bodies tend to acquire Dell or Apple, aback their brands acquire bogus it ablaze that if you acquire one of their products, you will not anytime adversity accomplishing so.