Buy our new album “A Brief Crack Of Light” on CD or limited edition vinyl at Amazon.co.uk, or direct from Global Music

Advice on getting a laptop?

#

Started by hoochalobster (Sarah) Super Moderator in Chit-Chat

Anyone have any knowledge about / recommends / avoids for laptops?

Doesn’t need to do anything fancy, just yer basic (wireless) internets, word processor etc…

And it can’t be a Mac.

Posted on Thu, 1 December 2011 at 21:06

You’re viewing replies 1–30 of 31 by 9 people

·

Page: First | Previous | | Last

#1

chr1s (I can't remember my own name) wrote:

I just got a Dell Inspiron from Asda for £280 for my boys Xmas. A mate had 1 and loves it. Seems really good for the price!! Hd screen and graphic card in it. It’s replacing his Toshiba Satellite laptop which he got around 5 yrs ago. It still works fine (maybe a bit slow at times now)but he wanted a new updated 1. Argos are doing the new Toshiba ones for £280 just now as well, but the Dell 1 has 3x the RAM.

Posted on Thu, 1 December 2011 at 21:15

#2

Citizen Erased (confused again) wrote:

I wanted something small so that I could write stuff and look at photos from memory cards whilst on holiday and got a Lenovo ideapad - its got 4gB ram so is pretty decent but only a sing core processor so not so great for gaming but otherwise really good - weighs barely more than a netbook (it’s basically the smallest size laptop) but with much better performance.

Posted on Thu, 1 December 2011 at 21:27

#3

hoochalobster (Sarah) Super Moderator wrote:

Thanks guys, will check those out :-)

Posted on Thu, 1 December 2011 at 22:24

#4

Gav wrote:

I’ve just bought a Dell one, which I am checking the UPS tracking site at about 15 minute intervals.

Its in Kazakstan at the moment :rolleyes:

Posted on Fri, 2 December 2011 at 10:23

#5

Gav wrote:

How much you looking to spend?

Posted on Fri, 2 December 2011 at 10:23

#6

Gav wrote:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/asus-15-6-i5-2430m-laptop-399-less-comet-1073671
http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/lenovo-g570-15-6-inch-sandybridge … dd-1073402

That second one looks decent (and it’s not from Comet), might be overspeced for what you need.

Posted on Fri, 2 December 2011 at 10:32

#7

Cuchulain wrote:

Lenovo is the business.

Then again I’m purely saying that because it’s the division they took over from IBM.

Posted on Fri, 2 December 2011 at 10:38

#8

Citizen Erased (confused again) wrote:

I really don’t believe that ‘HAL’ and IBM is a coincidence

Posted on Fri, 2 December 2011 at 10:52

#9

hoochalobster (Sarah) Super Moderator wrote:

@Gav Not my budget, boyfriend has finally decided to join 21st century and asked me to recommend something for him. I think anywhere between £300-600 will be okay. However, we’ve realised where he lives doesn’t have an active landline at all - and my understanding of mobile internet/ dongles is that they’re shit? So possibly not worthwhile anyhow?

Posted on Sat, 3 December 2011 at 02:33

#10

Gav wrote:

No experience with them so cant really say

Posted on Sat, 3 December 2011 at 07:33

#11

Citizen Erased (confused again) wrote:

GEtting a dongle for work soon supposedly (‘whenever IT puill their finger out’), never used one before

Posted on Sat, 3 December 2011 at 10:09

#12

chr1s (I can't remember my own name) wrote:

I dont think itd be much good for a “main” internet connection. The contract ones are typically 3 or 5 GB of usage for your monthly fee, (which isn’t much really if youre watching youtube or streaming videos etc) and it can be quite expensive if you exceed this limit. Ive got a pay as you go dongle that I use if we’re away for the weekend or whatever and it’s fine for occasional use like that.

Posted on Sat, 3 December 2011 at 10:35

#13

KJC Dublin (Karl) wrote:

Depends on the coverage in the area, if he has shit mobile phone signal, he would also have shit internet.

As for laptops, I think you only really have Mac and the others nowadays. Should just make sure that the size of the hard drive is decent and that the processor is powerful. Really depends on what you intend to do with the laptop (e.g. just surf, download stuff, stream etc.).

For the simple needs most new laptops are well equipt (have a second hand mac book myself)

Posted on Sat, 3 December 2011 at 11:13

#14

White Psycho wrote:

Don’t go near Acer or Fujitsu Siemens, we see so many hardware failures from those brands at work it’s eerie. Also hard drive prices are rising because of flooding in Thailand taking out key factories, get in sooner rather than later

Posted on Sun, 4 December 2011 at 18:07

#15

Citizen Erased (confused again) wrote:

My little laptop came with Windows 7 pre-installed, but no back-up copy (it doesn’t have a disc drive, just USB ports). I understand that “backing up” onto a portable hard drive just backs up things like photos and (yes! I said it!) iTunes files but not the actual OS… does this mean I’m leaving myself rather exposed if something gets buggered, and if so, what can I do about it?

Posted on Fri, 16 December 2011 at 17:46

#16

Epitome (Dave) wrote:

Usually if it comes without a Windows disc it will either come with “recovery discs” or at least have the option to create your own recovery discs.

Posted on Fri, 16 December 2011 at 18:02

#17

Gav wrote:

Citizen Erased wrote:

My little laptop came with Windows 7 pre-installed, but no back-up copy (it doesn’t have a disc drive, just USB ports). I understand that “backing up” onto a portable hard drive just backs up things like photos and (yes! I said it!) iTunes files but not the actual OS… does this mean I’m leaving myself rather exposed if something gets buggered, and if so, what can I do about it?

You should have a windows licence key on a sticker somewhere on the machine. If you ever have any difficulty and need to re-install, you should be able to copy the windows cd to a usb stick and boot from that. If you dont have the windows disc, I’d sort you out (pm me). You’d have to use your licence key.

Posted on Fri, 16 December 2011 at 18:36 in reply to an earlier post

#18

Gav wrote:

Epitome wrote:

Usually if it comes without a Windows disc it will either come with “recovery discs” or at least have the option to create your own recovery discs.

If the machine doesn’t have a disc drive though…

Posted on Fri, 16 December 2011 at 18:37 in reply to an earlier post

#19

Epitome (Dave) wrote:

^^ Sorry, I guess I skimmed over that!

Posted on Fri, 16 December 2011 at 21:22

#20

Citizen Erased (confused again) wrote:

Cheers Gav, hopefully it’ll never happen, but great to know all isn’t lost if it does :-)

Posted on Sat, 17 December 2011 at 11:51

#21

MisterHoppy wrote:

Most new computers I’ve seen (Laptops, netbooks and desktops etc) require you to make your own recovery disk nowadays, well I say disk but as most recovery disks need to be over 12GB it’s disks or a portable HD. However after receiving your new computer after 3+ hours of waiting to compile and burn the first of multiple disks most people just can’t be fucked.

Posted on Sat, 17 December 2011 at 15:37

#22

Gav wrote:

What you actually need, is a copy of the OS (about 2/3 gig depending on the vers) and a bunch of drivers to make your machine work (1 gig tops). you could stick it on a £6 mem stick.

Posted on Sat, 17 December 2011 at 18:53

#23

MisterHoppy wrote:

Yes, but a lot of companies make it bloody hard to backup just the OS - I’m sure you could manage it but I’d not know where to start!

Posted on Sat, 17 December 2011 at 19:24

#24

White Psycho wrote:

Many have a recovery partition which you can use to restore factory defaults (plus the option to make the discs if you want, and you do)

Posted on Sat, 17 December 2011 at 19:35

#25

Citizen Erased (confused again) wrote:

Our PC (Acer something-or-other, 2.6GHz/2.00GB processor, 2*144Gb hard drives, Windows Vista Home Premium), is beginning to get a bit creaky, and the drive we’ve stuck all the music & photos on is more or less full - should we replace it with another PC or a laptop and if so, any suggestions as to what?

Furthermore, as per Dell’s laterst ad email and a quick flick on Amazon, most cheaper PCs seem to have 500GB of hard drive space - is this going to be enough (we have a 1TB external drive for backups)? I’m inclined to think that the more space the better these days…

Any thoughts welcome, although a purchase probably isn’t going to have happen for a month or two…

Posted on Mon, 23 April 2012 at 21:10

#26

Gav wrote:

Important question - what is the budget?

Posted on Mon, 23 April 2012 at 23:01

#27

Citizen Erased (confused again) wrote:

Hmm, ideally under £400, subject to how reasonable that is, could possibly be stretched if there’s something brilliant for just a little more, but the more I spend on IT, the less I spend on beer and so on.

Posted on Tue, 24 April 2012 at 16:16

#28

Gav wrote:

How soon do you need one, there are always decent deals coming through on hotukdeals, I ‘ll keep an eye out for you.

Posted on Tue, 24 April 2012 at 16:20

#29

Citizen Erased (confused again) wrote:

It’s not urgent-urgent, we’ve been grumbling at the current machine for over a year and done nothing & current priority is to save for a new camera before holiday, but that will (hopefully) result in a stack more photos to be saved somewhere…

Posted on Wed, 25 April 2012 at 09:46

#30

Gav wrote:

There is £150 off a Sony Vaio i5(processor) with blu-ray: http://www.hotukdeals.com/visit?m=36&q=1202729

Probably a bit over budget for you and I don’t know a great deal about the laptop

Posted on Thu, 26 April 2012 at 07:28

You’re viewing replies 1–30 of 31 by 9 people

·

Page: First | Previous | | Last

and become a member of the message boards. Sign in if you’re already a member.