Spend =<€1000 by Monday - recommendations?

peckerhead

OK, I've a little under a grand to spend on a laptop, for general home/college/multimedia use. I know I could probably spend less, but the money's there, in a work-related budget, and I have to order something by Monday and submit an invoice to accounts, or it'll be gone ...'use it or lose it' kind of a situation. (If I'd known earlier, I might have joined those queues outside Aldi last week, but hey...)

So I see these two fairly similar offers:
Toshiba Satellite P100-160 from laptopsdirect.ie — €832.27 delivered (i.e. €220 off, or so they say)
Inspiron 9400 from Dell — from €879 delivered, 1-year return-to-base warranty). For €999, with a €100 off promo coupon, I can get it with a better graphics card and processor, but I dunno if it's really worth it. There'll be DVDs watched, but not a lot of high-end gaming action or anything like that (I'm far too old...:rolleyes:)

Your votes please, gentlemen? Or other suggestions? In particular, I don't really want/need Vista; I'd be happy to stick with XP Pro, which I have. Does anywhere do good deals w/o an OS, but with a warranty?

Oh, and I'm in Limerick, so (a) can't get to the likes of Peats to check out shop floor/Manager's Specials, and (b) although the Toshiba looks to me to edge it, a Dell return-to-base warranty obviously has a certain practical appeal. I've had a look in their outlet store but I don't really see any great deals there at the moment, once you factor in the VAT and delivery...

peckerhead

After sleeping on it — the more I look at that Toshiba offer, the better I like it.... The same machine is €1,076.72 incl. delivery on dabs.ie.

Anyone say nay? Anyone had any bad experiences with Toshiba/laptopsdirect.ie?

peckerhead

peckerhead wrote:

Anyone had any bad experiences with Toshiba/laptopsdirect.ie?

There was a large thread here before lambasting the customer service, eh, service that laptopsdirect.ie had before. Unsure whether they've made improvements since those complaints.

peckerhead

I bought a cheapo 20GB mp3 player off them about 6 months ago and found them fairly good to deal with, but of course I was buying a new product, not complaining about a defective one...

As against that, their Toshiba Pro laptops also qualify for the Toshiba Moneyback deal (UK & RoI customers), which might sweeten the pill somewhat if I did happen to have a component failure within the first year...

Nala

I've a Toshiba A100-027, €800 from Dixons. I use it for internet, DVDs, photos and music and it's great. You can get it on Dixon's website and PC World's (probably Curry's as well, it's all the one company). I think PC World are dearer though.