Any notebook bargains out there?

P. Breathnach

Hi, folks.

I'm wondering about buying a notebook. I don't need a very high spec, as I'm not very much into power or memory-hungry applications. What I want is the ability to do some word-processing on the move, perhaps also use small database files, carry some (mostly text) files for reference, and get online. I might also use it save some pictures from my camera if I take more pictures than I usually do. Small, and particularly light, is very desirable.

I know built-in Wifi is almost standard, but a system without it could suit, as I have a USB adapter sitting here unused.

Any suggestions that I should act on before the January sales period finishes?

AlmightyCushion

Check out the dell vostro. They are a fairly good laptop and are fairly cheap.

P. Breathnach

Thanks, AC. The Vostro does look like a good deal at the moment, and I am a long-time Dell user.

But what I am really after is one of those undersized things weighing about 1Kg that I can slip into a shoulder bag along with other stuff and still be able to walk straight.

AlmightyCushion

Maybe the asus eee pc is what you are after. There is a thread about it, I'll do a bit of digging for the link.

Edit: Here's the link.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055173563

P. Breathnach

Thanks again, AC. There might be overshoot here! It looks to me as if the Asus is a superior personal organiser -- which is, to an extent, what I want. But it is Linux-based, and I might have compatability problems with files and preferred software: I use MS Office as my main applications suite.

What I am really hoping to find is a small PC priced in the €5-600 range. I think they exist!

NP14

Is that P Breathnach the filmmaker?


Anyway.

I have an asus on order. Instead of MS office, it comes with Open Office,
which, afaik, is compatible with MS, and does all the same things.

You can use XP on a asus, but it slows it down.

The asus sounds just right for you, it has a 3-4 hour battery life. If you have big fingers that might be an issue. The other small ones (UMPC's) cost a fortune, but you might go to a shop and try a pricey one out for typing, and see if you can cope with it.

Voodu Child

The Asus EeePC is available with WinXP in some regions, so I presume you'll be able to buy one online if you hunt around.

You'll be hard pushed to find a 1kg, high-spec, ultra-portable laptop for e500 to be honest.

It'd help if you listed all your needs/wants in one post instead of introducing them in a piecemeal fashion. Does it have to be 1kg? (lots of great portables around that weigh closer to 2kg) What screen size suits you (theres a big difference in useablility between a 7" and 12" for example)? etc

P. Breathnach

Sorry for the lack of clarity. I'll try to undo the confusion that I have caused.

Basically, I am a desktop PC type, and when I am away from base I don't have anything. Most of the time that is fine, but now and again it would be handy to have something. I wandered into PCWorld last week and saw very small portable PCs with screen sizes about 12 inches, 512 or 1024Kb RAM, HD drives, and (I think) DVD drives, and Wifi-enabled. These were much more compact than the normal portables that I am used to seeing, and seem a great deal lighter (whether as light as 1KG, I can't say for sure; perhaps it was a bad guess). They came with some version of Vista. I don't remember the prices now, but the cheapest was under €600 -- with a brand name that I did not recognise.

Part of the appeal of these ultra-portables is that I could pack one in the shoulder-bag I tote when I am away from home, and not have to carry an extra piece of baggage. I have a laptop available to me (an old one retired by my wife). It weighs almost 3Kg on its own, about twice that in its bag with the various bitsa. That's a lot more than I want to add to my walking-around load, even with the bitsa left in the car or a hotel room.

So maybe now you can understand the sort of kit I have in mind, but it would take a lot of incentive to persuade me to deal with PCWorld. When I was there there were three customers (including me) and five staff members, and nobody came near me nor could I catch anybody's eye. If it's that difficult to get service when I might be a sales prospect, how might it be if I were seeking support?

I thought when using the word "notebook" rather than "laptop" that I was referring to such ultra-portable computers. Now I know that the distinction is not that clear!

My mindset, my software, my files are all rooted in Windows, and I don't want to change unless there is an overwhelming argument for doing so. I want to copy software and files to a portable, and have them when I am away from home.

Yes, I want a screen about 12"; my eyes aren't good enough for 7".

No, I am not the film-maker (relate that to what I said about my eyes), but he has helped me in one thing: at least my name is less of a challenge to people than it used to be!

AlmightyCushion

You might want to try elara. They have a massive range of laptops and you can filter their search results on things like screen size.

http://elara.ie/products/notebooks.asp

Make sure to check back here before buying so we can tell you what the laptop is like.

P. Breathnach

Yet again, thanks AC. You don't quit easily!

I have explored the elara site, and find that any time I choose any specification that says "small", I move quickly towards prices that are big. So miniaturisation is expensive. Ultra-compact at about €600 does not seem to be an option at the moment. I'm going to pause and consider my options: computing on the move is not that great a need for me, so it's a question of balancing money and priorities.

P. Breathnach

Found this: http://www.pixmania.com/ie/uk/652118/art/advent/9112.html

It doesn't meet my weighing-next-to-nothing wish, but the spec looks good to me. I don't know about build quality or long-term reliability with Advent, but at least it is not an anonymous box.

I have dealt with Pixmania for cameras, and think they are sound, but I haven't had to ask them to deal with problems.

Opinions solicited.

P. Breathnach

Following up. I googled a lot on the Advent 9112, and found very little in terms of reviews or informed comment. What little I found suggests that it is middle-of-the-road for performance. That should be enough for me, as my applications are not power-hungry. Nothing on reliability, and I would like to know about that.

PC World sell it, so I took myself off there again, was ignored again by the staff (how do they ever sell anything?), and had a look at their display model. It looks okay, the keyboard is fine, the screen seems good enough, and the whole thing is quite compact. €750. I can get it from Pixmania for €633 plus shipping.

Unless somebody convinces me that I shouldn't, I think I will order one tomorrow.

[AC, I think I read in a post from you somewhere that you might drop a CV into PCWorld. You would be seriously out of place there, as you seem to know about computers and are willing to help people!]

BostonB

Let me know how you get on. I was looking at that 9112 and though it looked ok. But Advent do not have a great reputation and PC World don't have a great rep in dealing with support. Or Sales, or anything really.

I've heard mixed opinions on Pixmania too. While I though the screen on the 9112 was decent. I usually find 12" screens too small and would tend to go for a 13 or 14" minimum myself. I was looking at the Vostro 1400 as a compromise or one of the Sonys 13" thats 799.

But 633 is a good price for a 12" laptop. I don't need one right away so I'm going to wait a while.

Voodu Child

There's an Acer Aspire 2920Z for e600 on laptopsdirect.ie

It's pretty similar spec (T2310, 12", 2Gb), and I can't see there being a huge difference in size/weight.

Im not a fan of Acers personally, but i'd probably go for that over the Advent.

I can't see Vista flying on a laptop with the T2310 tbh, If it was me, I'd look for something with XP, or see what a little extra € will buy processor wise. But having said that, it should be acceptable for light use, so if you've got your mind made up I wouldn't dissuade you.

P. Breathnach

My mind isn't made up: that's why I'm here discussing what I am thinking of doing.

The Acer has a spec very similar to the Advent. The only differences seems to be that the Advent has a slightly larger HD, and a built-in webcam. I don't need either, and the Acer compensates by being a bit cheaper.

I feel a sense of resignation about MS operating systems and processor power; whatever system you have, MS offer an OS that uses up most of its capacity, and applications suffer.

What would clinch my decision one way or another is reliability: the likelihood of failure under light use by a careful user, and how easy it is to have problems dealt with, especially how easy it is to enforce a guarantee ( a very high proportion of PC problems seem to emerge in the guarantee period).

Thanks, vc. I'm off to research the Acer; I was slightly concerned about how difficult it was to find reviews on the Advent. I'll report back.

jackofnotrades

Hi guys,

I'd like to mention to anyone considering a dell vostro notebook, that I've gotten a few of them in work here and we've had issues with a good few of them on delivery.

Keyboards don't work, their not properly seating into the mobo.

Battery doesn't work, it either doesn't fit in snugly or the AC adapter doesn't supply enough power to power the laptop and charge the battery.

A couple of them blue screened on first start up.

These things are cheap for a reason !

TerrorFirmer

I have owned two Advents, they are PC Worlds own brand and are often rebadged models originating in Asia etc. Not that I'm saying that in a negative fashion, but it might explain the lack of reviews - I bought an Advent laptop about two years ago, and couldn't find a single thing on it online - I bought it anyway, and later found reviews under a different manufacturer name. Was a great laptop, sturdy, fantastic screen, only one problem I had was that the paint on the top shell marked extremely easily....

Don't let the cheap price and dubious fact that they're a native brand to PC World put you off...

Acer are somewhat notorious for dodgey customer support, though to their credit I doubt it's any worse then PC World where they operate from a learned list of responses to a given situation rather then knowledge of their product. You could bring in your laptop in flames and they'd ask if you'd tried reinstalling the OS.

P. Breathnach

Yes, I discovered that Advent is a rebadged range, and even what it was built as -- but no reviews under the original name either. I think it might not be on the market in that identity. It's available through more outlets that PC World and its connected retailers like Dixon's, so I suspect that Advent is a PC distributor, not just a corner of PC World's warehouse. I wouldn't rule it out because of rebadging; a lot of the stuff on the market is.

I have tried to count back, and I have owned at least seven desktop PCs over the years, and have had very few problems. Currently I am using an Acer. It feels a bit cheap (and it was cheap to buy) but it works fine. So I am not against Acer.

I'm not necessarily bothered about a supplier having a poor first interface with customers experiencing problems. I am fairly good at asserting my consumer rights and know how to escalate a dispute constructively (I even got a full refund from Dell once plus compensation for the bother they caused me). But I am slightly uncomfortable about buying from overseas, even if Pixmania and Laptopsdirect use ie domains. If I have to fight with them, where is my opponent?

It's not easy to find reviews on the Acer, perhaps because it is newish on the market.

I have other things to do today, so I'm going to defer my purchasing decision for at least another day in the hope that people here (or even I) come up with more things to help me with my decision.

Dundalk Daily

I was going to go for that advent also, just as a back up and because of its size and weight. Last 2 laptops Ive had have been very expensive sonys and both have had problems after around a year and a half (i never go for extended warranty).

Unbelievable the similarities with the pc world staff all over. I was in Dundalk store today and it was like the staff hadnt turned up.

P if you go for the advent maybe you would let us know.

P. Breathnach

Okay, I have ordered the Acer. I was leaning that way because of a small price advantage and not much else to go on. Just to-be-sure-to-be-sure I went back to Pixmania's website and the Advent had disappeared, and I went back to Laptopsdirect's site, and the Acer had fallen in price by about €10! With shipping, Credit card surcharge of 0.95%, and no extras, I'm shelling out €622.89. Delivery is promised in 1-2 days, so my guess is about next Thursday.

DD, it was the Dundalk store that I was ignored in. Try phoning them, and nobody answers -- so that's not what is taking them away from looking after customers.

Just as a sidenote: I was in Dublin today, doing the sales. I saw a little Sony Vaio with an 11.1" screen. Cute toy, on special offer at over €2K. I'll think about that any time I feel that the Acer is a lumbering beast, and also think about the €1.5K I didn't spend.

Thanks, everybody, for all the input. I'll let you know what I think of the machine when it arrives.

Dundalk Daily

P i went ahead and picked up the advent at lunch time today, im not expecting miracles with this make so its a back up machine. The machine has already cut off twice so I may have to take it back already.:mad:

P. Breathnach

The Acer arrived today. Easy to set up, and no problems at all getting it going.

It's my first encounter with Vista, so I'll need to familiarise myself with it. I'm not going to install any of my software or copy files on to it until I am at home with the machine; I'll just mess about with it for a couple of days, and I'm certainly not going online until I have rooted Norton out and installed AVG, which has kept my last two systems safe and caused no problems for me.

First impressions are mixed. It's heavy enough to be robust, but the lid feels a bit fragile, and the keyboard feels squidgy, so I'll have to be careful toting it around. I don't like touchpads, but this one is easier to use and more controllable than others I have used -- but I'll still use a nice little USB mouse that I bought in Tesco's for under €10. It does have a built-in webcam which works very well (except that it shows me an image of me!). The display is pretty good, but I'm glad I didn't go for anything smaller than 12". The image is brighter when I connect to the mains than run from the battery; is that usual with laptops? The speakers are not very powerful, but I didn't expect that they would be; if I wanted passably good sound (say to watch a DVD) I'd need either earphones or external speakers.

A trial version of MS Office is included, but I will install my licensed version later. In the short term, I'll make do with the MS Works that was included but not announced in any advertising.

Lovely error message: "Internet Disconnected" rather than "Not Connected to Internet". There's a proper set of priorities!

The price has fallen again. I could have saved about 5 euros by waiting. Life's a bitch, isn't it?

Voodu Child

P. Breathnach wrote: »

The image is brighter when I connect to the mains than run from the battery; is that usual with laptops?

It's kicking into a reduced power mode when you remove the power-cord.

You should be able to press fn + up to bring the display brightness back up. Alternatively, you can change the defaults so it never drops the screen brightness when on battery power.

P. Breathnach

That makes sense, vc. I suppose most laptops work that way. The only laptop I have had up to now is one retired by Herself. The battery is useless, so I have used it only with the mains lead. When I have used other people's laptops, I never plugged in or unplugged the mains lead -- I have just used them as they were made available to me. I suppose full brightness eats up battery life, and the reduced brightness is quite usable.

Another good thing I forgot to mention is that there is a 5-in-1 card reader, handy if I'm away from home and take a lot of pictures.

Voodu Child

P. Breathnach wrote: »

That makes sense, vc. I suppose most laptops work that way.

Yes, all laptops do, by default. You can change it to suit your requirements if needed.

Vista gives 3 simple power-settings on the taskbar battery icon, and you can also get into the 'Power Options' control panel from that icon, if you want to further tweak the settings.