Buying a Laptop

conormurphy

So, I'm going into Transition Year next year, and I figured that if I were to pickup a laptop during the senior cycle, why not do it soon because I'm quite the avid user of my mam's laptop and she is gettin' sick of it like because then her use is kinda limited.

So she said my limit on price is €750 and I was pretty happy with that I mean its not bad considering the Laptop will just be for general use, maybe watching DVD's, probably won't play games except for maybe Football Manager, use Limewire, store my tunes and so on, so basically, I came out with this, will it be suited to my needs?

Dell Inspiron 1721
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium
Base: AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology TL 60
Colour: Jet Black with Matte finish and 2.0 mp camera.
LCD: 17.0" Widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900) TFT Display with Truelife
Memory: 2048 MB 667 Mhz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
Hard Drive: 160 GB (5400 RPM) SATA Hard Drive
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon XPress 1270 Hypermemory (integrated)
Mouse: Logitech V220 Cordless Mouse
Optical Drive: Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including Software
Primary Battery: Primary 6 Cell Lithium Ion Battery (56 WHr)
Wireless Connectivity: Dell Wireless 1395 802.11b/g Mini-Card Europe Turion Processors
Microsoft Software: Microsoft Works 8.0
Power Supply: 90W AC Adapter


All that for €729, not too bad I don't think, do you guys think it is worth it? Thats includin VAT and Shipping but my parents re going to pay for it over 3 years or sumthin I think?

Thanks to any repliers

ciano1

The dell vostro laptops are very cheap...they are in the small business section of the dell website (yes,u can buy if your a home user)

This one is pretty much the same as the one you mentioned

BASE AMD® Athlon 64 X2 Mobile Technology TK57 edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - Englis
SUPPORT SERVICES 1Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day Included -
LCD 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™ edit
MEMORY 2048 MB 667MHz Dual-Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x 1024 MB) edit
HARD DRIVE 120GB (5400rpm) SATA Hard Drive edit
GRAPHICS CARD ATI Radeon® Xpress 1150 HyperMemory (integrated
OPTICAL DRIVE Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including Software edit
PRIMARY BATTERY 6 cell Lithium-Ion Battery (53 Whr) edit

E458.09 inc VAt+Shipping

Only downside with this one compared to the one u posted is the smaller HDD and no webcam and also vostros are taking long to deliver (mine took a month last january)

mags16

My mum just got an Inspiron 1720 and it is lovely. But, ConorMurphy, it is very big. Which is fine for her. She's not going to bring it anywhere.

Do you think you will be bringing it to school or college? Lugging a 17" around is no fun. I would recommend a 15 inch instead.

majiktripp

I would agree with the statement about the 17" screen breaking your back if you plan on lugging it every where. Also I would stay clear (if financially possible) of repayemtn schemes as you end up paying more than the face value of the laptop and three years later your still paying for what, will then be outdated.

conormurphy

Yea but theres no built in camera in the 15" which is kinda a bummer I guess,but I'll recheck

Thanks guys

Alanstrainor

conormurphy wrote: »

Yea but theres no built in camera in the 15" which is kinda a bummer I guess,but I'll recheck

Thanks guys

Vostro 15.4 has a camera. and you could get an amazing spec for 750. Have a look for yourself.

alanobroin

hey everyone,

Sorry if I hijack the thread, I am in a similar position to conor.
I am shopping around for a reasonably priced Laptop, with reasonable high performance. I would be using it partly for gaming, so 2gb of RAM and dualcore processor with 5400rpm. 15-17 inch no preference, I was looking at something like this:

http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/Asus_G2Sc_Gaming_Laptop_G2SC-7R024C/version.asp

Maybe you guys could steer me towards a better deal or to a similar laptop,

Thanks,
Alan.

conormurphy

Hi Alan,

It was recommended to me by a Dell sales person on their website that the Dell Inspiron 1720 which has a 256 MB Nvidia Geforce Graphics Card in some cases, it also has basic 1.66ghz and 2 GB of Ram but like you can tweak that of course on the site, and I think it costs €619 basic... Add in some of the gaming components if you feel like it too...

Conor

alanobroin

thanks conor,

i am undecided about buying a Dell, i heard somewhere that future upgrades (graphics card/RAM etc.) is not possible with dell but is with other makes and models, would that be true? (i'm no expert!)

Alan

Tom Dunne

alanobroin wrote: »

thanks conor,

i am undecided about buying a Dell, i heard somewhere that future upgrades (graphics card/RAM etc.) is not possible with dell but is with other makes and models, would that be true? (i'm no expert!)

No, it is not true.

RAM and Hard drives tend to be trivial to upgrade on all laptops, whereas graphics cards are generally impossible to upgrade on all laptops. It's not just Dell, it's all makes.

conormurphy

So finally I think I'm gonna go with...

Dell Vostro 1400
Base: Intel® Celeron® Processor M 540 (1.86 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB)
OS: Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English
LCD: 14.1" Wide Screen WXGA (1280x800) TFT Display with TrueLife
Integrated Webcam: Matte Jet Black with 2.0 mega pixel camera
Memory: 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x1024)
Hard Drive: 160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
Primary Battery: Primary 9-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (85 WHr)
Mouse: Logitech V220 Cordless Mouse

All that for just €18 p/mth for 24 months seems great for Music and Movies, am I right? Oh, I'll also be using it for graphic design, I'm a bit rusty but when I get the laptop if anyone needs any artwork for an album cover or anything, get at me by pm. Pff... Advertising

By the way, will that processor be able to play Football Manager 2008 can anyone tell me?

Jaysus after VAT €519, still gonna go for it though

AlmightyCushion

I don't think that will run football manager well. It's a very slow processor that is fine for movies and music but for anything like photoshop you should definitely go with one with a better processor.

Yeah, I would go with a more powerful processor, compensate Ram for the Processor, even if u got 1 gig now and a better processor for the same price, you could get 2 gig of Ram in the future for 80 -100 bucks delivered.

conormurphy

Yeah, but then how will vista run?

alanobroin

Tom Dunne wrote: »

No, it is not true.

RAM and Hard drives tend to be trivial to upgrade on all laptops, whereas graphics cards are generally impossible to upgrade on all laptops. It's not just Dell, it's all makes.

Thanks.

As far as reliable makes what are the ones you would advise to stay clear from? If any.

Alan

Gary ITR

conormurphy wrote: »

going to pay for it over 3 years or sumthin I think?

I think the APR from Dell is around 16/17% so that'd be something in the region of 350 extra which would bring the total cost to nearly 1100