Advice on buying a laptop

sleepyescapade

Budget: 700 - 800EUR

Intended use: college assignments - programming, web development, also internet, photoshop, e-mail, a bit of word processing.

Mobility: Would like something that wouldn't be too heavy/awkward to carry around or take to university (25-30min walk from my house)

Warranty: Important

Was told not to go with dell or hp

sleepyescapade

bump

4Xcut

There's a laptops thread in bargin alerts. If you're going with dell, don't bother with anything other than the most basic cheapest warrenty, save the money in case you need to pay someone to fix it. All you get from dell is someone in banglore with bad english reading a script over the phone to you.

However, have to say that i got my college laptop from them about a year ago and can't fault it.

Try and get a 14.1 screen as they're nice and small.

Dartz

Ignore those idiots bitching about GPU failures, and how 'All Dells and HP's suck regardless' for a start.

Do your own reasearch man.. and decide what you want yourself.

DenMan

Hi OP

Hope I can help you out here. I just bought a brand new laptop today in PC World. I use my main PC for work as it is more powerful. The laptop I got today was from PC World. All depends on what you are looking for to get out of it. This one is a Advent, 2GB Ram and 1.73 GHz Processor.It cost 600 Euro. Definitely ideal for working and browsing. I set a budget of 700 Euro and as a result am very happy with my purchase. Have a look around a few places and see what is ideal for you. Good luck with it.

bbtex

If u r going to work in photoshop with large files then u need quite fast laptop.

brianthebard

Whats wrong with hp?Had one for years and loved it.

bbtex

there is nothing wrong with HP they just break down much often than other makes. Its same with cars. HP is like FIAT. U can drive it and hope that it wont fail u

Overheal

Dartz wrote: »

Ignore those idiots bitching about GPU failures, and how 'All Dells and HP's suck regardless' for a start.

Do your own reasearch man.. and decide what you want yourself.

Pfft.

Short answer: Dells Fail. HPs fail. Dell ****s Up sometimes. HP ****s up sometimes. Both make great laptops. Both have fine Customer Service. And the 8400 is a grand old card, but if you have options, play it safe.

Pete4779

megcork wrote: »

Budget: 700 - 800EUR

Intended use: college assignments - programming, web development, also internet, photoshop, e-mail, a bit of word processing.

Mobility: Would like something that wouldn't be too heavy/awkward to carry around or take to university (25-30min walk from my house)

Warranty: Important

Was told not to go with dell or hp

Simplest place to start is whether you want a smaller screen like 13" or else more regular sized at 15".

Dell and HP are two of the largest makers of computers because they do know how to make them. I would go for Dell personally as you can pick which components you want exactly. All computers these days share the same components, including Apple: Intel CPUs, Hard Drive from Western Digital or Samsung for example. The hardware is *identical*. The only difference is the design of the casing to be honest, there is no other differenting factor (except maybe OS: Vista, XP, MacOS X, Linux).

What software will you want to use and how comfortable are you using it on a small screen, medium screen or would you sacrifice portability for a larger 17" screen (17" = pretty much not portable).

(I still have Dells 6 years old working perfectly, with no added hardware on the same old HD and RAM).

With the Dell warranty, it IS actually useful to get one for several years. If anything fails in say over 3,4 or 5 years (the max is 5), they will replace it under warranty. This is actually a good thing and worth paying for. the standard is 1 year.

What the above poster may be confusing with is support e.g., for software.