Looking for a new laptop

Sugar Drunk

Hi,

I have an old sony vaio its got windows ME, v slow etc it was grand when I got it 6 year ago but has run its course. I will give the sony shop a buzz but if anyone knows what to expect thats great

Anyone know do sony do trade ins or if I have any hope of anyone buying the old one second hand? (wouldnt be looking for much!)

I have about 1000 to spend on a new one so I am looking at options. I dont want to buy dell - I want to go in somewhere and buy face to face so am considering getting another vaio - are they any good?

Laptop will mainly be used for internet, music, playing DVDs, photoshop, work stuff (so I will need MS excel, word, PP, access). I have an external 160gb hard drive already. Am I being realistic in looking for a decent laptop with MS Office on it for this price? and do you reckon im better to get vista or XP?

Any advice appreciated im awful at this kind of stuff so id rather be prepared before I buy!

Thanks

Dartz

A 6 year old Laptop with Windows Me?.... Are you sure. It should at least have Windows 2000 on it at that Stage, if not an early build of XP. I'd doubt you'd manage to get much out of it, my job was dumping IBM X20's of that era, and I got one for free. Keep it, and play around with it. Try stuff like new OS's or BSD, or even some crazxy hardware project. If it's worthless, you loose nothing. Honestly man, I cant think of anyone who'd pay money for a 6 year old laptop that doesnt want to start a museum.

Though, that said, what are the specs on the thing?

I wouldnt dismiss online purchases until you've actually had a browse around and seen for yourself what was available. But I saw some pretty decent Laptops in Currys, in Blachardstown the other day. Cant remember the prices off-hand, but they were around 1k Euro alright... maybe a little bit more. Dont bother paying for Microsoft Office unless you absolutely have to.. OpenOffice.org does as good a job and costs nothing but download time. Windows XP is no longer sold, unfortunately. If you're desperate, you might find a cracked disk somewhere, but you didnt here that from me.

Sugar Drunk

Thanks a mil.

The story with the old one is it was bought as a present and had ME. It did include a free upgrade to 2000 once it cam eout but of course my computer literate parents who bought it for me lost the info about that!

I will keep it for messing about on. I checked with sony and they dont do trade ins but sure I may find someone who wants it for something i would hate to just chuck it out.

I will have a look in currys glad to hear the 1k budget should get something decent. I will unfortunately need office as thats the format my work files will all be in but sony shop said I can get a cheap student copy happy days

Dartz

Ah.. heres the thing... OpenOffice can read and write to .doc and .xls files for certain. I do it regularly in my job. Microsoft VB script will also work, with a little bit of a kick in the but and a few tweaks to the file opening and stuff.. Besides, Student edition of Office gives you Word, Excel and Powerpoint.... OpenOffice includes Database, Drawing and Equation editors on top of this. It's just as easy to use... and it'll make with more formats than MS Office.

Just because it's not Microslave, doesnt mean it's not compatible... Save yourself €150 or so and but a better Laptop