buying a laptop

foxylaydee

hi there,
i am a student and i want to buy a laptop! any suggestions?
is there anything that i should look out for when buying it? where should i shop?
thanks!!

budget: about 700euro
laptop used for: research/internet, microsoft word, music (big fan of music), maybe powerpoint.

foxylaydee

anyone willing to give me advice??

Cormic

Do you want the laptop for travelling? you can classify most laptops into four sizes. The 17 inch, 15 inch and 13 inch screens and then the netbooks.

Decide what you want in terms of size. Maybe go along to PC World or something similar to get a hands on feel. Also look on the Dell site for any deals.

If you are going to get a Vista laptop ensure that you get at least 2GB RAM. Try and get 4GB.

I hope this helps.

foxylaydee

thanks cormic for your reply..
i cant see myself travelling all that much with the laptop. sorry for my ignorance but what is vista?
I went into a computer shop and every laptop that i looked at, the sales assistant told me that it was their best seller!!! ok i know its their job to say things like that but its not really being helpful!
i really liked the:
Toshiba a300 1mc for 699euro
and the sony vaio ns10 for 599euro

i suppose a better question i should ask is what sort of specifications should i look for? anyone bought either of these laptops- liked/disliked them?

id like a laptop thats fast and has a good battery life!!

Tom Dunne

foxylaydee wrote: »

hi there,
i am a student and i want to buy a laptop! any suggestions?
is there anything that i should look out for when buying it? where should i shop?
thanks!!

budget: about 700euro
laptop used for: research/internet, microsoft word, music (big fan of music), maybe powerpoint.

Pretty much any laptop will do what you want these days.

Things to look for: 2Gig of RAM at least (also written as 2Gb). And look for a hard drive of at least 200Gb. Wireless comes as standard, so you can connect to the internet. Expect to get 2-3 hours out of a battery, unless you buy a bigger/enhanced battery.

Vista is a version of Windows. Most new laptops come with Vista, so you will most likely end up with this.

If you need Word and Powerpoint, they will cost you a couple of hundred Euro, believe it or not, so have a look at Open Office.org. Completely free and does the same job as Microsoft Office.

CHW

foxylaydee wrote: »

Toshiba a300 1mc for 699euro
and the sony vaio ns10 for 599euro

Both those are 15" screens, deciding on the size is half the battle. I'm guessing that's the size you were liking - comfortable size for doing some serious work, yet portable enough if you need to bring it somewhere.

The Sony, if it's the same spec I've seen before, it should be more than capable for what you say you need (I've seen it with 3GB RAM and 250GB hard drive - these are probably the most important variables for you to consider and check out).

DenMan

Hi OP

Generally for any Uni/college work you are doing you will need your laptop for the duration of your studies (3-4 years), so you want a decent machine that you can install updates to and will update itself. Windows Vista is Windows latest operating system. Before that was Windows XP (which is still been used but Microsoft are trying to phase it out)

I went back to Uni this September and purchased a laptop over the summer. You should go for a machine which uses Windows Vista and has a built in wireless connection. I agree with the other posters in suggesting you get a machine with at least 2GB of Ram (the more the better). PC World are doing some great deals right now and with a budget of 700 euro to play with you will get a good deal. Both Advent (my current laptop) and Acer are very good models.

Below is a link taken from www.pcworld.co.uk as the Irish website is permanently inactive (goodness knows why). It hopefully will give you an idea of what to look for. Plenty of hard drive capacity for music (mp3's etc). Good luck with it.

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/product/seo/322255

bandit197

Also if you are not in a rush Id recommend holding of buying anything till after xmas. There may be some good deals in the sales.