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Looking for advice on a new laptop for under €600

  • 15-06-2011 2:42pm
    #1
    Yillan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 932 ✭✭✭


    I'm cautious about buying a non-dell. My father has bought an ACER that is bloody horrible. It's so slow and can't run anything really without crashing. Four tab maximum on firefox. He also has a little laptop which is a dell which works equally as poorly.

    On the other hand I've had dells for the past 10 years. 2 of them. This one is finally giving up the ghost after a solid 5/6 years. It's an inspiron 9400 and I think it's great. It cost a bomb at the time. €1000+. I have really mistreated it over the years. I don't own virus-protection of any sort - free or otherwise and I bang it off things regularly. I left it on Hibernate for a week once. I'd consider formatting, but the hardware no doubt is fubar. It has paid its dues though.

    At the moment it is struggling for air and will breakdown permanently at some stage in the near future without doubt. Maybe even before the end of this post.

    So I'm thinking of buying my third dell. Someone on here recommended a Lenovo 570, but I've heard bad things about the touchpad and I'm not mad about its appearance. It looks a bit like an actual IBM laptop from the 90s.

    I'm wary. I would pay an extra €100 for a similar dell model, or get a model with less features for the same price. In essence I'm looking for another one of these inspirons 9400s. That should leave me open to buy a very low end model, but I'm considering an insipron 17R. I'd like a 17 inch screen aswell and Lenovo don't do them. Appearancewise, it might sound stupid, but a black laptop does not appeal. They just look so outdated and clunky.

    Any advice? If someone made a case for a different brand I'd definitely consider it. How is the longevity of a brand like Samsung or Toshiba? I might use the laptop for some very light gaming. Sim City 4 and that ilk. Rosetta Stone would be another program I use that seems to run a little slowly on this current one.

    I'd pay up to €600/700, but ideally I'd prefer to pay less

    Edit:

    http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/HP_Pavilion_DV7-6000sa_1082205.html

    Any opinion on this one? The series has gotten some poor user reviews, but how much should I read into that?


Comments

  • #2
    omb0wyn5ehpij9
    Closed Accounts Posts: 16,095 ✭✭✭✭omb0wyn5ehpij9


    http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Lenovo_G570_1072020.html
    It came to €575 delivered, and i'm very impressed with it. It might not be the best looking laptop out there, but the build qaulity is very good. I don't know what anybody would be complaining about with regard the touchpad, I find it excellent. Lenovo have a great reputation for building reliable laptops also so you could be sure to get a good few years out of it


  • #3
    Yillan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 932 ✭✭✭Yillan


    I think I have the search narrowed down to two.

    In one corner is the Dell 17R for €599. It has an i3 2310M processor, a 17 inch screen and it looks well. It has 320GB of Hard disk space and a 3GB RAM

    In the other is the Lenovo G570 which costs €575 as above. It has an i5 2410M processor, a 15.6 inch screen but it doesn't look all that good. It has 500GB of HD space and 4GB of RAM.

    So my question is whether I should sacrifice the extra 2 inches of screen and better aesthetics for the greater processor and RAM. The bigger hard disk doesn't affect me because I'll be supplementing with externals.

    Is there all that much difference between the i3 2310 and the i5 2410 and how will the greater RAM affect the running of Windows 7? I've seen the processors ranked and the i3 2310 comes in at the same rank as the previous generation i5. Is this accurate? Is the new sandybridge processor worth it, or should I maybe think about the old generation?


  • #4
    Yillan
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 932 ✭✭✭Yillan


    This one way conversation is ongoing.

    I've found the g570 for cheaper on dabs.ie. Has anyone any experience of using this website?

    http://www.dabs.ie/products/lenovo-g570-core-i5-2410m-4gb-500gb--dvd-rw-15-6--windows-7-home-premium-7FR4.html?refs=466560000-51340000


  • #5
    zigster
    Closed Accounts Posts: 1 ✭zigster


    Yillan wrote: »
    This one way conversation is ongoing.

    I've found the g570 for cheaper on dabs.ie. Has anyone any experience of using this website?

    http://www.dabs.ie/products/lenovo-g570-core-i5-2410m-4gb-500gb--dvd-rw-15-6--windows-7-home-premium-7FR4.html?refs=466560000-51340000

    Some recent comments in the bargain alerts section re Dabs, personally I would'nt use them because of the recent feedback although I have used them sucessfully in the past, quite some time ago though.

    http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=72663388

    I bought a budget laptop recently from Saveonlaptops and could only recommend them tbh, ordered on a friday at 7am in the morning the order was dispatched by 9.30am the same morning and I recieved it the following Tuesday morning, so very pleased with that level of service.

    If it were me and had the budget I would go with the Dell, nice looking laptop.


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