16 replies to this topic

[jt19]

Hi

My laptop has been playing up for a while and it's finally given up the ghost.

It starts but the screen is blank. It's at least 5 years old so think I'll just bite the bullet and get a new Shiney one.

I don't want to spend more than £350 to be honest. Any recommendations?


Thanks
josh

[Ben_O]

What do you use the laptop for?

 

That will help when recommending laptops as we know what spec to look for

[OhDear]

ebuyer had a cheap and cheerfull one for around £230   but like ben said  depends what you want.

[AlexMozza]

Go to Dell, They are alot better then they used to be, and you will be hard pushed to find better for less! 

[rally515]

Hi Josh,

 

Recently had the exact same thing happen to me, a HP Pavilion laptop I got 10 years ago!!!! gave up on me not long ago, I've recently built my own PC and although it's amazing I have list all of my thousands of pictures and files I'd gathered in that time.

 

I would recommend looking only for fault codes for your make of laptop, mine flashed on all of the keyboard lights (Number Lock ect...) and after a quick google I found it to be telling me that the CPU was up the swanny.

[firstmini]

Keep an eye out on Friday - currys are involved in black Friday sales (aswell as all the supermarkets)   best info I can give as useless with tech stuff!

[jt19]

I mainly use it for Internet and music. Maybe playing the odd stratigy game like comand and conquer or age of empires. I go through stages of playing. Usually in the winter lol.

I like the look of the hp pavilion 15-p078sa if that means anything to you lot lol. It's 400 in currys or pc world or 350 if you buy on there website. The processor is a 1 tb! Whatever that is lol. It's also got 8gb of ram.

Its annoying as I'm going to lose a lot of music....again! Most of my pics are saved to photo bucket which is good.


Thanks
josh

[Ben_O]

My Brother in law has just bought a packard bell laptop in the co-op for £199.

 

Its not too bad but has the dreaded Windows 8!

 

Not that you will find a new one without it

 

These are pretty good at the moment and reasonably priced too

 

http://www.tesco.com...&skuId=629-4864

 

 

Ben

Edited by Ben_O, 26 November 2014 - 08:56 PM.

[jt19]

What's wrong with windows 8? I'm not really up to date with computers etc lol.

[Chance]

Anyone know when windows 10 is coming out?

Apparently it is back to 'normal' like windows 7

I recently got a chrombook...its fantastic for internet...it is very much an online laptop though...no storage or disk drive..non of the normal stuff

[Ben_O]

Windows 8 does feature Windows 7 style desktop and in the 8.1 revision they included the start button but normal left click pressing on the start button just toggles between Windows Metro and Desktop. You have to right click the start button to just get a basic list of shortcuts.

 

Windows Metro is a App screen but in my opinion is a total waste of time.

 

I also find that windows 8 runs slower and that together with all the bundled rubbish that the manufactures supply with the Laptops makes it just rubbish and draining on more basic systems.

 

My Brother in law is going to wait until the warranty runs out on his one and then we are going to change it over to Windows 7.

 

Ben

[RooBoonix]

Lenovo laptops in my opinion are a main contender in budget laptops. Well built, reasonably priced and the design of some of them is nice too. But it's all very close and often comes down to what's on offer in the shops and has the better spec for the money, I recommend trying some and seeing which ones you like the design/feel of and then decide by taking into account budget and spec.

 

Operating system wise, I prefer Windows 7 over 8/8.1. Windows 8 to me seems like a tablet OS on a PC. Windows 10 looks a little better... not sure when release is though. As Ben_O has mentioned, the pre-bundled software on the machines can be a pain. Some manufacturers software is worse than others, Lenovos don't seem too bad. Whereas I've seen HP's and older Acer's which are awful.. just keep an eye out.

 

Good luck :)

 

Cameron.

 

EDIT: Also, I'd always recommend buying an Intel laptop over AMD. It's personal preference but I've always found Intel better.

Edited by RooBoonix, 27 November 2014 - 07:21 PM.

[HarrysMini]

Lenovo laptops in my opinion are a main contender in budget laptops. Well built, reasonably priced and the design of some of them is nice too. But it's all very close and often comes down to what's on offer in the shops and has the better spec for the money, I recommend trying some and seeing which ones you like the design/feel of and then decide by taking into account budget and spec.

 

Operating system wise, I prefer Windows 7 over 8/8.1. Windows 8 to me seems like a tablet OS on a PC. Windows 10 looks a little better... not sure when release is though. As Ben_O has mentioned, the pre-bundled software on the machines can be a pain. Some manufacturers software is worse than others, Lenovos don't seem too bad. Whereas I've seen HP's and older Acer's which are awful.. just keep an eye out.

 

Good luck :)

 

Cameron.

 

EDIT: Also, I'd always recommend buying an Intel laptop over AMD. It's personal preference but I've always found Intel better.

+1 Lenovo laptops are about as good as it gets Windows wise in my opinion. 

 

I've been down the Dell, HP etc. route and they're just terribly built in my experience, loaded with manufacture software rubbish too.

[xrocketengineer]

I am on my third Toshiba and they have been good hardware wise. The first one got too old and slow that could not run Windows XP any more so I sold it. The second one came with Vista and initially was awful but when I switched to Win 7 was great. I ended up giving that one to my daughter because I wanted something that could be used for some gaming. I regret getting one with Windows 8.1. Everything I used to do is much more difficult and the way it is set up makes no sense. I used to unlock (hidden and locked since Vista) the built in administrator account to download and install programs. With Win 8.1 The administrator account can not go to the internet! I had to make changes in the BIOS in order to run a Linux Live CD but it would run OK. After the latest BIOS update, Linux does not work any more regardless of how many exorcisms you attempt. Windows 8.1 pretty much requires that you open a Microsoft account (same as XBOX). Apparently anybody with such an account logged into your computer can install programs from the Microsoft Store with no administrator privileges!  However, when you log on with any other account (including the administrators) you can not see those programs nor uninstall the ones that were installed from the MS Store. What in Win 7 is the "All Programs" list, in Windows 8.1 is about 5 pages long.

Amazingly, I have a Lumia phone with Windows 8.1 and I love it! What works on the phone does not on the computer. Maybe I am set in my old ways since Windows 95, NT and Linux computers.

Edited by xrocketengineer, 28 November 2014 - 03:41 AM.

[mister bridger]

Been looking at that cheap Acer from Tesco. Does anyone know what version of Windows it runs?