22 replies to this topic

[Matt.P]

Evening all, hopefully I can drag someone away from the Uraguay Ghana match long enough to answer my question.

I'm currently looking for a new laptop, and with the internet being the electrical goods minefield that it is, i'm spoilt for choice.

I've read countless reviews of certain types and styles, but every one of them has some negative review at the end of it all...

This left me wondering... What do people on here use?

I'd like something with enough space for plenty of pictures, word processing, video uploading and editing and enough power for a couple of games perhaps, why not?

So, would anyone reccomend theirs? or maybe even a laptop a friend of a friend of a friend owns?

Any advice would be useful

Cheers,

Matt

[The_Mistro]

not HP, mine is awful!

my sister has a mac book and loves it!

Edited by The_Mistro, 02 July 2010 - 08:28 PM.

[jay30]

Personally I'd go for a Toshiba, Sony or a HP

Lenovo and Samsung are decent brands without paying the premium

Steer clear of Acer, Packard Bell, Dell, and especially Advent, E-Machines and any other PC World/Comet/Currys specials

Thats my opinion, other opinions my differ )

[Guess-Works.com]

Just had the same dilemma, but it's essentially down to what interfaces you want and how much money you have...

I was looking in the 3-400 bracket and the only real stipulation was 4gb ram and a screen resolution greater than the standard 1366x768 which is really pants...

After much research I opted for a Dell Inspiron 1750, which I picked up off the Dell outlet for 320+VAT

spec...

Inspiron 1750
English Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Camera Integrated 1.3 Mega Pixel Camera
Optical Drive 8X DVD + - RW Drive including software
Battery Primary 6-cell 48W/HR LI-ION
English Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
4GB (2x2GB Dual Rank DIMMs) 800MHz
Pentium Dual Core T4400(2.2GHz,800MHz,1MB)
Dell Wireless 1397 (802.11 b g)
320GB HD 5400
LCD Back Cover Obsidian Black custom High-gloss Finish
Graphics 512 MB ATI Mobility Radeon HD4330
17.3in WLED HD+ (1600X900)

It was categorised as a Grade 1 Scratch or Dent

So far I haven't found a dent or scratch...

The only thing which I've find a bit of a pain is no integrated bluetooth, but has plenty of USB's and an integrated SD card reader which is good for transferring photos from me digi' camera, but is a fairly big laptop considering it has a 17" widescreen which is excellent.

http://www.dell.co.uk/outlet

[xBR4DLEY]

Toshiba L300-1BV
Its not too bad , 2GB RAM , and recently had the 120GB hard drive replaced with a 250GB one as it had faulty sectors , this was out of warranty and Toshiba wanted to charge me something rediculous , so just took it to normal computer shop.
Had it for nearly 2 years and only about 2/3 things have gone wrong with it:
Battery lasts for about 12 mins
Hard drive failed
and Windows decided it would make itself invalid , although this was the computer shops fault for not setting it up right.
I paid around £340 for it and have now realised all the newer ones are more expensive and you get less stuff on them. My cousin also bought a similar one , but with a different processor and some other small things and his was a bit cheaper.
Not bad though I suppose

[ajperry]

get a mac... you will never be disappointed.

[xBR4DLEY]

get a mac... you will never be disappointed.

I think most people would , but I dont see the reason paying so much money for a laptop when you can get a PC equivalent for much cheaper , although I do have to say macs are pretty amazing.

[minilester]

woo-hoo.. computers!....

.. this is my playin field!

now any laptop you buy will do any of the above you ask...except games, now wen you same games can you be more accurate... do you mean playin pogo dot com or do you mean C.O.D?.... W.o.W can be played on most lappys anyway... but i'd say toshiba...

sony does the same hardware but wants 50% MORE £££ AND DELL... well the DELL arnt they...

so you need to know exactly what you want it for and not" i want it to do a bit of everything..." as i could say...
"thas easy.. your lookin between £300 and £2000....." so, what your budget and what games do you want to play?

Lester

[Matt.P]

Thinking about it, the sort of PC games i've got (nothing up to the standards of today's tech savvy folk) are pretty basic, so i'm not worried about not being able to use them, the ancient desk-top can work those.

If I could get my hands on a good HD laptop, that can store plenty (loads) of video footage + pictures (HD and SD) has a couple of USB ports, CD/DVD drive.

Main priorities are the above since i'm into making short films and Journalism, high speed is a must too!

Aside from this, I'm just wanting to see how many of these features I can get for the money.

I know any PC would be decent for editing, but i'm after making more sophisticated editing, instead of the usual "Windows movie maker" stuff you normally find on Youtube. So what i'm trying to say is I need something that can cope with plenty of high speed, multi-layered and large (in both length and file-size) edits.

As someone else mentioned too - Battery life! Battery life! Battery life! Plenty of that would be good

[Puddings]

+1 for Mac

my mac book pro is ace you will never look back

[mini_mad69]

I've got a toshiba, used it for a few hours everyday for over 2 years.


I know a few people with them, and we all have problems with them overheating, because they put the fan in a silly place.

Otherwise pretty good laptops.


My housemate has a sony viao, nothing but problems, with his old one and new one.



A good friend has a mac book pro, he loves it.

You can run windows on them aswell.

[minilester]

does it really need to be a laptop?...

the battery will die sooner or later and the longer you use it the more the battery will degrade... yes mac's are pretty good for this sort of work but there expensive and if you upgrade anything apple will void your warranty... and you then have to pay through the nose for all the software...

is there not room for a real computer?

[jay30]

the battery will die sooner or later and the longer you use it the more the battery will degrade

Providing that you don't run the laptop off the mains all the time and exercise the battery by running it full charge to almost flat it should last at least 18-24 months. Laptop batteries ain't as bad as they used to be.

[minilester]

...but still crap none-the-less as the laptop wont run at full tilt running off the battery so what ever the spec of the cpu is... it'll never run at that speed off the battery...

[Puddings]

A good friend has a mac book pro, he loves it.

You can run windows on them aswell.

Why would you eant to put windows on a mac?? totally defeats the point of getting away from crappy windows