Laptop for ~£500

Craig321

Craig321

Craig321

Soldato
Joined
2 May 2004
Posts
19,950
Hi,

I've been after a laptop for a while now and just wondered what I could get for ~£500?

I'd like to stick with Vista 64-bit & 4GB RAM, so a good CPU is required as well. Graphic card doesn't matter too much, but something half decent that could at least handle Aero properly and maybe a couple games. Might be asking a bit much for the price, but a 7200RPM hard drive would be nice for that extra bit of performance.

What's the best make/model to be going with?

I'm guessing Sony Vaio laptops are expensive for their performance? A friend of mine recently got one for £500 (brand new) and the screensaver lags(!!) and it generally looks sluggish and... well... crap (the design and screen's nice though).

The Asus EEE laptops are nice and I would quite like to get one considering their price/performance, but such a small screen would just annoy me.

13" is my absolute minimum, 15" would be better.

Thanks,
Craig.
 
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I've got an eeepc 900 and its great for sufing the internet but thats about asfar as it goes. Altho C&C Red Alert 2 flys!

Your best bet is to have a look on the dell website that was you can clearly see what you get for your money.
 
Thanks for the links/suggestions so far guys :)

What's the ASUS EEE 1000 like - could anything better be had for the same price (~£280)
 
Craig321 said:
Thanks for the links/suggestions so far guys :)

What's the ASUS EEE 1000 like - could anything better be had for the same price (~£280)
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the EEE 1000's are basically EEE901's in a bigger form factor package, (i.e. 10.1" screen instead of 8.9"). Don't think that that would really suit your original remit as, like the smaller models, they are really only suitable for light web surfing as they lack much in the way of CPU power or graphics performance.

You could see if there are any Inspirons to have on the manufacturers outlet site ...
 
memyselfandi said:
the EEE 1000's are basically EEE901's in a bigger form factor package, (i.e. 10.1" screen instead of 8.9"). Don't think that that would really suit your original remit as, like the smaller models, they are really only suitable for light web surfing as they lack much in the way of CPU power or graphics performance.

You could see if there are any Inspirons to have on the manufacturers outlet site ...
Click to expand...

My only problem with the 15" Inspirons is they're really quite heavy - they only have a 2-3Kg section for them. My Dad's old 2.4GHZ P4 laptop is 2.5Kg which is really quite heavy just to carry around.

I can deal with that though if it gets me a better laptop for a better price, it's not like I'll be carrying the laptop around that much by hand (I'll get a bag for it).

Craig.
 
HI
I got my Dell XPS 1330 from Dell outlet for £566.00 inc VAT and delivery
Screen WXGA 1200x800 LED
CPU - P8400 2.4Ghz
Graphics - nVidia 8400GS
RAM 3Gb (2 gig stick to take it to 4gb was £18)
It can just about play modern games like COD 4 on low settings and although over budget matches your requirements.
 
Luffy said:
HI
I got my Dell XPS 1330 from Dell outlet for £566.00 inc VAT and delivery
Screen WXGA 1200x800 LED
CPU - P8400 2.4Ghz
Graphics - nVidia 8400GS
RAM 3Gb (2 gig stick to take it to 4gb was £18)
It can just about play modern games like COD 4 on low settings and although over budget matches your requirements.
Click to expand...

What's the battery life like on it?
 
Hi
I have the 6 cell battery and all power saving options off.
I also have the Hard drive set for performance in the BIOS.
I reckon I get about 2 hours.
 
Luffy said:
Hi
I have the 6 cell battery and all power saving options off.
I also have the Hard drive set for performance in the BIOS.
I reckon I get about 2 hours.
Click to expand...

Cool, so I'm guessing you could squeeze 3.5-4 hours if you really tried?

I'll have to see what prices I can get for the M1330 :)
 
I would think so, there is also a 9 cell battery option but it adds a lot of weight and sticks out a fair bit.
Best value is in the Outlet, they have deals al the time. There was £102 off before VAT when I got mine.
Good luck
 
Luffy said:
I would think so, there is also a 9 cell battery option but it adds a lot of weight and sticks out a fair bit.
Best value is in the Outlet, they have deals al the time. There was £102 off before VAT when I got mine.
Good luck
Click to expand...

Don't think I'll be going for the 9-cell battery, it sticks out way too much for me and I'd imagine it'd make the laptop quite a bit heavier.

I hear Dell are fairly easy to haggle with so I might see if I can get some free stuff/discounts out of them :)

Thanks,
Craig.
 
By shopping around you can usally get some good deals on Asus laptops which have the bonus of looking good aswell as being well specced for the money :)
 
I will have a look around thanks :)

Anyone know if I'd be able to haggle a Vista DVD out of Asus/Dell so I can reinstall it without all their crap on there?
 
Hi
The Dell comes with a Vista reinstallation DVD.
There is no crap on it, I reinstalled as soon as I received mine to get rid of the crap. :D
Not sure what Asus bundle these days.
 
Another vote for the XPS M1330, you could probably get one into your budget if you scour the Outlet site for a bargain. :)
 
Tute said:
Another vote for the XPS M1330, you could probably get one into your budget if you scour the Outlet site for a bargain. :)
Click to expand...

I was having a browse in a certain store just to get an idea of the size/weight etc. of the M1330 and I really like it. I'll have to see what kind of specs I can get for the price :)
 
AlexTrickle said:
By shopping around you can usally get some good deals on Asus laptops which have the bonus of looking good aswell as being well specced for the money :)
Click to expand...

Be sure to stay away from the F3 series or any laptop sharing the same chassis, we had 4 or 5 which all snapped in exactly the same place.

Edit: This is the chassis to avoid http://97.com.ua/files/imagecache/photo/files/pics/asus_f3_right stand11.jpg, I also repaired one last week that had this exact chassis in black and was part of a different (new) series.
 
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