15.6" Laptop for the Girlfiend

shadow_boxer

shadow_boxer

shadow_boxer

Soldato
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Hi guys and gals, I'm after a bit of help and advice in choosing a laptop for the girlfriend. Her's is on its last legs and is in desperate need of an upgrade. The main use will be office work, internet browsing and a little bit of watching the odd movie. Nothing too strenuous and definitely no gaming of any kind. So my first port of call was the dell outlet store but she has a significant amount of vouchers from a high street catalogue shop (not sure if I'm allowed to mention them) so she is inclined to use them as nobody else has any use for them.

Now the vouchers are enough to cover the whole cost of the system below. How does the following look for a general use system? Does it seem reasonable value for money? Can anybody recommend anything else either from the aforementioned store or elsewhere?

Manufacturer's Link

Full product information

Toshiba L650 i5 500GB 15.6in Laptop - Black.
Intel Core i5 480M 2.66GHz
4GB DDR3 RAM memory
500GB hard drive
15.6 inch widescreen display 1366 x 768
Dual layer DVD optical drive
Intel GMA with HD graphics card

£449.99

Thanks very much,

SB :)

edit

A couple of others have also caught my eye.

MSI A6200 i5 320GB 15.6in Laptop
Intel Core i5 460M.
4GB memory
320GB hard drive
15.6 inch widescreen display 1366 x 768 pixels
Dual layer DVD
Shared Intel with HD graphics card
£399.99

MSI CR640 500GB 15.6 Inch Laptop
Intel Core i5 dual core 2410M processor.
4GB DDR3 RAM memory.
500GB SATA hard drive.
15.6 inch widescreen display 1366 x 768 pixels.
DVD+RW/DVD-RW
Intel HD 3000 graphics card
£449.99

HP DV6 Series 500GB 15.6 Inch Laptop
Intel Core i3 370M.
2.4GHz processor speed.
4GB DDR3 RAM memory.
500GB hard drive
15.6 inch display 1366 x 768 pixels.
Dual layer DVD-RW
ATI Radeon HD 5470 graphics card with 512MB memory
£399.99

??

The final HP spec also seems OK, but don't know much about MSI with regards to laptops? :confused:
 
Last edited:
shadow_boxer said:
Hi guys and gals, I'm after a bit of help and advice in choosing a laptop for the girlfriend. Her's is on its last legs and is in desperate need of an upgrade. The main use will be office work, internet browsing and a little bit of watching the odd movie. Nothing too strenuous and definitely no gaming of any kind. So my first port of call was the dell outlet store but she has a significant amount of vouchers from a high street catalogue shop (not sure if I'm allowed to mention them) so she is inclined to use them as nobody else has any use for them.

Now the vouchers are enough to cover the whole cost of the system below. How does the following look for a general use system? Does it seem reasonable value for money? Can anybody recommend anything else either from the aforementioned store or elsewhere?

Manufacturer's Link

Full product information

Toshiba L650 i5 500GB 15.6in Laptop - Black.
Intel Core i5 480M 2.66GHz
4GB DDR3 RAM memory
500GB hard drive
15.6 inch widescreen display 1366 x 768
Dual layer DVD optical drive
Intel GMA with HD graphics card

£449.99

Thanks very much,

SB :)

edit

A couple of others have also caught my eye.

MSI A6200 i5 320GB 15.6in Laptop
Intel Core i5 460M.
4GB memory
320GB hard drive
15.6 inch widescreen display 1366 x 768 pixels
Dual layer DVD
Shared Intel with HD graphics card
£399.99

MSI CR640 500GB 15.6 Inch Laptop
Intel Core i5 dual core 2410M processor.
4GB DDR3 RAM memory.
500GB SATA hard drive.
15.6 inch widescreen display 1366 x 768 pixels.
DVD+RW/DVD-RW
Intel HD 3000 graphics card
£449.99

HP DV6 Series 500GB 15.6 Inch Laptop
Intel Core i3 370M.
2.4GHz processor speed.
4GB DDR3 RAM memory.
500GB hard drive
15.6 inch display 1366 x 768 pixels.
Dual layer DVD-RW
ATI Radeon HD 5470 graphics card with 512MB memory
£399.99

??

The final HP spec also seems OK, but don't know much about MSI with regards to laptops? :confused:
Click to expand...

The MSI CR640 has the most powerful CPU but the HP has the most powerful graphics capability since it has an actual graphics card.

The Toshiba isn't worth considering since for the same price the MSI CR640 offers a faster CPU and improved integrated graphics.

If her vouchers do cover the cost of the MSI CR640 if would recommened that one since it has the best CPU and solid integrated graphics that should be enough for her needs.

MSI is a solid Laptop manufacturer and an excellent Motherboard, graphics card manufacturer.
 
I would stay as far away from HP as possible, after seeing my friends laptop fall apart (high end media one) after around 4-5 months and they not helping him at all. Sent it back to them around 4 times and ever time they would say nothing is wrong or they wouldn't even do anything and just send it back, terribly customer services.

I would go with the MSI CR640, has a nice CPU and it matches all here needs, and should run sims if she ever wants to :P
 
Thanks for feedback guys. Narrowed it down to the MSI CR640 and Toshiba from Argos. I would definitely have gone to Dell Outlet but seems a waste to go for something like the 15z/L502x/Vostro or when we have all these vouchers sitting here! The MSI does have the better spec but read quite a few disappointing reviews regarding their build quality with laptops unlike the Toshiba. (Obviously generalising here). If I was buying for myself I would probably go for the MSI one (I know about their rep with mobos/GPUs etc but for her I'm just tempted to say get the Toshiba. I do like Asus notebooks, had a cheapish Asus UL30A but was very impressed by it. Thanks very much for your input, time to think about it.
 
Like I say the MSI CR640 is made by pegatron as are most of the ASUS laptops and on this model the quality is decent. There are reviews about of the CR640 and the CX640 (discrete grpahics card model).

The only thing I will say which may or may not be a bad thing is that if you buy an MSI notebook from Argos (are they not a competitor?) the warranty is with Argos with no option to return to MSI directly. I have no idea what Argos are like on warranty replacements perhaps somebody else can advise on this?
 
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