£700 Laptop

Knightinator · 20 Mar 2011 at 13:58

A friend of mine is looking to buy a new laptop and was looking at a macbook with student discount. He was wondering if there were better laptops available for the same price as the mac? I'm pretty out of touch with laptops and I'm not really sure where to start.
Thanks for your help/advice.

[Olly] · 22 Mar 2011 at 13:17

Depends on whether he wants OS/X or Windows.

I do really like Macs but in my opinion they are still a little too pricey for my liking. He could probably get a windows laptop with the same hardware spec as the mac for around £400-£500.

Knightinator · 22 Mar 2011 at 20:50

Oh right cool thank you.Sorry I should have been clearer, I mean if he goes for windows instead how much better would the same priced hardware be?

[Olly] · 24 Mar 2011 at 10:54

Well the new MacBooks (The White Ones) only run an Intel Dual Core Proc, 2gb RAM, 250gb drive and Nvidia 320M onboard GFX.

If it were me I'd be looking at something like Samsung SF310, which has got an Intel I3 proc, 4gb RAM, 320gb hard drive and the Nvidia 310m GFX.

And the best thing is you can pick one up for about £600, before cashback/discounts. Thats just one option though, there's plenty more to choose from if you don't mind reducing your spec a bit.

Genome_UK · 25 Mar 2011 at 13:05

from looking around recently i seemed to notice apples notebooks were roughy twice the price of a same specced windows machine. For the price of a macbook pro you could get a gaming laptop (not that i would recommend one over a gaming desktop).

I just got the laptop in my sig for £500. Great spec for the price and its use (design / photography). A Mac equiv is about twice the price and just not worth it unless you really like OSX.