Best laptop under 400 quid?

Under the 400 mark there is little choice in these sorts of things. You have to go with whatever the best deal you can find is, which are changing constantly. I've been tracking prices for about 10 months now, and laptops which cost 6-700 in feb/march, are now around 350-400 ish now.

There's now a few laptops of 299 and below which there didn't used to be .

There's also end of line outlets and seconds/refurbs which can get you more bang for your buck.

When you get to 700 ish, you are into proper competition, i.e. macbooks are now possible, and some thinkpads, and you'll get a whole lot of kit for that price with a cheaper laptop.

As I said, it depends ...
 
Part of my job at the local school is to source out bargains when required , like new printers , cameras , projectors and the like .I was asked to get a laptop for one of the teachers .PC*orld business were doing a nice laptop for £379 +vat . An Acer 5210 [I think that was the model off hand ] the specs were very good . Widescreen LCD, 120g HDD ,1g RAM, DL DVD writer ,4 USB 2 ports ,Firefire [Ilink port], built in card reader etc . It was a nice looking laptop too .One or two were so impressed they bought a one too .Nearly got one myself .

update: here are the specs from the site

Intel® Core™2 Duo mobile processor T5500 (2 MB L2 cache , 1.66GHz, 667 MHz FSB)
1GB of DDR2 memory , upgradeable to 4GB using two soDIMM modules (dual-channel support)
120GB or larger hard disk drive4 with enhanced Acer DASP (Disk Anti-Shock Protection)
8X DVD-Super Multi double-layer drive
LAN: Gigabit Ethernet supporting ASF (Alert Standard Format)
2.0, Wake-on-LAN ready
5-in-1 card reader (SD™, MMC, MS, MS PRO, xD)
2.88 kg (6.36 lbs.) with 6-cell battery pack
1 Year Return to Base Warranty
 
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The problem with Acer is that the support, if you need it, is not good.

You can get some Toshiba laptops for under £400, and whilst they won't be top spec, it's worth paying for the better build quality and support IMO.

Rgds

Radderfire
 
A Dell Vostro 1000 or Isnpiron 6400 would probably be worth a look. They're at least dual-core so they shouldn't be too bad.
 
The vostro 1000 is a decent entry level laptop, my nephew has just got one, I tweaked it up for him, got rid of the junk programs etc. Not a bad little laptop, build quality isn't bad. Decent bang for buck.

Rob H
 
seen a toshiba l40 laptop for £360.00 the usual budget spec: 80g hdd 512 mb ddr2 etc..
acer 5520 for £380 with vista home premium
 
I went in to a laptop 'showroom' the other week and had a play on all sorts of machines, and the HP/Compaq ones had the most dreadful trackpad buttons. They reminded me of my old QuickShot joysticks, before microswitches became popular.

It looked like all machines in the range as well, not just a couple of models. This is enough to put me off buying any new compaq/hp model.
 
Agreed that Dell are also worth looking at in this price range too. Good value for money, support is improving after they moved it to other countries a few years ago.

Rgds

Radderfire
 
That's better thanks guys.

Been looking around and thought I'd better up the budget to 500 notes which led me to the Fujistsu Siemens Pi2515.

Any opinions on that one?
 
I set a Fujitsu-siemens laptop up last week for a friend who was having difficulties logging on to his wireless network. He had bought it from a large warehouse that has membership cards if you know which one I mean, the laptop had Windows Vista basic installed and was brand new, but for some reason no video, soundcard or network drivers were installed!!!:eek:
Installed the drivers by searching the hard disk and the lappie kicked into life, not a bad lappie with Atheros network and SIS chipset. Only had a gig of ram and a celeron cpu but felt reasonably quick, was only to be used as a surfing, office type machine for his daughter who was at a local uni. Decent build quality, but definately built to a strict price budget though.

Rob H
 
sorry to hijack this but ive just brought a Fuji Siemens laptop and carnt get the wi fi to work. Simply carnt find any networks, how did you get it sorted? :)
 
matt99man said:
sorry to hijack this but ive just brought a Fuji Siemens laptop and carnt get the wi fi to work. Simply carnt find any networks, how did you get it sorted? :)
Click to expand...

Is the wifi actually turned on, I Believe there is a button combination to press and the a light shows on the front panel of the laptop. Also have you got the latest atheros wifi drivers installed?

Rob H
 
I ended up spending £699. !!!!!!!

Dell Vostro 1500
T7500 2.2Ghz
Geforce256Mb 8600MGT
1440x900 screen
9 cell battery
Vista Home premium.
Since added a 7200rpm Seagate Momentus HDD (makes a big difference)

Didn't want to buy Dell but couldn't beat it for the price.
 
nearly double your orig budget.... Could have got a Macbook for that price. They are suposed to be the best for video editing and stuff.
 
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