Budget Laptop Recommendations

Klo · 19 Jul 2009 at 12:20

My parents are looking for a budget laptop (around £400) so they can surf the internet, use Word etc and possibly watch a DVD. They don't need to play games.

They ideally want a 15inch screen, and keys must be reasonable to type with as my dad has big fingers.The reason I ask is because there are so many different types, all very similar to each other, it can be pretty hard to pick out a good one!

Does anyone have any recommendations or good user experience with a suitable laptop? Brand is not that important, as long as its known.

Thanks

TheVoice · 19 Jul 2009 at 12:37

Personally I feel Dell are always a good bet for notebooks, I've had two so far and they've been great machines.

£400 will get you an Inspiron 15 with a Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz, 3GB of RAM, 250GB HDD and comes with Vista Home Premium x64 with a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out. Looks like they're also doing a no-cost upgrade to the LED-backlit displays too, which is nice and definitely worth having!

Alternatively you can save yourself £50 and go for one with a Pentium Dual Core 2GHz, 3GB of RAM and 160GB HDD. Still comes with Vista HP + Win7 upgrade and still has the free upgrade to the LED display if you select it. That would give you £50 to spend on upgrading to a choice of colour lid and a slightly better battery, for example.

Hope that helps.

jmc007 · 19 Jul 2009 at 13:03

Dell vostro are good budget laptops.

Klo · 19 Jul 2009 at 17:44

TheVoice said:
Personally I feel Dell are always a good bet for notebooks, I've had two so far and they've been great machines.

£400 will get you an Inspiron 15 with a Core 2 Duo 2.1GHz, 3GB of RAM, 250GB HDD and comes with Vista Home Premium x64 with a free upgrade to Windows 7 when it comes out. Looks like they're also doing a no-cost upgrade to the LED-backlit displays too, which is nice and definitely worth having!

Alternatively you can save yourself £50 and go for one with a Pentium Dual Core 2GHz, 3GB of RAM and 160GB HDD. Still comes with Vista HP + Win7 upgrade and still has the free upgrade to the LED display if you select it. That would give you £50 to spend on upgrading to a choice of colour lid and a slightly better battery, for example.

Hope that helps.

Thanks for that, I've heard some good things about Dell laptops! What is the customer service like?

TheVoice · 19 Jul 2009 at 17:47

Klo said:
Thanks for that, I've heard some good things about Dell laptops! What is the customer service like?

Ha...um, well it's not bad, not great. Tends to depend who you're talking to, some people have an attitude problem and aren't too helpful, others are quite useful. Once you've jumped through their hoops to diagnose a problem, for example, they're pretty quick in getting it sorted for you. I had my HDD replaced in my notebook shortly after Xmas, and they were quite quick in getting the guy round to supply me the new HDD. If you had to send back the machine though, I don't know how long they'd take.

I've had good experiences and bad experiences with them, doesn't really put me off though. I like their machines and they tend to offer by far the best value for money.