First time buyer - Need advice

optimus1977 · 4 May 2008 at 20:44

Hi,

It's my old man's birthday soon and he's been hinting towards getting a laptop. I have about £350 to spend and if im honest, i dont know what's the best deal for such a little amount of cash.

If anyone can help me out i'd be grateful

Thanks
G

schnipps · 4 May 2008 at 21:41

Hi - Im looking for one myself, im quite into pc's and always have been but the laptop scene im quite new to. Going from my 2 weeks of research and speaking to people the processor is king and you really want at least a T5 core 2 duo chip, personally im looking at T8's but my budget is a tad more than yours.

If I were you i would find out what he wants it for. Dell seem to be the best bang for buck and for 350 delivered you may have to lower your expectations but there are always deals around every corner.

Vista needs 2gig of ram so dont get a 1 gig machine even though you can run it, it will be terrible, so try and get a T5 chip and 2 gig for the budget. It is dooable.

Ascendancy · 4 May 2008 at 23:08

I just ordered a Dell Vostro 5010 for £350 delivered.

Core 2 duo T5670, 2gb ram, 160gb hd

Alexrose1uk · 5 May 2008 at 22:09

Tbh you dont need a T5 series, although its a good, a decent T2 series, or higher end AMD laptop processor will do you fine.
If you set your budget to £399, you can get a 17" toshiba with a T2730(?) clocked at 1.73GHz per core, 2GB RAM and a 120GB HD from a shop, so possibly a little cheaper online.
The Pentium Dual Core laptop chips are actually fairly respectable, they're just slightly slower clock for clock compared to the T5 series (about 5% IIRC) and use a little more power, all of the T series current mobile chips, Pentium Dual Core OR Core 2 Duo are pretty nice chips when backed up with a good system.

As a laptop has a slower HD, 1-2GB or RAM would definately be advisable, 1GB is usually fine for basic usage, but the HD hurts performance a little.