I hate shopping for laptops...

dr_shoe

dr_shoe

dr_shoe

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27 Nov 2003
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So, another off to uni, looking for laptop person, except I have been looking for 2 months now and can't find what I want.

Heres what I want for below £700(inc VAT):

Intel Core 2 Duo 1.66+
1x512mb + (no 2x256 please in case i wanna buy more)
A standalone graphics card (something that wont die from playing an undemanding game)
60gb HD
Wireless network

not fussed about it having an OS or not.


The problem I'm having is I find a nice laptop for £600 that has everything I want except the graphics card, then when i go up to £700, I get no extra graphics power for the £100, instead I get a slightly better CPU and slightly bigger hard drive.

Help please!
 
I would say build your own, but i don't know of any barebones laptops for core2duo.
One of the PC Magazines did an article on building you own laptop a few months back and for gaming around your price mark was a barebones msi laptop that came with an ATI 1600 graphics chips and 256mb of memory, not nicking system memory, plus had wireless and dvdrw as standard, you just needed to add, cpu, hard drive, memory and an os all of you own choosing.
Think it worked out between £700 and £800 depending on what you put in it.
 
What about this?
Aspire 5612WLMi £610 inclusive of VAT
Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2300 (1.66GHz)
15.4” WXGA CrystalBrite Widescreen TFT display
1024MB DDR II RAM
80GB Hard Drive
DVD-SuperMulti Double-layer drive
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator GMA 950
WLAN 802.11a/b/g
6-cell Battery
Microsoft Windows XP Home & Microsoft Works

or this
Aspire 5102WLMi £560 inclusive
Mobile AMD 64 Turion X2 TL50 1.6GHz
15.4" WXGA Acer CrystalBrite™ TFT LCD Display
100GB Hard Disk Drive
1024MB DDR II RAM
DVD-Super Multi Drive
ATI Radeon® Xpress 1100 integrated 3D graphics
Fast Ethernet 802.11b/g WLAN
0.3MP Orbicam built-in webcam
Battery: 6 cell
5-in-1 Card Reader


Only thing is graphics card, but loads of RAM.
 
cool those look pretty decent, i had a snoop around and found this though, slightly overbudget but it should be ok:
£709
Acer Aspire 5672WLMi
Intel Centrino Core Duo MobileProcessor T2300 1.66GHz
1GB DDRII-533MHzSDRAM
80GB Hard Drive
15.4"WXGA
ATI Mobility RadeonX1400 with 512 MB ofHyperMemory (128 Dedicated, up to 384 Shared)
8 cell battery
wireless

looks good, but do Acer give discount to students at all? and are they better than dell generally?
 
im off to uni too, and looking for a very similar setup, will be watching this thread closely! thanks
 
had a look at the dell inspiron 6400's on their site, looks quite good, but again, theres compromises of adding additional/upgraded components.. versus the cost increase.

not really wanting to break over the £500-600 barrier

im not too bothered about the graphics card side of things though, although would be nice
 
b4z said:
had a look at the dell inspiron 6400's on their site, looks quite good, but again, theres compromises of adding additional/upgraded components.. versus the cost increase.

not really wanting to break over the £500-600 barrier

im not too bothered about the graphics card side of things though, although would be nice
Click to expand...

It's always when you add a better graphics card it goes over the £700

inspiron 6400
Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2050 (1.60 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition, SP2 (incl Symantec PC Restore Recovery) edit
SUPPORT SERVICES Basic Package, 2 Year At-Home Service edit
LCD 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display edit
MEMORY 1024MB 533MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x512) edit
HARD DRIVE 60GB (5,400rpm) Hard Drive edit
OPTICAL DRIVE(S) Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW with Software edit
GRAPHICS CARD 128MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1300 HyperMemory™ graphics card edit
SOUND CARDS Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy® ADVANCED HD™ Audio- Trial Version


£737 Includes VAT & Shipping
Pushed up by the £70.50 graphics card tho dell say..."1024MB 533MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x512) [Included in Price]
 
whats a good brand of laptop to go for, i dont have much idea about them...

i know i want a core2duo 1.6+, 1gb of ddr2 ram, 60+gb hdd, and 15or14" screen

but theres acer, toshiba, asus, hp, dell, etc.

what differentiates the brands really? :confused:

is there anyone brand which is said to be higher quality than the others..?
 
b4z said:
whats a good brand of laptop to go for, i dont have much idea about them...

i know i want a core2duo 1.6+, 1gb of ddr2 ram, 60+gb hdd, and 15or14" screen

but theres acer, toshiba, asus, hp, dell, etc.

what differentiates the brands really? :confused:

is there anyone brand which is said to be higher quality than the others..?
Click to expand...

Many brands use the same components, it's just the external casing/badge. I would look more into customer service of the company, in my case I would not recommend Dell. Acer's are great value for money, but they too have pretty bad service apparently.
 
from Rock...

Intel Core 2 Duo T5500 1.66GHz, 2MB Cache / WXGA (1280 x 800) X-Glass / NVIDIA GeForce Go 7600 256MB / 1GB DDR2 667MHz (512MB x2) / 80GB 5400rpm SATA / 8x +/- Dual Layer DVD Writer / No Bluetooth / No TV Tuner / Windows XP Home / Roxio, BullGuard, Works, Office Trial / Pixel check option not taken / Standard Nylon Case

£849.00

Slightly over your budget but they have lots of configuarble laptops from low to extreme ranges, so theres bound to be something you'll like
 
that rock one does look quite good, but from £700 to £850 is a big jump for me

i think the acer i posted earlier is the best looking one so far.
 
dr_shoe said:
that rock one does look quite good, but from £700 to £850 is a big jump for me

i think the acer i posted earlier is the best looking one so far.
Click to expand...

The Asus A8JC might suit, price is somewhere between £700-£750. They do a very similar model with 15.4" WXGA screen which is, I think, the same price.
 
split said:
It's always when you add a better graphics card it goes over the £700

inspiron 6400
Intel® Core™ Duo Processor T2050 (1.60 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB) edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition, SP2 (incl Symantec PC Restore Recovery) edit
SUPPORT SERVICES Basic Package, 2 Year At-Home Service edit
LCD 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display edit
MEMORY 1024MB 533MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x512) edit
HARD DRIVE 60GB (5,400rpm) Hard Drive edit
OPTICAL DRIVE(S) Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW with Software edit
GRAPHICS CARD 128MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1300 HyperMemory™ graphics card edit
SOUND CARDS Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy® ADVANCED HD™ Audio- Trial Version


£737 Includes VAT & Shipping
Pushed up by the £70.50 graphics card tho dell say..."1024MB 533MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x512) [Included in Price]
Click to expand...



5 mins ago I just got the exact same laptop off a well known auction site sealed with full warranty for £450 :D
 
Hmmm, Well I got an Acer Aspire 5672Wlmi-166 for £799 from a certain highstreet retailer, who I'd never have considered buying from in my life.

Specs

Intel® Centrino® Duo mobile technology, featuring: Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2300E (2 MB L2 cache, 1.66GHz, 667 MHz FSB), Intel® 945PM Express chipset, Intel® PRO/Wireless 3945ABG network connection, 15.4" WXGA Acer CrystalBrite™ TFT LCD Display, ATI Mobility™ Radeon® X1400 with up to 512 MB of HyperMemory™ (128 MB of dedicated GDDR2 VRAM; up to 384 MB of shared system memory), 2048GB (2*1024) of DDR2 533MHz memory, 120GB 5,400rpm SATA hard disk drive, 8X slot-load DVD-Super Multi double-layer, 56Kbps Modem, Gigabit Ethernet, Bluetooth® 2.0+EDR, 5-in-1 card reader, Acer Orbicam 1.3 megapixel camera, 8-cell Li-ion battery, Microsoft Works
 
Last edited:
thanks for the responses guys,

I'm off to uni next week, so after all the drinking and vomitting, ill see if they have any good deals going, but so far I have nailed down the following as *potentials*:

Asus A8JC
Acer 5672 WlMi
Dell 6400

seem to be the best ones going right now.
 
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