Laptop Hunt - bit of a specific search

chivs688

chivs688

chivs688

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27 Nov 2010
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I'm looking into buying a new laptop as my current one is slowing down and slowly dying on me.

It won't be used for any particularly intensive programs or gaming too much, just want it to be able to run multiple programs at the same time pretty seamlessly, which will mainly be things like Internet browsing watching videos and playing music etc.

I already have a 2GB ram stick that I can transfer over from my current laptop, and will not need a big hard drive as it will only really be music and documents and general programs that will be stored on it.

So basically the only real thing I want in the laptop is the best processor I can get for as cheap as possible around my price range, which I guess could stretch to around the £450/500 mark if needed.

So I don't know whether such deals can be found where the processor is good but it doesn't have the big extras that bump the price up, as obviously the lot usually comes hand in hand, but they would just be unnecessary costs and the lower the cost the better.

Would really appreciate any suggestions or advice.

Thanks.
 
Agreed on the too much choice!

I found this which seemed like a nice little deal:

MSI CR620
Intel i5-460M 2.53GHz
2GB DDR3 1066MHz (which I can then bump up to 4GB)
250GB HDD
15.6" HD TFT
Intel GMA HD
Webcam
Windows 7 Home Premium

For £454.98


And also this:

Asus X52F
Intel Core i5-460M 2.53GHz
2GB RAM (which I can then bump up to 4GB)
250GB HDD
15.6" HD TFT
Intel GMA HD
Webcam
Windows 7 Home Premium

For £468.00

Seem like great deals to me, am I right?
 
I would enthusiastically recommend HP or Dell. Asus don't have a warranty, and build quality with MSI is pot luck. Could be great, could be terrible. I'm unsure with regards to Samsung, their netbooks are excellent but their laptops fairly rare. HP's with nvidia cards are a liability, but aside from that the range is good.

Dell in particular have an excellent warranty, though this will increase the price slightly it'll also significantly extend its useful lifespan so (hopefully) lowering total cost of ownership.

I'll have a look around and see if anything looks particularly promising. Dells Vostro 3500s are in the right price bracket for the dual core versions. I tend to look at the cheap business laptops rather than entertainment ones, as the latter are likely to have hot and unreliable graphics cards. Price depends a bit on what size screen you're after though.
 
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JonJ678 said:
I would enthusiastically recommend HP or Dell. Asus don't have a warranty, and build quality with MSI is pot luck. Could be great, could be terrible. I'm unsure with regards to Samsung, their netbooks are excellent but their laptops fairly rare. HP's with nvidia cards are a liability, but aside from that the range is good.

Dell in particular have an excellent warranty, though this will increase the price slightly it'll also significantly extend its useful lifespan so (hopefully) lowering total cost of ownership.

I'll have a look around and see if anything looks particularly promising. Dells Vostro 3500s are in the right price bracket for the dual core versions. I tend to look at the cheap business laptops rather than entertainment ones, as the latter are likely to have hot and unreliable graphics cards. Price depends a bit on what size screen you're after though.
Click to expand...

Not hugely fussed about screen size, not netbook size, but no need for a particularly large screen. Care far more about performance.

Appreciate you having a look.

the two I posted earlier are the best I have managed to find.

P.S. they both come with a one year warranty from the site I found the on.
 
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O yeah would be great to have a top quality screen, but that would only really benefit gamers and graphic designers etc for it to be worth the money your gonna be paying for it with most deals.
 
I find 'screen real estate' (sigh, someone comes up with another idiom) useful. 1366 x 768 compared to 1600 x 900, that's almost 40% more pixels. Meaning, more text on screen and less scrolling (browsing, word processing, window heavy applications, like photoshop). It's not just the size, but you wont find anything other than 768p on a 15'' for that price.
 
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