Min Spec for a Laptop ?

[350186]

Hi

Apologies if this appears a stupid question, but it's what is puzzling me and you may be able to help...

My old Acer 1562 Laptop is dying. I only really use it for surfing the net (wireless N or through homeplug), excel / word docs and photo editing, naormally through Picassa. So, by most of your standards, basic home use. I do have two seperate desktops in the office upstairs (hers and mine), but the missus and I use the laptop in the lounge at night, more convenient and sociable.

However, I am also very impatient, so the couple of mins start-up time and the lag in opening Outlook whilst also looking at a few web-pages is driving me insane, plus the battery life is 1 hour at best, so basically permanently plugged in to mains. So, my shopping list is probably:

Decent processor (dual core poss?)
Windows 7 (64 bit?)
4GB of RAM (at least)
200GB + Hardrive (does the rpm matter much?)
15"+ screen - It sits on lap in lounge, but may go on the odd trip so I don't need 17"'s
3 hours + Battery Life
Wireless N
Bluetooth
Card Reader (nice extra)
DVD drive (does this really matter now, probably not..?)

I know it is easy to get a laptop with this spec, but I'm looking as near the the £300 mark as I can get. I'm not afraid to get refurbished etc, so...

Any suggestions?

 

[Haywire]

Try Dell outlet

hey there,

i'd go to dell outlet and check out the inspiron 15. they seem to tick all your boxes and dell are usually pretty good. try loooking for refurb and not scratch and dent though

you never know what your getting with scratch and dent they could be horrid but usually not too bad

hope this helps

 

[Disco Boy]

If it's just for sitting in the lounge and surfing then 13" or under is the size to go. A netbook would do to be perfectly honest.

 

[350186]

My daughter has a 9" Netbook and I find it infruiating how small the keyboard and screen is.

I suppose I could always go down to local PC world / comet etc, play with some laptops and decide what i like brand / size wise, then find one similar online?

Haywire - Thanks for the Dell prompt, good idea, both our desktops are Dells as well..

 

[Haywire]

no worries dude. just a thought as i went for a quick look and they were good deals in my opinion.

hope you find one

 

[Loosecannon]

If you go for a netbook, try a 10" screen with a minimim resolution of 1024 x 768. Its a really nice resolution.

Most netbooks are 1024 x 600 - which makes surfing the net a lot less fun!