Need A Light Laptop for the Mrs

mattyg · 10 Oct 2008 at 19:08

Hiys folks

The Other Half has just started Uni and needs a light laptop for word and internet really. She was looking at the asus one or the wind but is worried about the small screen so has decided on 12 incher (resist the urge guys)

She's a girlie girl so it needs to be light

Any ideas its all just numbers to me

Cheers
Matt

bigredshark · 10 Oct 2008 at 20:53

The usual suspects really...

Toshiba R500/R600 - light and underated but expensive and don't feel as sturdy as they should (they're actually pretty tough but flex alarmingly...)

Dell Latitude - cheap and pretty decent, my last gen D430 has been a good laptop, I expect the new E series version will be very good too.

HP 2710p (I think thats the model) - light, build in DVD, good build quality, middle of the road price

Macbook air - not much good to say inspite of how much I love OSX, expensive and unpractical.

Sony TZ or similar - very small, very expensive, questionable reliability.

There are others, I'd stick with business ultraportables myself but it depends how much you want to spend. Broadly any of those listed above is £800+ at the very least, it's a lot more than a netbook...

Hxc · 10 Oct 2008 at 21:13

Samsung Q45. Much cheaper than the competition and gets good reviews. No big capacity batteries available though, so if you need more than about the 4h you get on standard you'll need to invest in a second.

Or a Thinkpad X series.

bigredshark · 10 Oct 2008 at 21:19

Hxc said:
Samsung Q45. Much cheaper than the competition and gets good reviews. No big capacity batteries available though, so if you need more than about the 4h you get on standard you'll need to invest in a second.

Or a Thinkpad X series.

Much heavier though, small but heavy...kinda difficult to justify compared to a Dell M1330 in my mind...

The x series are still good laptops as well.

Hxc · 10 Oct 2008 at 22:31

The Q45 is 1.89kg, ad the M1330 is 1.8kg...hardly a big difference?

mattyg · 11 Oct 2008 at 01:06

thanks for the replies guys, although as it is for uni she has to afford it on her student loan so was looking max £500.

cheers Matt

Moeks · 11 Oct 2008 at 11:14

'Proper' laptops of this size, i.e. those that aren't netbooks (which are all a bit smaller anyway) don't really happen for £500 to be honest. You're looking at a minimum of about £600 for the cheapest Samsung I think, £700 for the HP Pavilion TX 2500 series 12" tablet/convertible. And more expensive still for the business class options, which 'most' laptops of this size typically are, other than the 2 I mentioned at least.

If you can move upto something in thr 13" area than you have a few more options, the Dell M1330 being the 'usual suspect' ...you could get a good deal on one of these. If you move upto to the 14" bracket then a whole wealth of options open upto you at this price. But, the weight goes up too. So far as I'm aware, the M1330 comes in at uder 2kg, that is light weight for a fully functional laptop that isn't sacrificing anything to be a netbook.

bigredshark · 11 Oct 2008 at 11:19

Hxc said:
The Q45 is 1.89kg, ad the M1330 is 1.8kg...hardly a big difference?

Thats my point! The Q45 is only really a competitor for the M1330 and it fails there on spec.

The Toshiba R500/R600 is 1.1KG, the HP 2710p 1.2KG, the Dell latitude 12" is again 1.2KG. They are all much lighter than Q45, which is why it's cheaper, they can't really be compared like for like so it's nearest competitor is the M1330 which is faster.

Irrelevant really as the OPs budget doesn't stretch to any of them.

MagicBoy · 11 Oct 2008 at 11:27

If you're after something cheap try a second user IBM ThinkPad X31/X32. As long as it's got a 1GB of RAM it should be fine and far better than any of the el cheapo Netbooks.

TheVoice · 11 Oct 2008 at 12:23

Might be worth looking on the Dell Outlet website for any M1330s, could possibly pick one up very cheaply that way.

pcAnywhere · 11 Oct 2008 at 21:11

X31s are shocking - I use one at work and it's a dog... OK, nearly 5 years old but...

Take the lady to Purple Shirt Palace and let her try out an Aspire or Advent netbook. Once she gets a look and feel she'll understand the 9" is plenty

oweneades · 12 Oct 2008 at 00:33

What about the 'Packard Bell Easy Note BG45-U-300'

It has the following spec (shamelessly stolen from another website)

Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor T2390 (1.73 GHz, 533 MHz FSB, 1 MB Cache) Genuine Windows Vista (R) Home Basic 1 GB Memory 80 GB Hard Drive 12.1" Widescreen display Built in webcam Wireless Enabled Weight 1.6 kg Black Colour

It should be fast enough for what she wants and light enough to carry around.

Its priced at £329 which for the spec isn't too bad at all.

MagicBoy · 12 Oct 2008 at 15:00

It's a Packard Bell. Avoid like the plague.

bsoltan · 12 Oct 2008 at 15:08

Samsung Q210? Nearly 2kg though and between £500 and £600.

oweneades · 12 Oct 2008 at 18:42

MagicBoy said:
It's a Packard Bell. Avoid like the plague.

Why

. The one I had a play on seemed to be fine. The spec isn't too bad for the price (especially being a 12.1" laptop) and it is compact and doesn't weigh too much.

Moeks · 12 Oct 2008 at 21:55

oweneades said:
Why . The one I had a play on seemed to be fine. The spec isn't too bad for the price (especially being a 12.1" laptop) and it is compact and doesn't weigh too much.

Their quality is generally rubish for one thing. But the fact that it is a Parkard Bell alone, should be enough to ward people off. Think of it as the Lada of the computer world.