Need some lapies for kids xmas presents

Bald-Eagle22

Bald-Eagle22

Bald-Eagle22

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Your Dell link doesn't work (not that you should link to any of them anyway!).

The cheapest Vostro comes with a Sempron 3600+, 1GB of RAM and Vista Basic. Two of those would be £660, little over your budget, but at least they'd be reasonably decent machines.
 
To be fair, I think the delivery cost is somewhat integrated with the cost of the notebook. The fact you're buying two may mean they'll come down a bit though.
 
As a Network Manager at a large Secondary school its part of my job to keep abreast of developments in the world of technology. I've been following news of the Asus minibook for some months now and I was desperate to get my hands on one as soon as possible.

I recieved the product as promised very quickly from RM - first class service.

Upon receipt I had a good poke arouind the interface and had a play around with all of the options. Whilst covering on the helpdesk for a little while I had a few people come in and notice the minibook on the desk with me and immediately they were intruiged and wanted to know more. They were taken aback with just how small it was and were even more astonished at the price of them.

A similar product (in size, not specification) would cost you over £1000. Now the minibook isn't comparable to my £1300 "gaming" laptop at home with the widescreen 17" monitor, dual core processor or Nvidia graphics card - its a completely different product aimed at a completely different market and use.

I purchased the minibook for my own personal use - its so handy to carry around in a satchel and very easy to pull out and work on whenever I fancy. We also have a need at work for PE teachers to be able to take registers using SIMS.

I've installed Windows XP and SIMS on my minibook with relative ease and success and am currently carrying out tests to see whether or not it would be viable to roll these out to staff to use for this purpose.

Once testing has finished I will probably reformat the laptop back to factory settings and have another play around with the linux interface and see if it meets my needs, if not I'll stick Windows back on there and use that.

I purchased a 6GB SDHC card to boost the internal storage of the unit. This takes total storage to 10GB. I've moved the documents and settings, temporary internet files and page file to the card to take some of the strain away from the internal solid state drive.

I've also deleted the files suggested in the manual after a windows XP install and have freed up over 800MB of additional space. Its important to note that if you do this with an additional card you cannot scrimp on the card quality - it has to be a fast card (I used a sandisk one) - if the card is not fast enough you'll get a bunch of errors about delay write failure.

In regards to the unit itself - the screen is a little small although that hasn't caused any problems as such, it can sometimes be a little tricky to see the OK and apply buttons in windows dialogue boxes but because I know my way around the OS this doesn't cause a problem. I can't help but think that the screen could have been a little larger if they had moved the speakers to the lower part of the laptop.

As the previous reviewer said, the mouse pad is quite effective, the button has a left and right click function but is all on one "rocker" button which can be quite tricky to get the hang of. I've countered this by using my wireless mini notebook mouse which worked fine without addiitional drivers in both linux and xp. The keyboard is quite small, the gap between the keys is tiny and the keys themselves are small.

Once you have used the keyboard for a few minutes its easy to adapt but people with larger fingers (like me) might occasionally miskey sometimes. The screen size is really the only semi-negative thing I can say about the unit. For the price it really is in a league of its own and I have no trouble with personally recommending the unit for use in either a school or home environment.
Click to expand...


Runs XP aswell :)
 
A certain other retailer is selling HP 520 notebooks for £297. Specs aren't amazing, but still:

Features
Intel Celeron M Processor 420 1.60 GHz, 1 MB L2 cache, 533 MHz FSB
15.4-inch WXGA BrightView (1280 x 800 resolution)
80 GB (5400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
DVD+/-RW SuperMulti DL Drive
512 MB DDR2 SDRAM upgradeable to 2 GB
Conexant CX20549 audio
Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950


Could use more RAM, but that'd be a relatively cheap upgrade. The Vostros are probably better value for money in the long run though.
 
Ok Dell sent me a quote for 2 lappies , they told me on the phone that the Sempron was a load of balls and i should get the AMD version /


As requested please find below the quotation for the Dell system(s) you enquired about. I hope that this meets with your approval, if I can be of further
assistance please do not hesitate to contact me directly.​
.​
S Qty Description Quantity​
2​
​
N11100001​

V1000 Athlon TK53 1700 2C 1
Vostro 1000 LCD, WXGA 15.4" 1
English Documentation Vostro 1000 1
Vostro 1000 Resource DVD (Diagnostics & Drivers) 1
English/Irish Ship Accessories - Power Cord 1
Memory Dual-Channel 1024MB (2x512) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM 1
Hard Drive 60GB Serial ATA (5400RPM) 1
DVD/CDRW Combo Drive 24X 1
Power DVD 7.0 1
65W AC Adapter - 2 wire 1
Primary Battery 4-Cell 29W/HR Li-ion 1
Not Included Carry Case 1
ATI Radeon® Xpress 1150 HyperMemory¿ (integrated) 1
UK Modem Cable and Adapter Internal V.92 Data, Fax, Voice Functions 1
Dell¿ Wireless 1390 802.11b/g Mini-PCI Card EUR 1
UK/Irish - (QWERTY) - Internal Keyboard 1
Software Drivers Vostro 1000 1
English - Genuine Windows XP Home SP2 including Media 1
English Microsoft Works 8.0 (Word Processor, Database) with Recovery CD 1
Dell Support 3.4 1
UK Internet Service Provider - Tiscali (w/CD) 1
English - Adobe Reader 8.1 1
English McAfee Security Centre 9.0 - 30 Day Trial Version 1
No Warranty Upgrade 1
Base Warranty - 1 Year Business Hardware Support - Next Business Day 1
No Accidental Damage Support 1
To access Online Training or free trial, please go to www.learndell.com/euro to register 1
Vostro Notebook Order - UK 1
FREE FREIGHT VN-VOSTRO 1​
VAT Summary​
VAT Rate
%
GBP
Total Net £
GBP
VAT £
17.5 596.00 104.30​
GBP​
Subtotal 596.00
Freight 0.00
VAT £ 104.30​
Total 700.30

£100 over budget ,,help
 
You can get; Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo Mobile V5535

Spec:

Processor: Intel Celeron-M 530 1.73GHz, 533MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache
RAM: 1GB DDR2-667MHz
Hard Drive: 160GB
Screen: 15.4" Widescreen TFT (1280x800 - 16:10)
Optical Drive: DVD±RW Super Multi Double Layer
Graphics: Integrated Graphics supporting 256MB
Wireless LAN: 802.11b/g
Bluetooth: No
Battery Life (Depending on Use): 1 Hour 20 Minutes
Weight: 2.7Kg
Warranty: 1 Year Collect and Return
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Basic
Built-In Stereo Speakers
Built-In Microphone

£300 each, delivery will be £10-20 id say though.
 
Fujitsu Siemens have a nasty habit of letting a well known high street computer store use the brand name and then denying you any access to drivers/spares in the event you need them as it's all handled by the well known stores technical gentlemen. If you do buy one check the official FS site first to make sure they actually provide you with drivers etc.
 
Avalon said:
Fujitsu Siemens have a nasty habit of letting a well known high street computer store use the brand name and then denying you any access to drivers/spares in the event you need them as it's all handled by the well known stores technical gentlemen. If you do buy one check the official FS site first to make sure they actually provide you with drivers etc.
Click to expand...

Its not a high street store ;).
 
syke said:
You can get; Fujitsu Siemens Esprimo Mobile V5535

Spec:

Processor: Intel Celeron-M 530 1.73GHz, 533MHz FSB, 1MB L2 Cache
RAM: 1GB DDR2-667MHz
Hard Drive: 160GB
Screen: 15.4" Widescreen TFT (1280x800 - 16:10)
Optical Drive: DVD±RW Super Multi Double Layer
Graphics: Integrated Graphics supporting 256MB
Wireless LAN: 802.11b/g
Bluetooth: No
Battery Life (Depending on Use): 1 Hour 20 Minutes
Weight: 2.7Kg
Warranty: 1 Year Collect and Return
Operating System: Windows Vista Home Basic
Built-In Stereo Speakers
Built-In Microphone

£300 each, delivery will be £10-20 id say though.
Click to expand...


Could you give me a clue as to where this may be ,,please please.
 
Great

Dell have just let me down on an order for three Vostros specced with AMD Turion and 1Gb of ram along with Vista Home Basic

They told me that delivery would be by the 11th of december and i had a mail on friday now stating the 28th of december ,

I had to cancel the order and back to square 1 .

Ok i have a total max budget of £375 per machine and I now need 3 ,,help
 
Perhaps an Acer Aspire 5315?

# Intel Celeron M530 Santa Rosa
# Memory:2* 512MB RAM
# Hard Drive: 120GB Hard Disk Drive
# Onboard Graphics (X3100)
# Vista Home Premium
# 15.4" Widescreen
# 0.3mp Webcam

Thats £350.

Or to save money, same spec but with 80GB HDD, Vista Home Basic.

Thats £300.

If you order today..can be at your door by Tuesday :p.
 
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If you are still looking for a laptop why not take a look at the Lenovo ThinkPad R61i 7650 which is priced at £379.99 at a popular online retailer.
Specs are:

Pentium Dual Core T2310 / 1.46 GHz
RAM 1 GB
HDD 120 GB
DVD-Writer - GMA X3100
Gigabit Ethernet
Bluetooth
802.11a/b/g
Vista Home Premium

Not bad for the price and you can even get free delivery as well.
 
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