Quick advice needed on laptop choice please...

Irf · 4 Jan 2013 at 10:28

Hi all,

My daughter has an urgent need for a new laptop (ultrabook), due to one of her lovely little brothers breaking the screen on her old one.

She has £600 to spend, and need all the usual functionality you'd expect. Reasonably fast, sleek, and importantly not much heavier than around 1.5kg.

Her use will be for her uni studies, and normal home use. No gaming or heavyweight video work.

I'm guessing something like a quick i5 processor, 4GB RAM, etc. The HDD will need to be a reasonable size, though some makers seem to be offering both SSD and mechanical HDD. However if the HDD is not terribly large, she can get a USB one. Win7 will be fine for the OS.

All advice thoroughly appreciated!

Irf.

vegarda · 4 Jan 2013 at 10:38

Hi,

For an additional £60, OCUK offers this one which should match your daughters requirements:

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-163-AC&groupid=959&catid=2431&subcat=

vegarda · 4 Jan 2013 at 10:39

Though with Win8..

Irf · 4 Jan 2013 at 11:10

Thanks for that - the Win8 is fine... Win7 was specified to cut costs! Is Acer a pretty safe bet quality-wise?

vegarda · 4 Jan 2013 at 11:40

Acer is generally very good quality as far as I know.

Google "review aspire s3" and you will find detailed reviews of this model which can help you make a decision. Pros seem to include its size, design and price, while cons are mainly related to relative performance, i.e. slow HDD and not 3rd generation processor.

Irf · 4 Jan 2013 at 15:40

Having had a look at the spec, I was wondering if 4GB RAM is enough to keep Win8 running nicely - any ideas? I don't have Win8, so have no experience.

Thanks...

G-MAN2004 · 4 Jan 2013 at 15:54

I would never pay £600 for those specs.

Take a look at the Dell Outlet store. They're 'refurbished' but most of the time they're just laptops that customers have returned, so pretty much brand new. I paid around £600 for an i7 system - absolutely nothing wrong with it!

As a quick example:

http://outlet.euro.dell.com/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?brandId=7&c=uk&cs=ukdfh1&ref=gzilla

£261 for the 'certified refurbished' or £224 for 'scratch and dent'.

vegarda · 4 Jan 2013 at 18:15

G-Man: I totally agree when it comes to pure performance relative to price.
However, these Dells are 15" Notebooks and heavier (the 13" Dells are closer to the Acer in cost again), while the Acer is a 13", sleek and very light Ultrabook, actually quite similar looking to a Macbook Air (though cheaper).
Whether this is worth paying extra for depends on individual need and resources I'd say.

Irf: From what I've read, Win8 uses less resources than Win7, but I have no actual experience with Win8 myself.