Spec me a laptop

[tom26]

Okay I am going to get a laptop for Uni next year and my Gran's offering to get me one for my 18th with a £500 budget. Is this going to be enough for what I need?(I don't need anything fancy as basically I'm only going to be using it for work and the internet no gaming) any ideas on what to get?
Cheers

 

[tom26]

Ok cheers for that. What happens if something goes wrong with a dell I heard that the only people that can fix them are dell and they have to be sent back? Is this true or just rubbish?
Also is it true I preferably need to get a non celeron?

 

[tom26]

I'd highly recommend a Dell.

Just got my first laptop from them for uni work. Model is an Inspiron 630m.

Paid £450 and got:

Pentium M 1.73GHz (2MB Cache)
512MB RAM
40GB HD
Integrated Intel Wireless
14.1" Display
Integrated Intel Graphics
Windows XP Media Centre Edition
6 Cell Battery
1 year warranty

At the time of purchase (around 3 weeks ago) there was nothing that could come close to it spec wise for the money.

Battery is great and I can easily get just over 4 hours from it.

My only complaint is the default Windows installation. Dell put on so much bloat its unbelievable. First boot had around 50-60 running processes!!!

Reformatted, fresh installation of windows and I only have 21, so a massive improvement and it absolutely flies.

If you stretch the budget a bit more you could go dual core but its no loss if you don't. For the tasks you'll be doing a Pentium M is more than enough imho.

Cheers for that just wondering did you buy it from the actual dell website?

 

[tom26]

Might be breaking the forum rules if I answered that question.

Doubt it you because you won't be linking to any competitors