The best sub-£450 laptop?

Dreaded_Cheese

Dreaded_Cheese

Dreaded_Cheese

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This weekend I am going to buy a laptop... I don't really know what to get yet, but I am getting one nevertheless. My MAX budget would be £450. I have been looking at the Dell Inspirons, specifically the £469 1720's (a bit over budget), however as I know very little about laptops I would greatly appreciate any help.

Thanks.
 
Dreaded_Cheese said:
This weekend I am going to buy a laptop... I don't really know what to get yet, but I am getting one nevertheless. My MAX budget would be £450. I have been looking at the Dell Inspirons, specifically the £469 1720's (a bit over budget), however as I know very little about laptops I would greatly appreciate any help.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

I've been looking into laptops. You could easily get yourself a good M1330/1530 at the dell outlet for this price. Plus buy it from the small business part and get free delivery :)
 
The inspiron 1720 is bulky and heavy!

Are you planning on moving the laptop around? If so i would suggest a 13" - 15" laptop.

17" are more suited as desktop replacements. (ie, always plugged in on your desk).

Dell's usually work out to be pretty cheap spec wise.

Check out the Inspiron or vostro (on small business section) for good deals.
 
The reason I was looking at a 17" sreen was that I want to play games on it and the 15" screen laptops all seem to have intergrated graphics. I don't need the best graphics in the world, but I would like to play stuff like BF2 comfortably. I have seen an inspiron 1720 with a 8600m GS for slightly less than £400, is this good?
 
Well would a 256MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3450 be better, the same, or worse than a 256mb 8600m GS? If better then I may get a Dell Studio 15 instead if an Inspiron 1720 (both around £400).
 
Dreaded_Cheese said:
Well would a 256MB ATI Mobility RADEON HD 3450 be better, the same, or worse than a 256mb 8600m GS? If better then I may get a Dell Studio 15 instead if an Inspiron 1720 (both around £400).
Click to expand...

A 3450 is worse than a 8600. Unfortunately you need to find something with a 3650 to get a similar performance. Whilst I am sure a 3450 would run battlefield, I would take my search a little further before commiting. That said the Studio is a nice looking laptop for general use. Has some great little bonuses like a HDMI out :)
 
An Asustek X50SL-AP124C is available on one of OCUK's competitors sites for £470 delivered. The spec for that is pretty good as it includes Radeon HD 3470 (slight upgrade) and a wireless N card built in. Google the product to find full details, the reviewers seem happy.
 
Tbh I think I will stick with dell- I don't have a large budget, also I need to buy peripherals.
It's hard for me to compare graphics cards- especially graphics cards I don't know anything about.
At the moment, with my current desktop I average 12 FPS in BF2:(. This means I die a lot when the FPS drops too low.

Compared to my current desktop:
Intel Celeron D @ 2.9Ghz
760mb ram
and a pathetic x1650pro AGP

What sort of improvement would geting the £400 studio be?

Also with the 8600m problem, is it widespread or just a handful of annoyed people?
 
Dreaded_Cheese said:
Tbh I think I will stick with dell- I don't have a large budget, also I need to buy peripherals.
It's hard for me to compare graphics cards- especially graphics cards I don't know anything about.
At the moment, with my current desktop I average 12 FPS in BF2:(. This means I die a lot when the FPS drops too low.

Compared to my current desktop:
Intel Celeron D @ 2.9Ghz
760mb ram
and a pathetic x1650pro AGP

What sort of improvement would geting the £400 studio be?
Click to expand...

The 3470 would only be a slight improvement if any to a X1650 Pro
 
Dreaded_Cheese said:
Also with the 8600m problem, is it widespread or just a handful of annoyed people?
Click to expand...

Currently it is a significant number of annoyed people (think 360 ring of death). Some of the more engineering types are suggesting though that the problem is design based and will likely affect the majority of chips over time. Clearly there is a bit of pot luck involved and a 3 year Dell warranty would take most of the worry away from yourself (provided you backup regularly).

I do agree that it is hard to fault the two Dells with 8600 chips for value. A little part of me can't help but think that the gooed pricing is partly to shift stock of these dicey chips though.
 
I have given up on getting a dell.
Whenever I decide to get something I start with the cheap and cheerful option- in this case an Asus eee, however I kept convincing myself that I needed extras. However after finding all the games (albeit slightly older games) that run on an eee I have changed my mind, deciding it is better to be safe than sorry. So I am buying an eee no matter what anybody says otherwise I will be looking for the 'perfect' laptop forever.
Thanks all for helping me see the error in my ways (otherwise I would have bought a dell).
 
Sounds a good idea to me. Laptops are about being portable and maybe offering a little entertainment on the way. For gaming it is so much cheaper and easier to upgrade with a real PC. Now take the £200 you have saved and upgrade your PC:

Basic 775 Mobo from B grade section of OCUK: £25
ATI 3850 GPU: £60
Budget Core2Duo: £50
2GB RAM: £25

Outgame a £1000 laptop for £160, done :)
 
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