Which laptop for £1400

Brocon

Brocon

Brocon

Associate
Joined
1 Sep 2004
Posts
103
Ok, so I have a budget of £1400 ish to get a new laptop the only caveats are:

It must:
Come with office
Have a 4 year warrenty - stupid rules!
Must be portable yet powerful enougth to last 4 years.

I think about 13.3 inch screen is right, it seem to me dell is about the only woy to go for a 4 year warrenty. I`m also concidering apple, but need to check that that would be ok.

So the options are:
Studio XPS 13
Components
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor P9500 (2.53Ghz, 1066MHz, 6MB)
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium SP1 - English
4Yr XPS Premium Warranty Support - Priority Call In and Onsite Support
13.3" WXGA (1280x800) White-LED Display with TrueLife (thinner & brighter)
4096MB 1067MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]
500GB Serial ATA (5400RPM) Hard Drive
256MB nVidia® 9500m graphics card
Internal DVD+/-RW (DVD & CD read and write) Slot Load Drive including Software
Primary 6-cell 56 WHr Lithium Ion battery
Services & Software
Norton™ Internet Security™ 2008 30 Day Trial Version
No Accidental Damage Support
DataSafe Online Backup 2GB
Accessories
No Carry Case
Microsoft® Office 2007 Home and Student/ English - Microsoft® Word, Excel, OneNote, PowerPoint
Dell Wireless 1515 Half Mini Card (802.11n)
Also Includes
2.0 Mega Pixel Integrated Camera with Facial Recognition Software
N01X1301
Studio XPS 13 Order - UK
English - Documentation Studio XPS 13
Studio XPS 13 Resource DVD (Diagnostic & Drivers)
90W AC Adaptor
1 Meter Power Cord (3 Wire) - UK
Internal UK/Irish Qwerty Keyboard
1Yr XPS Premium Warranty Support - Priority Call In and Onsite Support
Wireless Label (Dell Wireless Cards)- Core 2 Duo
 
Ok and the dell site is on a go slow! I will post the others later... But the other options are a M1330 (with 6gb ram and 128gb flash drive) or an insperion. grr at the crappy website..
 
Why not look at Lenovo Thinkpads - they offer anything from 1 year (standard mail in) to 5 year (including same/next day onsite repair) warranties.

T400 series would be in your price range (including added warranty), and will be more durable than a Dell XPS as it's got a Magnesium roll cage protecting it.

Other ones to look out for would be X200's (12.1" screen) or X300's (301's would be out of your price range).

Thinkpad keyboards are legendary as being the best you can get on a laptop.
 
philjohn said:
Why not look at Lenovo Thinkpads - they offer anything from 1 year (standard mail in) to 5 year (including same/next day onsite repair) warranties.

T400 series would be in your price range (including added warranty), and will be more durable than a Dell XPS as it's got a Magnesium roll cage protecting it.

Other ones to look out for would be X200's (12.1" screen) or X300's (301's would be out of your price range).

Thinkpad keyboards are legendary as being the best you can get on a laptop.
Click to expand...

Agreed, they're a design benchmark and have an excellent rep for reliability. They are also great to type on.
 
Thanks, i had forgotten about the thinkpads. They do not have a 4 year warranty option on their site, will have to give them a ring ane see what they say..
 
Brocon said:
Thanks, i had forgotten about the thinkpads. They do not have a 4 year warranty option on their site, will have to give them a ring ane see what they say..
Click to expand...

I cannot link to (or recommend) a competitor, but if you look for Lenovo partners who participate in the "TopSeller" programme they should offer you the full range of warranties. Just rechecked and the max is actually 4 years which will cost £190 (next day onsite repair).
 
What are you going to be using the laptop for?

Personally I would probably go up to a 15" screen for productivity but I guess you can always hook up to external monitors in necessary.

I think Dell are pretty strong on their top of the range laptops.

Rgds
 
Thanks PhilJohn, I have found a couple of resellers now. Going to go and have a play with the different models and see which I fancy.

Radderfire, I needs it to be more portable than a 15inch laptop, I travel a lot and the extra weight is a no go. + I have a nice 24inch screen to hook it up to at home and a bank of 3 19inch screens at work of which it will get 1.

With regards to usage it is mainly productivity so office, programming, some on the road photoshop/gimp, and demonstrations of websites and apps. It will be running linux with windows in a xen so it will need to be fairly meaty However there may be the temptation to play the odd bit of cs etc... :)

Guess it needs to be a jack of all trades for when I am away from the office/home. I don`t think it will last me 4 years but it means it gets recycled to somone else when i am done with it! + that is the only requirement that has been stipulated!
 
If you can wait until Freburary I've been told Lenovo are launching the same customisation facility they have in the states (a bit like the Dell one) so you could spec just the model you need.
 
Consider the Latitude line from Dell rather the XPS consumer ones.

The hardware dock is a good feature.
 
£1400 is a lot of money to spend on a lappy thats most likely going to be out of date so to speak within 6 month :( i would think of saving some of that money for a rainy day
 
Hi guys,

Thanks for the suggestions. Work is paying, so I might as well spend their money!

From reading the reviews, it looks like lenovo really are the way to go for all round reliability. Will give them till early Feb to update their store, if not just order from a Best seller. In the mean time I will keep my eyes on the reviews..

The real problem is work insisting on a 4 year warranty at the time of purchase as it limits me a bit.
 
Last edited:
Brocon said:
The real problem is work insisting on a 4 year warranty at the time of purchase as it limits me a bit.
Click to expand...

Maybe you'll be able to find a warranty from a third party to get round this ... I know there are plenty of laptop insurance companies, so maybe there's a warranty company too.

Rgds
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom