Can anyone out there give me some advice about buying a laptop? It needs to be from a 'reputable company' rather than private sale (before you all try selling me your cast offs). I have a limited IT knowledge so would appreciate some help.

I have around £950 to buy a notebook, scanner and printer which I will mainly be using for work/study but also for personal use music, games, movies etc. I've got no idea about a 'spec' as such. Its all just numbers to me! RAM, meg, gigs - not a clue.

I've been looking at e-buyer who seem quite good, are they? I've also been looking at dell (couldnt get hold of anyone with a basic grasp of the english language) and sony. Theres just so much to choose from, very confusing when I aint got a clue about any of this.

Any advice would be much appreciated,

Dave H

Can anyone out there give me some advice about buying a laptop? It needs to be from a 'reputable company' rather than private sale (before you all try selling me your cast offs). I have a limited IT knowledge so would appreciate some help.

I have around £950 to buy a notebook, scanner and printer which I will mainly be using for work/study but also for personal use music, games, movies etc. I've got no idea about a 'spec' as such. Its all just numbers to me! RAM, meg, gigs - not a clue.

I've been looking at e-buyer who seem quite good, are they? I've also been looking at dell (couldnt get hold of anyone with a basic grasp of the english language) and sony. Theres just so much to choose from, very confusing when I aint got a clue about any of this.

Any advice would be much appreciated,

Dave H


Try Staples,and for the amount of money you are willing to spend the specs will be good.

Sony Viao Laptops are good
Epson or HP printer scanner copier; Epson are cheaper to run. I have an Epson RX620 and it's excellent.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=96322

or the RX700 if you need a much better one.. Personally I would buy that scanner printer and spend the extra money on the laptop.

If you want to play games then you will be better getting a laptop with Nvidia Go or ATI Radeon graphics on board and not the integrated Intel option.

Dell stuff is cheap and functional but I would not choose one.

try the real computer shop on eccy road, they fixed up a mate with a pretty good deal, 2 year guarantee, nice printer, etc!

spend the extra £50 and get this one. :) Also with Sony you can get an extended warranty from them directly which is worth considering.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=103783

If you don't want to play games then you only need to spend 5-600 quid max in my opinion.

Thanks for youre help guys, esp you neeeeeek. I was looking at Sony stuff and almost bought one but someone said that they were renound for problems and were then expesive to fix. can anyone vouch for this either way?

I've got a list of a few of notebooks that I think I'm going to choose from, if I paste the links here tomorrow could people give me their thoughs?

Thanks again,

Dave

I was looking at Sony stuff and almost bought one but someone said that they were renound for problems and were then expesive to fix. can anyone vouch for this either way?

No more problems that other laptops in my experience, & laptops in general are more expensive to fix, that's just how it goes...

I'm with neeeeeeeeeek, if you're not gaming then £600 is plenty...

If you going to spend a grand on a laptop then I think it's worth extending the warranty, with Sony you can buy an extended warranty within a certain time after purchase direct from them for £100-£150 ish... I can't remember the exact amount but it's a shed load cheaper than the retailers offer. PC worlds 3 year one was over £350! People often damnage laptops themselves by either using them on the bed or on a carpet (restricting ventialtion) or being a bit heavy handed when they are on. The drives still spin at 7000rpm so you should try to avoid moving them about to much when on. Says me who carries this thing about by the bloody screen! My amilo died due to overheating and I see quite a few Toshiba ones with fans full of cat hair and bits of carpet. The newer Pentium M chips run cooler so it's not as much of a problem as it used to be but you still need to try and be careful with them.

sony definately make good laptops.

but...their spare parts are WAY more expensive than anyone else, i have painful experience of this.

after the warranty runs out, they will charge you 13 quid over the phone BEFORE even giving any tech support.

they are also priced about a third more expensive than the equivalent ASUS or TOSH laptops.

with all this in mind, definately get the extended warranty if you are keen on sony, but my opinion?

id get an Asus, they actually make some of the motherboards for sony, they have the exact same screen specification, they are cheaper and they have a 2 year GLOBAL warranty.

plus, after the guarantee, if you need tech support, they aint going to rip you off for it.

cheers

I had a Sony. It did last years, untill I put my fist through it, but wasn't that stable and had to keep reinstalling regularly. My friend had a similar problem.

I have a widescreen Toshiba now and it's great. So I would say look at Tosh.

I'd echo the problems with Sony parts - we had a Sony that I killed with lucozade (cough), and nobody could source a replacement motherboard for it. It was I think less than a year old too!

Our current Tosh laptop has survived a similar soaking, so a thumbs-up there! ;) I'm always slightly uneasy about Acer build quality, I've heard a few stories there, but you might well be fine. I'd also agree that a grand gets you a very nice laptop, you certainly don't have to spend that much - if you want to fine, but don't let anyone tell you it's not worth getting anything cheaper. You could even buy a decent £600 one and a cheap £400 desktop for the same cash!!

(before anyone says anything the wife and I have had one spillage each now, I don't think either of us is ever likely to do it again! :D)

Dell are currently doing a laptop - decentish spec - for £299. Cheap as chips - so don't worry about spilling lucozade on it !

Dell are currently doing a laptop - decentish spec - for £299. Cheap as chips - so don't worry about spilling lucozade on it !
Had a quick look and couldn't configure it to buy for less than £339, but still pretty cheap. Makes me laugh as usual though seeing how much they charge for any "extras" - £123.38 to upgrade from 256 to 512 MB of memory... Maybe I should go into business buying the same memory from Crucial for £36 (http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/listparts.asp?Mfr%2BProductline=Dell%2BInspiron&mfr=Dell&tabid=AM&model=Inspiron+1300&submit=Go) and charging a nice fee for the 2 minute job of fitting it!

[edit - the other funny thing about that deal is that it would cost you a decent proportion of that price just to buy a copy of Windows XP!]

Reet,

these are some of the options that I'm looking at. I've deffo got £800 to spend, its a grant so if I spend under that its waisted cash!

Notebooks;

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=103783

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=99652

http://www.evesham.com/PCs/Info.asp?e=83E31E4D-FD32-4A7B-8414-F68E90EE235F - this one is well rated by pc advisor, top of the list at the moment!


Printer / scanner;

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3&product_uid=83496 - This on looks real good!

I did not know they still sold the RX620 else I would have said to get one.

As for the laptops, all three seem pretty good. I don't know anything about the Evsham machine but the Sony and Fujitsu ones will both be good. If fact I don't know which one I would choose but it would be one of those.

:)

Heres a review of the Evsham;

http://www.trustedreviews.com/article.aspx?head=36&page=2844 - looks cracking, think its the one I'm gonna go with.

Here it is: http://www.evesham.com/PCs/Info.asp?...4-F68E90EE235F ) it has a good spec but whats sold it to me over the others (besides me being wary of sony) is that its vista compatible, has a better graphic set up than many at that price and the gold warranty that comes with it is 2 years on site and 1 year off site - prob worth £130 - It also comes with bulldog anti virus software (worth £100 or so) and has a decent carry case (which many dont).

I'll be buying in the morning.

I'll give some feedback when I've got it in.

Neeeeek - Thanks again for your advice ,

Dave

I'm always slightly uneasy about Acer build quality, I've heard a few stories there, but you might well be fine


arrrghhh!!!!

^ some helpful comments overall mate but ASUS is NOT ACER!!!!!

1. Acer are a budget laptop/pc company who produce cheap machines of varying quality. some are ok, some are rubbish, best bet - avoid.

2. ASUS are manufacturing company reknowned for the quality of thier motherboards and graphics cards (ask any geeky mate you might have). They supply screens and motherboards to Sony and are a high-quality brand.

finally, internet purchasing is often risky, EBUYER were recently investigated by Watchdog for dodgy selling practices. I believe they have improved lately but overall i'd avoid them if poss. - cheapest does not necassarily equate to best deal....

not sure about evesham, but think about this when you buy the machine:

has it got a 2 year global warranty?

has it got a carry case?

has it got ALL the fully licensed disks with it?

will it come fully loaded, with everything ready to go?

if you encounter any hassle with it, will it be a call-centre in india that you speak to?

think about these questions...its not just the initial buying, its the investment of time afterwards...

Thanks Hery, I've gone with evesham. They've got good software, a decent warrenty (2y o/n, 1 y off site) and nice people at the end of the phone. I think overall it is a good buy.

When they tried to sell me the warrenty and I asked if they were expecting it to break down they delt with it very well!

I've just bought an acer for a grand from laptopsdirect.co.ukand it's been well worth every penny and quite good spec. everything i wanted and more. if you want to know more PM me. it came next day and they threw in for free a flash stick in the deivery bag which i never even ordered and they're giving 3G cards from vodafone if you're after that sort of thing; i need to be mobile and online away from office and home and this is super fast. unless you own all the laptops and use them to their full extent you're in no position to really say which is best on a like for like basis, so go for one that has all the features you need from a reliable supplier. my desktop is acer and is 4years old. never a problem.