I'm looking to buy a fairly cheap laptop - have seen a few new ones for around £400 which is about the maximum I want to spend. They're decent spec but a few of them are makes like Acer and some others I'm not particularly familiar with...
Are there any makes to avoid or does it make little difference as long as the spec is good?
Cheers.

I'm not a fan of Acer, nothing they make is terrible, but nothing is particularly good either...
Shy well away from anything branded E-Machines

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/notebooks?c=uk&l=en&s=dfh

have a look at Dell factory outlet,
and Dabs as well

http://www.dabs.com/productlist.aspx?&NavigationKey=11012&CategorySelectedId=11012&PageMode=1

If the laptop you're getting is running Vista, make sure it has 2gb RAM, or an upgrade slot (nearly all do now)

Depends what you're wanting to use the laptop for as well, Pentium Core2Duos have relatively low power draw so you'll be looking at a longer battery life by comparison to equivalent AMD or Intel Celeron chips, £400 is a good price to pay for a laptop as long as you aren't expecting to play games on it.

http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=53C8&CategorySelectedId=11105&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11105,4294953475,15#imagegallery

something like that might be good.

although
http://www.dabs.com/productview.aspx?Quicklinx=4ZXZ&CategorySelectedId=11105&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11105,4294953475,15,50626#imagegalle ry
that looks better

My last Acer laptop lasted 2 years! so if you're going for Acer, make sure it has a long warranty

If you're taking a trip to London at any point you might want to check out the computer fair close to Tottenham Court Road held ever Saturday:
http://www.londoncomputerfairs.com/

I picked up a good lap top, with 2 gig ram 15gig Hd and vista for £320, they have some really good deals

Try

http://www.nice-pc.co.uk/

:)

Seems to be a couple of well priced Fujitsu Siemens about... tempted by them.

Are Asus decent then?

Definitely wont be playing games on it, and battery life isn't a major issue as it'll always be within reach of a socket at home...

Cheers for the links etc - I'll keep looking, see what I can find :)

If you're gonna be at home consider a desktop? You get much more bang for your proverbial buck with a desktop PC.

As for Asustek they're very competent at making motherboards so I'd assume their laptops are topnotch too. The real thing to do is get down to Currys Digital or PC World and have a play on them all. What matters most with a laptop is build quality and how comfortable you find the keyboard to use, things like that.

So once you've found one you like, get on the internet and get it for a decent price!

Just got rid of a desktop due to the amount of space they take up - dont want to have to have a desk etc and dedicate part of the house to one.

I'll bear Asus in mind too then while playing with them in the shops! :)

I bought a Sony Vaio - which i would highly recommend. I'm just about to get a Dell - so i can compare later in the month when it arrives.

dell are where its at end of story, great prices, great quality, great warrenty and great customer service... anything goes wrong it will be fixed right away so id reccomend them over any other brand

I don't rate the cheap Acer or the cheap Dells. Amilo range are usually pretty good.

My Dell arrived this morning, cant recommend the laptop yet as havent used it but it looks great and there service is second to non plus base models from £350 which is reasonable.

No problems with Acer, Asus are very nice, Dell are a bit.. well, something not quite right about them, Samsung are decent for the money, Sony are over priced, Fujitsu Seimens are not too bad but similar to dell in they seem lacking in some way, dont touch Advent, Compaq, HP, or Packard Bell (unless you really know what your looking at with regards to the hardware in them)

Don't go with Acer. I've seen three fail in the past couple of months and their support is dire.

Don't touch Sony with a bargepole. I'd avoid Acer too. Toshiba make some good stuff but I don't think they have a cheap range. Dell are a safe bet, and the new HP models are pretty good too. I've never used an Asus laptop, but every computer I've built in the last five years I've put an Asus motherboard in, they're the best around by a long way, and I'm reading this on a very nice Asus monitor, so if they have the same quality standards across the board then you can't really go wrong.

Think I'm definitely going to rule Acer out lol

Lenovo are fantastic, used to be IBM - Laptops are pretty expensive though.

My personal favourite is Rock laptops..

http://www.rockdirect.com

Ive had a few now, super customer support and solidly made

IBM/lenovo are a business type expensive laptop. I'm a fan of Toshibas, sonys and HPs (all relatively pricey) I'd stay away from acer. I can get tosh's cheaper than most places if you'd be interested in one pm me.

Just spotted ghozers thread I agree with most of that.

I can get one of these:

http://www.comet.co.uk/shopcomet/product/447382/FUJITSU-SIEMENS-AMILO-LI2727

...for £210 +vat from makro.

does this sound like a good deal?

I've read a couple of reviews on it and it seems pretty decent... and the price is great obviously!

pretty much only going to used for messing about on the internet and storing photos, maybe a little bit of photoshop.

cheers