http://laptops.tiny.com/computers/power_laptops/16950/61319/Tiny_PowerLite_C835E

Is that a good deal?

I have always said, and will always say, keep well away from Tiny.


What do you want the computer for?

Originally posted by Lickable
What do you want the computer for?

So I can work if I'm on holiday, and also, take work to a client's office more easily.

Laptops are one thing I'd always stick to a reputable brand... We bought one of these (http://www.currys.co.uk:80/martprd/store/cur_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1147249030.111955498 6@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdiaddemhffjiecflgceggdhhmdgmh.0&page=Product&sku=576532&category_oid=-21154&fm=15&sm=1&tm=undefined) laptops from Currys a couple of months ago and I've been very impressed for the price. Toshibas are always solid, and for a high street price it was very good - I couldn't find the same spec Tosh at dabs etc for any less! They have other models at higher/lower price points too.

Originally posted by rich951
Laptops are one thing I'd always stick to a reputable brand... We bought one of these (http://www.currys.co.uk:80/martprd/store/cur_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1147249030.111955498 6@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdiaddemhffjiecflgceggdhhmdgmh.0&page=Product&sku=576532&category_oid=-21154&fm=15&sm=1&tm=undefined) laptops from Currys a couple of months ago and I've been very impressed for the price. Toshibas are always solid, and for a high street price it was very good - I couldn't find the same spec Tosh at dabs etc for any less! They have other models at higher/lower price points too.

That's a lot of money for a Celeron. You could get a pretty decent Athlon one for much less.

We tend to buy a lot of HP Compaq laptops (the NX range are excellent). Good value, decent spec and top-notch support.

You can buy direct from HP, but if you do need to buy from a high street store, I'd recommend Comet over Currys for the simple reason they are not part of PC World.

Originally posted by alchresearch
I'd recommend Comet over Currys for the simple reason they are not part of PC World.

Comet, Currys, PC World and The Link (mobile phones) are all part of Dixons Group PLC (www.dixons-group-plc.co.uk)

How much do you have to spend, Jamie? Dell Latitude D610 laptops offer good performance, reasonable size and weight at about £900 + VAT, but please get the 3 year warranty. If anything breaks, it will cost a fortune to fix afterwards.

Stay away from Celeron processors, Tiny/Time and the DSG group.

I picked a up a reasonable Acer laptop from eBuyer, at #575, includes Centrino technology. I'm writing this post on it. A good machine for on the move.

:)

If you get a Laptop then as Abdul mentioned, get a 3 year warranty. IBM and Fujitsu Siemens lifebooks are some of the best but you get what you pay for. You need to know exactly what you want it for. How important is portability? same with battery life. Do you want to be able to play games on it.??? they vary greatly. As for Toshiba... I could tell you a thing or too, mostly not very good!
Decide what you want it to do and how much you want to spend and work from there.

Thanks for all your comments guys. I'll have a think about usage and requirements and post them up on here ASAP.

Once again, thanks.
Jamie.

Originally posted by alchresearch
That's a lot of money for a Celeron. You could get a pretty decent Athlon one for much less.

We tend to buy a lot of HP Compaq laptops (the NX range are excellent). Good value, decent spec and top-notch support.

You can buy direct from HP, but if you do need to buy from a high street store, I'd recommend Comet over Currys for the simple reason they are not part of PC World.

Agreed, nx6110's are damn good value, and are pretty nice. The samsung x05 range are also good.

Joel

If all your planning on doing is word processing, spreadsheets and listening to a bit music, then a £100 laptop of E-bay will do what you need, it won't look that flash but why pay another £600 for power/storage you won't use, (everyone thinks they will need 80gb of disk and 3.0 Mhz processor) ?

Doesn't the battery go down faster, the more powerful the laptop is?

I want something where the battery will last a longer time (4 hours?) and though Celeron would be better, maybe I'm getting it mixed up with Centrino?

Oppps.

The main think I'll be using it for is developing games. So that's a combination of editing code (MS dev studio). Running GBA emulators. Editing graphics (Photoshop and 3Dstudio MAX).

I want something that will compile source code fastish.

I also need to consider source control issues (not having different versions of the same source files or different PC's and getting mixed up). But that's not related to my laptop requirements, so idnore that.

A bigger display would be nice.

It would also be nice if it was slimline.

Want to be able to connect mouse and keyboard and external display (monitor).

Also, if I attach an external display, can I have a dual display system? I'll be using XP pro.

[EDIT]

It also needs a wireless network card!

Originally posted by Abdul
Comet, Currys, PC World and The Link (mobile phones) are all part of Dixons Group PLC (www.dixons-group-plc.co.uk)


Comet isn't, which is why you tend to find them side by side at retail parks. The URL you provided shows the stores they own.

Jamie, if you're running Photoshop I would forget all about a Celeron. They may use less battery power but you will lose that in the extra minute you wait for Photoshop to load!

Like everyone else has said, get the 3 year warrranty. If the screen fails, you could be looking at £300-400 for a repair. The good thing about HP laptops is that they have a component store and you can even buy things as small as the P4 stickers!

Originally posted by Jamie
A bigger display would be nice.

It would also be nice if it was slimline.

Want to be able to connect mouse and keyboard and external display (monitor).

Also, if I attach an external display, can I have a dual display system? I'll be using XP pro.

[EDIT]

It also needs a wireless network card!

Check out the Dell Latitude D810 (http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/latit_d810?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd)

Up to 2.13Ghz Pentium M
Up to 2Gb DDR2 memory
Up to 100Gb hard disk
15.4" widescreen with choice of three resolutions (WXGA, WSXGA+ and WUXGA)
128mb ATI Mobility Radeon X600 PCI-Express video
Gigabit LAN
Wireless option
Bluetooth option

Originally posted by Abdul
Check out the Dell Latitude D810 (http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/latit_d810?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd)

Up to 2.13Ghz Pentium M
Up to 2Gb DDR2 memory
Up to 100Gb hard disk
15.4" widescreen with choice of three resolutions (WXGA, WSXGA+ and WUXGA)
128mb ATI Mobility Radeon X600 PCI-Express video
Gigabit LAN
Wireless option
Bluetooth option

Problem is, the batt life will last about an hour tops, centrino is the way to go if you need battery life

Originally posted by Joelc
Problem is, the batt life will last about an hour tops, centrino is the way to go if you need battery life

Battery life will always be an issue with laptops as powerful as these.

Fortunately, most Dell laptops allow you to insert two batteries at once (including in the removable media drive bay) which should soften the blow somewhat :)

EDIT - The laptop does use Intel Centrino technology (it is a Pentium M after all) and I'm sure you'll get over an hours' battery life out of it.

One of my work colleagues has this laptop - I'll check with him what the performance and battery life is like.

Fujistu Siemens 8010
pretty good.

If you want good battery life then get a Centrino one.

Originally posted by Abdul
One of my work colleagues has this laptop - I'll check with him what the performance and battery life is like.

And this is what he says:

"I'm extremely happy with it.

Battery life is pretty good. I always run it with both batteries if it's not connected to the mains, and I usually get 3-4 hours of fairly processor & graphics intensive usage.

The display is extremely readable even with the big number of pixels I have (WUXGA UltraSharp Wide Aspect Display; Max resolution: 1920x1200). The audio quality is pretty good. The performance is on a par with a Pentium 4 @ 2.4Ghz desktop. The only thing I've noticed is that disk can struggle a bit sometimes, but that's a general problem with 2.5 inch laptop drives.

The cooling works well. Even when the fan is running at full blast it's very quiet, and you never feel that it's going to set your trousers alight if you use it on your lap.

So yes, I would strongly recommend it."

Yes he is also a software developer, no I don't work for Dell, and yes it will take an external CRT monitor :)

Originally posted by Abdul
One of my work colleagues has this laptop - I'll check with him what the performance and battery life is like.

Thanks Abdul. I quite like Dell. They seem to have good after sales support.

Whilst on the subject of pixels, most of the companies that sell laptops will tell you that there is a minimum number of dead pixels that are acceptable on a new unit. Don't buy into this rubbish.

If you buy a new laptop and it arrives with a single dead pixel then you should send it back. They often say they will not replace it or refund you unless there are (for example) 5 dead pixels in the center of the screen.

If you placed the order either online or over the phone then they have no option but to replace it/refund you as long as you contact them within 7 days of delivery.

Dead pixels are actually pretty hard to spot. But once you are aware that there is one it becomes very difficult not to see it all the time.

As to what you should buy: Definatly a Centrino. I'm with neek on this one, IBM Thinkpad, Fujitsu Siemens, quite possibly a Panasonic Toughbook or a Sony Vaio. Maybe an Apple Powerbook if your into that kind thing. Definatly not Dell, HP anything that Time/Tiny sells or Packard Bell.

Thanks for the advice punk.

What's wrong with Dell?

What's wrong with Dell?

Purely from a personal point of view my sister had (and I think still has) a Dell laptop and has had nothing but trouble with it. It's been sent back to them at least twice.

This post is also kind of relevant:

http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=32407&highlight=thinkpad

Originally posted by punk
Purely from a personal point of view my sister had (and I think still has) a Dell laptop and has had nothing but trouble with it. It's been sent back to them at least twice.

That's why I recommend paying extra for a long-term onsite warranty instead of 1 year RTB...makes it Dell problem to fix it!

Originally posted by punk
IBM Thinkpad, Fujitsu Siemens, quite possibly a Panasonic Toughbook or a Sony Vaio.

IBM Thinkpads are good, reliable machines backed up by strong warranty support...but probably not as good value as Dell and my goodness they are ugly as hell :gag:

not as good value as Dell

They are unquestionably cheaper. Whether that equates to "good value" depends on your point of view.

ugly as hell

I used the exact opposite arguement in the thread linked to above. I've always thought IBM's looked sleek, professional and business like. Which is, in my definition, how a laptop should look.

I guess this a great example of how beauty is in the eye of the beholder :)

Originally posted by punk
They are unquestionably cheaper. Whether that equates to "good value" depends on your point of view.

Well, what do IBM laptops offer that Dell don't? Dell are as good but at a cheaper cost. With a three year onsite warranty, you can't go wrong.

And the industry must agree with me. Didn't IBM recently sell off their PC making division ;)

Originally posted by punk
I've always thought IBM's looked sleek, professional and business like. Which is, in my definition, how a laptop should look.

How you seen the latest Dell Latitudes with tri-metal chassis?

They use aluminum, magnesium alloy and steel, to make the laptops lighter, stronger and thinner.

You could almost call them sexy (for an inanimate object, anyway) :wow:

punk, I read with interest the post you made on the other thread comparing IBM laptops to Dell, but I have to say that Dell also incorporate those features onto their laptops (USB2, firewire, Bluetooth, Wireless, Gigabit LAN, modem etc).

Perhaps I am a bit biased. I've been using Dell laptops for over 6 years but I haven't used an IBM laptop for a year or two now. The last IBM laptop I looked at was a good spec machine, but I do remember it being in the region of about 15% more expensive than a similar specification Dell.

And yes, I concede a little on the support. The three year, next business day, onsite, international warranty with Dell is very good...but I always have to go through a call centre in India first!

The service we get with our IBM Netfinity servers is better. As you said on your other post, you get through to a UK-based representative right away, and issues are escalated and resolved quicker.

Dell technical support always begin with the basic troubleshooting steps first - I often have to remind them I work in an IT role and am fully aware how to diagnose a failing hard disk ;)

Well, what do IBM laptops offer that Dell don't?

It's worth stating that the 2 companies do try and appeal to different markets. IBM are more geared towards IT professionals, sales people and large businesses whilst I would say Dell's target market has always been home users and the mass OEM market (education establishments for example). In other words... the value market.

Why is this relevant? Because you would almost certainly expect a difference in price between two markets. A cheaper price almost certainly equates to some corners being cut somewhere.

As mentioned on the previous post Thinkpads come with a host of features not found on Dells. A list follows:

Biometric security (fingerprint reader to you and me), Active protection system (hard drive locks when laptop experiences any shock - resulting in less data loss), Thinkpad Software Installer which automatically installs all driver and bios updates. Titanium alloy casing. IBM's world famous keyboard (they have always been famed for their keyboards). Touchpad AND trackpoint as standard. Superior Linux support. 3 year warranty as standard. Thinklight built into case. Ultrabay. IBM access connections (far and away better than Windows Wireless Zero Configuration).

As you mentioned yourself IBM support has always been well regarded within the industry. If you ring with a linux problem (for example) you won't be passed off and told that they only provide support for the software that was installed when you bought the machine. You will likely be passed to a support engineer who specialises in linux installations for your model of laptop.

IBM have always been well regarded in the IT industry and amongst IT professionals and I believe its for good reason. As you say yourself they are solid performers and being backed up by the best customer service in the business and the most generous warranty available on a laptop makes them the best choice if you can't afford to be without your laptop for days/weeks at a time

Coming back to the target markets of the 2 companies, Dells do feel kind of clunky and plasticy to the touch whilst Thinkpads "feel" like they are meant to be thrown around a little. The keyboards are second to none. Shutting a Thinkpad case is akin to closing the door on a German car, it feels solid and comfortable. To put it another way: give me the choice of buying a Dell for £600 or a Thinkpad for £800 with the requirement that I throw both to the floor and I'd take my chances on the Thinkpad everytime.

Just to clarify: The reason I say to avoid Time/Tiny, Dell, Packard Bell and HP is because of the exact reason that I state above... They all try to appeal to the "Value Market".

IMHO you are far better buying a laptop with a reputable name than one from one of the mass production value market companies.

If your budget is tight then you may not have much choice but to choose something from the above range of comapanies. Although this does depend on your requirements.

You can almost always buy something of a similar spec from a reputable brand if you shop around. And whilst something can (and will!) go wrong with any piece of electrical equipment you can expect it to happen less and expect better after sales support from a reputable brand.

Well I have now narrowed it down to 2 options:

1) A Dell Inspiron 6000 (http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/notebooks_Q2_W8_inspn_6000_N07605B?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs).

2) A IBM Thinkpad R50e (http://uk.insight.com/apps/productpresentation/index.php?product_id=IBYA040H1).

Roughly the same price (IBM a bit more expensive).

Same CPU (Pentium® M Processor 725).

Same RAM (the IBM has and extra 256MB as part of a special offer) ... but the DELL has 400 mhz RAM and the IBM has 266.

Both are Centrino systems.

Same HD capacity.

Both have wireless NIC.

DELL has a better resolution LCD (1280*800).

The IBM probably has the better keyboard (I like the idea of it having a nice KB).

The IBM is black (I like black systems).



So there it is folks !!

Any last words on the IBM / DELL issue !?

Some issues with the IBM:

1) For a 15" screen, I'd expect a higher resolution than XGA (1024 x 768 ) - icons will look chunky. However, you should be able to add an external monitor and run a higher resolution.

2) According to the webpage, only 1 year warranty is supplied

And for the Dell:

1) Stretch to the ATI Radeon X300 rather than the shared memory if it's available at little extra cost - the website doesn't make this clear.

2) WSXGA+ resolution (1680 x 1050) is only £36 more than WXGA, but you'll fit more on screen.

3) Confirm what warranty you will get (again, it's not made clear)

Some issues with the Insight:

They may not be the cheapest supplier ;)

I also would not buy a Dell laptop. They are cheap. They are the equivalent of the Amilo range that Fujitsu Siemens sell. If you want a good Fujitsu Siemens you get a Lifebook, if you want a cheap one you get an Amilo. They are all made from the cheapest parts they can source, then the battery, RAM and hard disk are added in Germany so they can stick the CE kite mark on them so people think they are good quality. The budget IBM ones have gone down the same route. You always used to get quality when you bought IBM Thinkpads but now they have reduced the quality to compete with the budget ones. Sure either of the ones you are looking at will be fine and do what you want them to do, just don't expect it to be well built or particularly tough.. If you are looking at Dell then check out the hotukdeals site as if often has Dell discount codes listed. And pay and extra £60 to get a 3 year warranty which ever you buy!
I know I have harped on about what you want it for and stuff but please take into consideration the size and weight. If you don't have a car and are planning on traveling about with it to customer sites etc then by the time you have stuck in in a good laptop bag with a mouse and some CD's and mains adaptor, they can be bloody heavy! I certainly would not want to carry mine own one about, my work Fujitsu 8010 is bad enough and thats not that heavy. Compare the weight and size with ones in dixons or somewhere.

Do you rate mcdonalds?
If so buy a Dell.
The two are quite the same, products designed by accountants to be mass produced,
Take the 99p cheeseburger, what is wrong with it? It has a bun, a burger, cheese, onions, girkin, etc. What is wrong with it is that it is a mcdonalds burger!
Take the dell laptop, its got a processor (an intel one), ram, hdd etc. But its a dell!

I just don't get it, is there some kind of conspiricy?

I've seen about 4 reviews so far of the DELL inspiron 6000 on the net and all 4 have a lot of very positive things to say about it.

Can anyone quantify it for me? Why is the DELL inspiron 6000 a bad buy?

Nowt really wrong with it, I would call it a desktop replacement more than a laptop. It's going to do everything you want so go for it, just don't complain if you have to carry it about and you end up with one arm longer than the other!

Originally posted by Pete1024
Do you rate mcdonalds?
If so buy a Dell.

That's quite an assumption to make, based on my choice of laptop :loopy:

One day I'm being labelled a tree-hugging anti-capitalist do-gooder

The next day I'm the opposite :confused:

I thinking about getting this one http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1631788591.111978579 2@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdgaddemjglkdjcflgceggdhhmdgmh.0&category_oid=-21358&sku=436378&page=Product&fm=undefined&sm=undefined&tm=undefined

*Hopes that works*

Any advice whether to go for it or not?

I don't have much idea about the processor, whether it's good or not and I know the graphics card isn't excellent because it is shared.

I'd like to use it for uni work, such as word processing, the internet, and hopefully Photoshop and Dreamweaver, but would that be a good idea with the graphics card?

I found and Acer that was more or less the same but cheaper on Ebuyer - it had the next processor down, didn't have a wireless connection but had 10gb more hard drive.

If this is not too good, could anyone suggest anything for the same sort of price (up to £650, which I know is really limiting what I can get)?

EDIT: I've had a look round and found a Compaq for £70 more and it is so much better. I'll probably get that one - I've called round and no one's got it in stock, but I'm going to have a look round the shops tomorrow to see what they do have. If there's nothing, this new one's being ordered