andrewdelvard

Ye Gods. How on earth do you find the best manufacturer and the best deal??? The market is huuuuge. I've £600 to spend and the options in that price bracket is enormous. Ebay, overclockers, ebuyer, aria etc etc big stocks, loads of different manufacturers, huge specs.
I'm lost.
Can someone maybe give be a top 3-5 manufacturer wise? That will at least give me a start...

Thanks. Andy

Jeff Wiltshire

Acer is my current Fav.....

messiah

Toshiba & Dell are the big 2.

I've had a Dell Inspiron 8200 for 3 years now and a new power pack apart it's been faultless.

IBM are also recommended but tend to be a bit expensive as are Sony

Iain Young

I've bought a Dell XPS Gen2 (after trying a few others and having owned Toshiba and Alienware machines), and have been very impressed with both the build quality, speed, and reliability compared to the competition.

Based on my experience so far, I wouldn't hesitate to buy another one...

ChrisB

Acer are very agressive in this sort of price range.

Dell is a choice if you don't mind buying mail order but I like to see a laptop keyboard. For instance, Toshiba have a habit of putting the Windows key in the top right corner of the corner and the / key is next to the space bar (which I think is pants design).

I'm a big fan of Fujitsu-Siemens (FSC) laptops at present. The Amilo V2000 should be in the £600 range IIRC.

I'd certainly consider a "proper" brand over some of the generic machines that a lot of companies sell. Why? When you come to rebuild it in three years and want to download all the drivers, you find the supplier isn't in business or can't help. Then it's a right PITA to work out which modem, network card and other drivers you need. A big vendor like Dell, HP, FSC etc will have a driver archieve for you to hit.

GC8

This is subjective of course; but if Toshiba isnt the answer then youre asking the wrong question..... With regard to the Fuji kit mentioned by Chris above; in my personal experience I have found Fujitsu-Siemens to be terrible, with well over a third of the kit that I dealt with being RMA'd!

Simon

Dieseldog

Recently bought the gf one of the new Sony Vaio range. Spec isn't anything special - you can get more for the same money from other manufacturers and the battery life is kerrrrrap, but that X-Black widescreen is really something special, and it's a stylish little thing too.

If it's to be plugged in most of the time and you're not into intensive applications...

NickAdams

iTrader: (5)

As others have said,stick to one of the bigger brand laptops.I put one of the guys at work onto a Dell Inspiron 2200 as he wanted a cheapy laptop.The spec of it:




Base Intel® Pentium® M 715a (1.50GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 400MHz FSB)
Microsoft Operating System Microsoft® Windows® XP Home SP2
Memory 512MB 333MHz DDR Memory (1x256 + 1x256 in base)
Keyboard (QWERTY) - Internal Keyboard
Hard Drive 40GB (5400rpm) IDE Hard Drive
Mouse Dell USB Optical Mouse
Modem Internal 56K v.92 Capable Fax Modem
Optical Devices 8X DVD+/-RW 32556
Wireless Networking Dell Wireless 1370 802.11b/g Mini PCI Card
Microsoft Application Software Microsoft® Works 7.0
Enhanced Service Packs 90 Day Collect and Return Service
Protect your new PC No Security Subscription
Power Supply 60W AC Adapter
Dell Photo Album Dell Picture Studio - Photo Album Standard (60 Day Trial)
Paint Shop Dell Picture Studio - Paint Shop Pro 8.0 (60 Day Trial)
Primary Battery 8 Cell 43WHr NI-MH Primary Battery
Carrying Cases No Carrycase 5759
Money Off Savings DHS Money Off: £30 / €50 inc VAT
Dell Media Experience Dell Media Experience 3.0 Basic- Inspiron 26536
LCD 15.0 inch XGA LCD Panel 31684

Total: £511.42
Incl. VAT (That price includes delivery too)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's good value imo for the money but the screen lets it down as it's xga and will only run 1024x768 but it does come with an 8x dvd writer.The laptop isn't the lightest in the world either but it's pretty quick though!!
You need to use evalue code N05225a to get it at this price and change the warranty to 90 day collect and return

Good luck

Nick

andrewdelvard

7 Great replies. Thanks fellas, a great help.

olliecampbell

iTrader: (3)

Dell and IBM are great, Dell has the better warranty by far.

Infact ive just put a Dell D600 up on ebay if youre interested

ChrisB

Blimey - very interesting. We've had a zero failure rate on FSC laptops so far, although all C, E or S series rather than the cheaper Amilo. Our field engineers have C series and they can wreck stuff in minutes

andrewdelvard

Overclockers seem to exclusively retail Asus laptops. Is this a generic?
http://www.overclockers.co.uk/acatalog/Notebooks1.html

Kevin Groat

We bought a Fujitsu Siemens last Autumn after advice from Snetters - did consider a Dell but the FS was much lighter and better standard battery life. It gets dragged to the office every day and setup in a docking station at home each nigh - no problems with it so far.

olliecampbell

iTrader: (3)

If you want battery life IBMs latest series of laptops is great. My T42 lasts for about 4hrs with me working on it all the time.