CupraDave

iTrader: (1)

I am looking at buying a cheap ish laptop, I have looked on fleabay and other places like ebuyer but the problem I have is that I know how to drive computers but have no clue how they work and what is the best spec and so on

Primarily it will be used for work stuff (microsoft office programes, namely excel) while away from home but of course it must allow surfing of t'interweb (wi-fi is a must) and maybe watching DVDs.

I would have a measly budget of about £300 could maybe push it to £400

What would you computing guru's recommend?

staffs Mike

With £400 I'd be tempted by this
Dell Studio 15 Laptop Deal and Evalue Code Comparison, Dell Discounts and Coupons

There are vostro's which are cheaper but the screen's wont be as nice without a "truelife" upgrade.

I'd personally steer clear of someone like Acer as I'm sure they and others will be tempting. Toshiba aren't bad on the cheaper side of things. I mean they are nothing sexy but do the job lol

The dell above (second £399 model) is a nice all rounder, dual core, decent amount of RAM, respectable hard drive. It has a very nice screen and the graphics card it comes with is very happy with HD videos. Coupled to the HDMI out you could use it quite happily to watch HD on your tv and you can always upgrade it yourself with a blu ray player later.

This place usually has good dells on dell refurbs too
MCS Technology Ltd > Laptops

Just remembers this one as well, the Dell Vostro A860. Very cheap laptops

cheap as chips
BigPockets.co.uk :: Gateway MT6832b Laptop Core Duo T5300 1.73GHz, 1GB RAM, 100GB HDD, DVDRW, Vista Home Premium £284.99
BigPockets.co.uk :: Dell D600 Centrino 1.4Ghz Laptop - 1Gb RAM - 40GB - DVD/CDRW - WiFi - XP Pro £169.99
BigPockets.co.uk :: IBM Thinkpad T41 Laptop Centrino 1.6Ghz - 1Gb - 40Gb - DVD-ROM - Wireless WiFi - 14.1 inch TFT - Win XP Pro £184.99

loads of others on there, but those are the stand out ones to me.

CupraDave

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for all your advice Mike

My work are too tight to buy me one so I figured I would buy myself one, I dont need anything fancy as the wife has a pretty good laptop and I normally use the PC in the house so this new one will really only get used when I am away from home

shooter007

if you have a local supermarket check them out im on a asda special less than 300 quid + 35 for 2gig memory from crucial (5 min job to change) works great for price

alcazar

iTrader: (2)

Acer stuff is topnotch at the moment, with good after sales. Our LEA uses all Acers.

Alcazar