New laptop

[DIY Stew]

My trusty old Somy Vaio is struggling, and at times has a mind of its own.

I need to replace it, but with what, there are so many different specs, I haven't got a clue.

It will be mainly used for the Internet and storage of pictures, I fancied another Vaio (E series) but battery life seems a little short.

If one of you computer buffs could help I would be very grateful.

Got no more than £500 to spend.

TIA

Stew

 

[wobblycogs]

I've generally been fairly impressed with Acer for the cheap and midrange laptop. I find they hit a good balance between price and performance. To be honest though it's become much of a much-ness now a days and it's hard to tell them apart. Personally, I'd steer clear of Dell, not because they make a particularly bad product but because they are quite expensive in my experience.

Considering what you say you want the machine for you might like to consider another option. Perhaps get a laptop with a small (in HDD terms) solid state drive and have a high capacity external drive for your photos. This works well if, like most people, you don't need constant access to your photos "on the road". You could even make your photos more secure by placing them on a small NAS device which you can pick up for around £50 *1 now (but you still have to buy drives for it *2). The benefit of this approach is data security and the ability to get more storage space cheaply (the NAS gives you 2TB of mirrored storage) and it allows the whole family access to the storage at the same time. The laptop *3 then just becomes a way to access the Internet.

These are just examples not a recommendations
*1 http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B004AIWOXY/ref=asc_df_B004AIWOXY10142406 - £53
*2 http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seagate-Barracuda-inch-Internal-Drive/dp/B006H32Q3S - £70 *2
*3 http://www.amazon.co.uk/15-6-inch-Dual-Core-Processor-Discrete-Class-Integrated/dp/B00862D6TG - £328
Total: £521

 

[Phil Pascoe]

I had a Dell, it was rebuilt under guarantee twice, repaired independently twice and dumped at 18 months old. P.O.S.

 

[speeder1987]

For £500 quid you should be able to get a reasonable laptop.

I would imagine you will be looking at an Intel i3 processor for that price. Unless you are planning on playing games just get the CPU chip with onboard graphics. In a laptop your main enemy is heat, and graphics cards produce lots of heat. So you need to pay alot more get a decent one which won't over heat on you once it starts to fill with dust

Also make sure you get a decent amount of memory, 4gb should be plenty. If you plan to do design work with AutoCAD and the like then you will need more.

For a hard drive you either have solid state or a regular hard drive. Solid state are a lot more expensive so you will only be able to get a small one, but the performance increase you get is huge ..... but having to store everything on an external hard drive will become a major pain in the backside. That is a decision you will have to make.

I'm not sure on which brands are good anymore, but if you look at www.pcspecialist.co.uk then you can spec the laptop and they will build it for you. I know they are a good company for desktops, not sure about their laptops though.

Finally have a look at both aria and overclockers.co.uk, both good websites and you will likely find some good laptops there.

My only real advice is be very carefully of pcworld!

Cheers
John


Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

 

[jpt]

I have just brought my 3rd Acer as an upgrade as I have found them to be very reliable and good value for money. The one I have now is an Aspire V3-571 with 8gb of ram and a 700gb hard drive. I use it for simple word processing and spread sheets as well as storing and looking at pictures and music. I also have an external hard drive which I back everything up to so if something does happen I have a backup.

I have also done some video editing on it and for what I want it is fine but if you are going to do a lot of editing then I would recommend going for an I5 or I7 processor.

There is nothing wrong with PC World as a place to buy from but make sure you check your prices as they can sometimes be considerably higher than elsewhere.

John



Sent from my Acer using finger talk Ver1

 

[speeder1987]

There is nothing wrong with PC World as a place to buy from but make sure you check your prices as they can sometimes be considerably higher than elsewhere.

John



Sent from my Acer using finger talk Ver1

Yes I agree about cost can be over priced but i have got some really good deals there too, though on peripherals jot comps. I can't comment about laptops but on desktops they have a reputation for saving costs by using cheap under rated power supplies in the systems. This is the one thing you really want to spend money on as it can cause major stability issues!!! And cause issues when upgrading components.

Also this was from a magazine a number of years ago. I can't remember the exact numbers but essentially 25 PC's had a certain wire disconnected in them so the PC wouldn't work and were then put into various PC worlds around the country to be fixed. I think 1 or 2 were fixed, something like 5-10 were said they were fixed but upon checking the removed wire wasn't reconnected, and the rest said they couldn't fix it.

Reading that has just left a sour taste in my mouth and makes me reluctant to shop there unless you have too. Things might have improved over the years.

I'm not saying all the computers or laptops they sell will be bad, there are probably some really good spec ones for reasonable prices. Just if you don't know much about computers make sure you check with someone who does before buying there.

Cheers
John


Sent from my GT-N7000 using Tapatalk 2

 

[heatherw]

I've also got an Acer 1690, it's about 9 years old!!!

Admittedly I'm thinking of replacing it now, but it's worked amazingly well up till now and I don't like throwing things away until they break. It came with 500mB ram and i upgraded it 2 years later to 1GB, with little noticeable result. My father also had an Acer, he bought his a year after I bought mine and he's still using it, although he has just bought himself a new ASUS laptop which he doesn't like so much. I don't know anyone with a laptop older than mine, some of my friends have been through 3 or 4 in the time i've had mine.

What they are like now, however, I don't know. Lenovo thinkpads have a good reputation, but I think it depends on what you want to use it for.

 

[toysandboats]

I bought my current laptop from John Lewis.
It's a Toshiba and they currently have several under £500.
All come with a 2 year guarantee and any of them should meet your requirements.

David

 

[Robbo3]

£500. You must be rich

£269.94 - Fujitsu AH351 15.6" Bluetooth, HDMI
CPU - Intel Sandybridge B960 @ 2.2GHz
RAM - 6GB
HDD - 320GB
USB - 3 Ports
Battery life - 6 Hrs
Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Dabs Outlet - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/320999153576? ... 0999153576

£279 - Dell Inspiron 15.6" RED, HDMI
CPU - AMD X2 P360 @ 2.3GHz
RAM - 4GB
HDD - 500GB
USB - 3 Ports
Battery life - 4 Hrs
Windows 7 (presume Home Premium 32/64bit unknown)
Tesco Outlet - http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271073558018? ... 1073558018

£299.99 - Toshiba C660 15.6"
CPU - Intel Core i3
RAM - 4GB
HDD - 640GB
USB - 2 Ports
Battery life - 5.15Hrs
Windows 7 Premium (presume Home Premium 32/64bit unknown)
Argos - http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/p ... 087585.htm

All have: DVD-RW, Ethernet Port, Microphone/Sound/Speakers, Web Cam, Wi-Fi.

HTH
Robbo

 

[flying haggis]

AFAIK Acer is owned by Sony so they should be OK