[The Boosh]

funnily enough, i spent most time worrying about the graphics card. i'm no gamer, but i'm certainly partial to a spot of first person shooters on a bad day. i'm hoping all will be well - it was the best spec i could find in the price range.

[Elvencia]

Ok, off to buy a laptop tomorrow, and need some help. Firstly, I'm after something cheap, but generally good for all the basics (I don't want it for anything technical - word and facebook is about it). This ones caught my eye - Advent 8117
http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/stor...uct&sku=401567
Does this one seem a good bet for what I want? Secondly, will I need to buy any sort of extra cable or whatever to connect it to internet in halls at uni? Any advice appreciated!

[r3m0t]

Well you haven't told us what uni, but most of them do not have wireless in rooms. That means you will need a cable by any of these names:

- Ethernet
- Cat5
- Cat6
- Wired networking

It looks a bit like this but can come in any colour.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/CDL-Micro-Et...585743-6398319
(note the little latch thing)

Any non-Internet retailer will completely screw you over with cable and accessory prices, but you seem to be in a mad rush for some reason, so take it.

You will also need a "Kensington" security lock which works a bit like a bicycle lock.

It's got a nice big screen but that also means it will be too heavy for you to remove it from your room regularly (and feel happy about it). It only has a rated battery life of 2 hours so you will probably be best off keeping it plugged in. The screen doesn't have much detail ("WXGA" is the lowest laptop screen you can get) so text might appear large. So if you get a smaller screen, you'll probably be able to see just as much. It'll just look a bit smaller and sharper.

The performance is OK for the price but it will be slow starting up and shutting down and maybe also just opening applications or having a lot of web browsers open at the same time. Of course with a bit more money (and time) you could go a long way.

You will need to get Office seperately. Your university might have special discounts.

[Elvencia]

Thank you!

Ok, another question - considering all these are roughly the same price (the first one and these), is there actually any real difference between them? Would any make be considered more reliable?

2. http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/stor...m=0&tabIndex=1

3. http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/stor...&category_oid=

4. http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/stor...&category_oid=

Sorry.. I know I'm asking a lot. I just genuinely have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to technology

[r3m0t]

Advent has the worst brand reputation of those three. The other two are about equal.

I think the Toshiba might be best here, but I don't really know about these low-end systems. Sorry.

[The Boosh]

For around £4-500 you could do better.

This one has a new Intel Core 2 processor:

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...ory_oid=-27751

So do these:

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/nbrange.html?SAN

this isn't bad either for the price:

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/126332/rb/0

e-buyer and novatech are reliable places to get a computer online from. places like curry's will always rip you off. always.

[r3m0t]

The novatech one linked to is much much better than the one at curry's, I strongly recommend you pony up the extra £60 or so and get it from them, even if you're starting term soon and will be without a laptop for a few days. (It's that good.)

Edit: OK, that's about £140. It's still much much better, but it's your money, so you could go for the lower one.

[The Boosh]

^^ agreed. for peace of mind, i've just got a laptop from there (in addition to several years worth of computers and components). i couldn't recommend the place enough.

if you have the cash, delivery is very fast. if not, then you can have a buy now pay in 9 months with no additional costs, but it takes about 7-10 days to work out the credit info.

[omicronlyrae]

Original Post has now been updated

[The Boosh]

nice update!

[Tabris]

Not sure whether or not to get one of these two Dells or a Black macbook. Though I'm kinda leaning towards the Dells as there should be both an OS and hardware update for macs soon and I'm not too keen on buying hardware that I can't upgrade and will be outdated (by mac standards) in less than a month. I wish I didn't know any better and I would have bought the mac because I've wanted one for years now.

The two Dell laptops are:

XPS M1330 w/White LED display (might as well)
Intel C2D T3700 (2.0Ghz)
Vista Home Premium
2GB RAM
160GB SATA HDD (5400rpm)
Geforce 8400M GS
9cell li-ion battery

£1,151.57 (incl. VAT and Shipping)

Vostro 1500:
CPU - Core2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz)
OS - Windows XP
RAM 2GB DDR2 (2x1024)
HDD - 160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
GPU - 256MB nVidia GeForce 8600M GT

£839.02 (incl. VAT and shipping)

With both Dells, I'd probably call them up and try to haggle to get some money off. The only reason why I'm considering the M1330 is because of mobility.

Then for the Macbook (which I probably won't get due to the God damn update, but I still really want) is just the Black Macbook. Or maybe even a Pro if I can get discount, though I doubt that. Which comes out at around £850? Something around that region anyway.

Or I might get a stop gap laptop to last me the next year or so when it comes round to the revision after next of macs I can get one then, but that's a year away (if they keep on following the 6month cycle)

[r3m0t]

There probably won't be a "hardware refresh" for the laptops when they upgrade to Leopard in October. So a Mac you buy today will work with the new software, and is likely to be the most recent model as well. (No gaurantees.) The upgrade will cost ou about £70 though.

Both those Dells are pretty good, the XPS is thinner and lighter because it has a smaller screen - so up to you really.

[Tabris]

I hope there isn't, but there are all these people on computer enthusiast websites that I used to visit and on macrumours who are sure there's going to be a slight hardware update and to be honest it's leaving me in a rut on whether or not I want to get a mac.

I really should take the plunge, but I really don't knowing there's an update just around the corner.

That's the reason I mentioned the XPS as well as the vostro. I know the vostro is a brilliant bang per buck machine, but it's a bit bulky, whereas the XPS will perform quite well on 3D intensive programs that I may or may not run, but is much more mobile.

I really do wish I wasn't in the know and would just be the sort that would just see a pretty laptop (no matter how crap or how much of a rip off it may be) and buy it because it's all I need.

[r3m0t]

(Original post by Tabris)
I hope there isn't, but there are all these people on computer enthusiast websites that I used to visit and on macrumours who are sure there's going to be a slight hardware update and to be honest it's leaving me in a rut on whether or not I want to get a mac.

I really should take the plunge, but I really don't knowing there's an update just around the corner.

That's the reason I mentioned the XPS as well as the vostro. I know the vostro is a brilliant bang per buck machine, but it's a bit bulky, whereas the XPS will perform quite well on 3D intensive programs that I may or may not run, but is much more mobile.

I really do wish I wasn't in the know and would just be the sort that would just see a pretty laptop (no matter how crap or how much of a rip off it may be) and buy it because it's all I need.

The value of an Apple laptop to you shouldn't decrease just because you bought it at those specs and prices and suddenly there's a slightly better one. It isn't like you're going to resell it.

I understand your sentiments though and that is actually why I dislike Apple's approach to product updates.

[wicker_man]

To be honest, any Mac you buy today will give you many years of use and have plenty of power.

They are upgradable in the same ways as a PC laptop (ram and hard drive).

I have a 7 year old G3 iMac which runs Tiger pretty smoothly with a simple ram and hard drive upgrade (to 640mb/80gb) and it is perfectly usable for everyday net browsing/iTunes/office etc. Obviously it's no speed demon, but Apple computers tend to have longer 'useful' lives than PCs.

[PieMaster]

Can we get an update on this thread, possibly linking through to the main component stick where appropriate?

[omicronlyrae]

i already did an update. what else do i need to add, PieMaster? (because i assume i need to add/update stuff if you didn't notice i updated it...)

[PieMaster]

Might want to link the OS bit to the page an a half in the other thread, especially the Vista bit; that was the main thing I origionally noticed.

[Unicorn66]

(Original post by Tabris)
Not sure whether or not to get one of these two Dells or a Black macbook. Though I'm kinda leaning towards the Dells as there should be both an OS and hardware update for macs soon and I'm not too keen on buying hardware that I can't upgrade and will be outdated (by mac standards) in less than a month.

Mac is fine by all means.

Cheers.

[crutchfieldj]

For students on a sub £300 budget I reccomend this:

Dell Vostro 1000

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/show...postcount=2759