[Wiki Guide] Laptop Buying Advice

so what are your thoughts on the r730?

Hey, Im looking at buying the Dell studio 15 laptop with the i3 processor. On the website its down as £599, was wondering if there was anywhere you could get it cheaper, or if the official Dell website is the only option? Also how are Dell for haggling on the price, as it's worked with hp before?

Thanks

I know people will have already posted this but I can not be bothered reading through 20 pages of comments.

I am looking to spend at most £500, preferably less, on a laptop with Microsoft Word and all of that lot already on it and not those '60 free days trials' crap. It will also need to be able to connect to wifi for when I get to Uni and have a disc player ( since I won't be taking a t.v and like to watch DVDs )

Can you recommend me a good one?

This laptop seems more than suitable for what you have just said: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/189888

You can get Office for £38.95 from here: http://www.software4students.co.uk/default1.aspx

I've also been looking into this. There're cheaper options out there though, if you're willing to skimp on HDD space. There's the Advent Sienna 500 for £479 at PC World (running the i5 instead of the i3) You lose out on the HDD...but you can always ex-drive it for the £120 you're saving - I'm sure I've seen 1TB drives going for less.
If you're willing to drop to an Inspiron, the 15R is going for around £529 with 4Gig of RAM, and the same HDD space as the Studio 15. i.e. you're gaining RAM at the expense of the brand model. Heck, for £579 you could get it with all the mod-cons of the £529 model...and a 500GB hard drive.

[[I'm also just posting in case someone does mention the ability of haggling with Dell, as it seems like the only place doing stuff on finance these days...which means it's the only place my 'rents are willing to shell out, before I get my student loan which I'd rather not touch...]]

No Thinkpads are recommended! A travesty!

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showpost.php?p=26327752&postcount=328

I just haven't come round to doing it, sometime soon...

Mike, you beautiful creation, I need your advice (or anyone else's if they are so kind). My dad wants a Netbook and I must admit I have never looked at this sector before. He needs a web browser, Skype, probably VLC to watch movies, and a word processor and nothing more so the spec doesn't need to be very much I wouldn't have thought. A stumbling block may be that he has been convinced that a Lenovo is the way to go, my brothers both have them and they are solid so don't see a problem in getting another one tbh but it may limit the options somewhat.

Basically, what spec do I need for the simple tasks mentioned above? Oh and it must have a camera and mic! Also not convined I know the difference between Windows 7 Starter and Premium tbh

Thank you

Netbooks don't vary a lot in spec, they're all Intel Atom processors ~1.6GHz and 1/2GB RAM.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/products/compare

So 1GB RAM and Windows 7 Starter are all that will be required then? Seems to be a lot of variation in price range for these specs so will have a play around. Cheers.

I'd try get 2GB for W7 Starter, min. requirements is 1GB already.
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows7/products/system-requirements

That's generally down to the battery life and hard drive.

Budget: £0-400

Some of the following laptops may not have prices, Google Shopping is the best place to find exact prices.

Netbooks: <12"




Ultraportable: 12"-14"




Laptops: 15"

I was just wondering, would most laptops be suffice to play Sims 3 or 2... depending on how much i've beginning to hate sims 3 now even if it adaquately or poorly rather than amazing. I wouldn't mind playing it for about 1/2 hour a time every so often.