Can anyone please advise on where to buy a good value laptop

[David Rogers]

Toss up between DELL and ACER. Both pretty good value for what you get. Nothing ground breaking or amazing, but for £300 / £325 it’ll do a reasonable job of entertaining the kids.

[Brian Hays]

Martin, I would get a Dell. Have had a few in the past & just bought one recently. I don’t think they can be beaten for value. Have never had any problems with the either.

Did have an IBM laptop once, the screen went after about 18 months & they wanted more to repair it than Dell wanted for a far a brand new laptop which was far better.

[Harry Cleary]

Have my dell for over a year now, Cant fault them for value, functionality and most of all backup.

[Peter Normington]

Just heard on the local radio news, con artists have been selling laptops for 200 squibs, but when the cash is handed over, the package is swapped and the buyer ends up with a bag of spuds!

Peter

[Martin Cole]

Many thanks lads!

Good ol Dell, Just been browsing the their site, trouble is you have a budget but then you always want the next model up, like buying a car.

then the time you’ve customised it, it’s another couple of hundred quid.

What warranty would anyone recommend to buy with it, as never having owned a laptop?

quote Peter Normington:

Just heard on the local radio news, con artists have been selling laptops for 200 squibs, but when the cash is handed over, the package is swapped and the buyer ends up with a bag of spuds!

Peter

Peter wouldn’t have been so bad, my son loves chips!

[Hugh Potter]

if you’re happy to buy off of ebay, have a look at the fujitsu seimens range of laptops, i bought the second highest spec available (highest was a 6 week wait !) for £1250 with 3yr collect and return warranty,

if you look carefully on ebay you can find them about a year old, still with warranty, for under £500, all top top quality parts inside, look for the amilo range, i have an amilo M 1420, can’t fault it, had it 18mnths now, and aside from a few issues, which i reckon were software, it’s never been at fault,

[Paul Franklin]

I’m with Hugh.

Got a Fujitsu Siemens D1845.

Had it for just over a year now and it is superb.

ps. when r we gonna have that beer martin?

[Brian Hays]

Would bother with Dell’s warranty it will add bundles to the price 😮

I have never known1 to go wrong anyway.

If it does go wrong just drop it & claim on you home insurance (not really)

Also look out for their offers @ http://www.dell.co.uk/offers

If you add bits it puts the price up a fair bit, so best find one that fits the bill as is.

[Martin Cole]

Hugh & Paul thanks for advice

quote Paul Franklin:

ps. when r we gonna have that beer martin?

Bloody hell Paul I said i ‘d contact you after Xmas, times just wizzed by
I’ll contact you next week for sure, could murder a couple of beers!

Brian thats what I thought, cant stand buying extended warranties on anything, many thanks 🙂

[Richard Urquhart]

asus make some great products and i have a new laptop from them i have been using for 6 months now and no probs

price was great for a high spec

[Stephen Morriss]

dabs.com have some good deals on Toshiba laptops at the moment.
Think they start at about 350 inc vat.

Steve

[Marcella Ross]

quote Brian Hays – Impact:

If it does go wrong just drop it & claim on you home insurance (not really)

😀 😀 😀 that’s what insurance is for 😉

[Patrick Donaghey]

DELL DELL DELL

I’m using a 3yr old dell inspiron 8100 . and have a new inspiron 6100 for work. never took out extra cover and this 3 year old one is still going strong .

[Chris Whitehead]

Dell are great business tools. Very good spec, for a great price..

However from my 9 years in IT support/sales etc Ive found HP/Compaq to be very very good too.. Certianly worth adding to your comparison list.

Hard to find now, but toshiba do some astounding laptops too.. Not the cheapest, but you do get what you pay for. My 11 year old Portege is living proof of this 🙂

If its more of a mobile solution you need, the HI-TEC / Acer laptops are actually dropped from a 4 foot height as part of the testing! If it fails that, they redevlop it.

Myself personally, I’d be looking towards the HP/Compaq range. The national trust also ONLY use HP/Compaq Laptops now. Almost 120,000 of them!

(I know this as I used to work for a MainStream supplier who sold lots of laptops, and supplied the national trust too)

[Lee Ballard]

Fiddle with options on dells site, last week I managed to price a laptop down to £215 plus vat and delivery.

Gonna order(a slightly better spec) one myself soon.

Dad has a Dell laptop, when it arrived(firstly courier screwed up, laptop one day late, dad refunded £50 from Dell and £50 from courier) the backlight didn’t work.

Phoned Dell, collected tuesday, received back working fine thursday.

Lee

[David Rowland]

my advise is DELL but I would build to suit from the DELL site, I am someone who wants bluetooth, wifi, 17" screen etc… budget more like £500-800

[Adam McGuire]

This is something I am more familiar with than signs! As an IT Support Engineer (main employment), I’d make the following recommendations. Dell make some brilliant machines, and fairly cheaply too. Support is good if anything goes wrong. I’d also recommend HP. I’ve been looking at the nx6125 model recently. 64bit processor and quite an impressive spec for the money. Personally I’d spend that little bit more now to save having to replace it too soon. I’d stick to the well known brands as they provide the best support. Try not to be wowed by a low price, as with a lot of things, you get what you pay for. If you go for a celeron processor for example, you’ll soon notice why it’s cheaper, a lot slower than an Athlon mobile or a Pentium 4 mobile or Centrino.

My choice would defiantly be the HP nx6125. Google "nx6125" or look at HP’s website.

Oh by the way, Toshiba are NOT what they used to be, their reputation is in pieces due to some bad designs recently.

Hope this is some help
Adam

[David Rowland]

exactly.. budget for the next 3 years is what I say too, get something that hopefully wont feel too slow in the future.

I might have a google at HP… I personally think that DELL helplines are not the best, they wont replace a Smart failing Raid harddrive.

I always say people that a laptop is normally about 25% more expensive then a desktop PC.. but a laptop is normally designed around battery life so they cannot compete with desktop processing power.

[Hugh Potter]

i may be wrong here Dave, but when i spoke to Fujitsu regarding this laptop, i was told that the 1600 centrino, was as fast as the 2600 P4 (not p4m),

the one i really wanted was the next model up, with the amd 64 bit 3200 processor, but with a 6 week wait (due to it being so new at the time) i was too impatient !
H

[David Rowland]

i would be quite happy with both… however I would have another computer to but my corel on to go way zippy speed!

[Adam McGuire]

I cover a well know financial institue at times, and they’ve just binned all their Fujitsu’s as there are major parts problems. Basically they were told that Fujitsu had a 9 week wait for a new system board if they could get one at all. They cut losses and replaced them with HP’s. They had swapped to HP for all new laptops anyway when old ones became end of life.

The Centrino is a good little processor, but power versus battery life, I think the AMD Turion wins hands down, even though the battery life isn’t as long as some of the Centrinos. 64bit is the future, they’ll only get better.

I have an AMD geode 1750, runs at 1.4ghz but out performs a P4 2Ghz. Considering the Processor uses less than 25 watts and the whole PC uses about 60 watts….thats pretty damned good! Very hard to get hold of though. I’ve not seen a laptop yet with one in.

[Garrie]

We have a top spec Acer laptop, had it 2 years now, no problems etc all, maybe worth having a look at..

[Matt Hards]

ADVENT 7102 AMD SEMPRON PROCESSOR 3000+
what about one of these, at £499.99 with 1gb ram . 40gb hd
anything good or bad with advent???

[Robert Lambie]

DELL have great comps, great deals etc but try buying one over the phone to them direct and its a bloody nightmare.
I have bought two in the last two weeks for our sign firm. each time was a nightmare.

i go to the site on-line, find the comp and deal i am after, take note of the e-value code and with pen and paper, website in front of me, card in hand i give them a call.

first problem, sales person speaks poor English.
second, they don’t seem to be able to speak "into" the mouth piece.
once they clarify everything 3 times, 👿 they try "selling up"!!!

do you know this comp only has this,
yes!
do you want this or that,
NO!
etc etc etc

i had to tell the guy…
look mate, i have the comp i want in front of me. sell me the bloody thing till i get on with my work.
"OK sir, what about extended warranty"
NO!
"you sure, this machine only has 90 days"
don’t care!
" BUT SIR…."
LOOK… i understand a bit about comps. i dont need anything more than i have chosen in your on-line shop. no warranty etc thank you….

BRRRRRRRR….. phone goes dead 😮

calls back, switch board… back to sales another guy….

15 minutes of the same crap…. guess what… once i get to the final bit… line goes BRRRRRR

I’m thinking, its a problem on the system… calls back…. (third time)

same process, but this time before i say anything i ask the guys name and details. (just happens to be the first guy i got) 😉 proceed with sales call. 15 minutes… gets to the warranty etc

BRRRRRRR…. Phone goes dead! 😮

back on the phone…
i want complaints….
why sir?
coz your sales team is at it!
ill put you through to sales…
"NO YOU WONT…. put me to complaints, i want to report joe bloggs for hanging up on me twice because i wouldn’t take extended warranty and anther guy did same.

line goes dead, then "hello…" within 5 minutes i have had my rant, gave details and bought computer. 😕 5 days later in comes lovely new comp. 🙄

2 days ago, i call to buy another for the company.

after 15 minutes, i get to warranty bit, (already have guys details :wink:) no, dont want warranty or etc bits…
OK ill email you in 20 minutes then call you back.
NO email me now ill activate if i have to and tell you over phone now… sorry ill email you…
send now damn it! 👿
OK sir, done that…
while we Wait can i take your card details…
we do that….
OK that’s everything. when email arrives in ten minutes, activate it and that’s that….
1 hour passes. nothing…
i call back get switchboard,
"yes i spoke to joe bloggs and he said email would be here, hasn’t come in yet.
hmmm…. we don’t have that person working here…
yes you do, you put me through to him!
sorry, ill pass you to sales…
😮 listen, put me onto complaints. one of your "non existing staff took my card details and your telling me he doesn’t work there" I’m calling master card then calling you back right after to speak to complaints.

2 seconds sir ill put you through to "MR BLOGGS" 😮
thought he didn’t work there?
dring dring… hello dell sales, Mr bloggs speaking. i understand your email hasn’t arrived yet?
:headbang2:
24hrs pass and i get the second sale confirmed. when it arrives I’m calling them with my list of complaints 😉

all i can say is… when calling. you WILL need pen and paper. get names of everyone you speak to, even switch board. trust me on this one 😉

[Chris Dowd]

PC World may be "box shifters" but you certainly don’t get those kind of problems Rob, and you can take the goods away, we’ve always bought from them!

[David Rogers]

:appl:

Too right!!

DELL = fabulous kit for a good price by, My God!! Are the sales incompetent to the extreme.

Like you, (presume India call centre or similar clone) would not sell me anything ‘basic’ without a fight. I KNEW what I wanted (a couple of X50 PDAs for work), no widgets, gadgets or extended fixits. I had to get a bit stroppy to get her to drop the rehersed sales sheet & take my money.

I’m honesty glad that I ordered, bought & paid for my personal one without so much as an incling of human contact. Ah, that’s progress!

[Lee Ballard]

Hmmmm, personal experience of PC world now has me NEVER asking one of their monkeys, sorry sales people for anything, I just go in, pick up what I need and pay, job done.

If I need info I research c/o google etc before I go.

For componants, such as memory etc I always use ebuyer anyway.

[David Rowland]

blimey thats quite a bad story.

I must admit I have ordered everything over the internet… I need to order what I need and not let any sales staff adjust quotes because they dont understand what it is.

The days are gone calling someone who cares, all you do these days is phone call centres who are on commisions.

Dell support is crap too, wont replace a Raid drive as above.. was india and didn’t like the fact that I had to behave as a computer newbie to get anywhere consider that I quite possibly know more about the system there "database of tips" has grrrr!

[Peter Mindham]

Hi
I have brought five systems from PC World in the last three months. Excellent service and product. They have a great deal on now wityh lap tops. They are worth alook.
Peter

[autosign]

Rob, why couldn’t you just order on the internet?

I always avoid talking to any sales people when I buy anything nowadays.

[Phill Fenton]

quote autosign:

Rob, why couldn’t you just order on the internet?

I always avoid talking to any sales people when I buy anything nowadays.

I tried that last year, I ordered a PC over the internet from Dell when I bought my new Cadet. A few days later I decided to order a second one over the internet to use at home. (The first one hadn’t yet arrived) – Next day I received a phonecall asking me to confirm if I had ordered one or two PCs. I confirmed I had ordered two but only one arrived. When I called back a week or so later to find out what had happened to the second one I was told it had been cancelled. I had never cancelled it – thje sales team had cancelled it even though I had assured them I wanted two PCs

Incompetent or what 🙄

[Harry Cleary]

Dell has been brilliant for me, must be a different set up here in Ireland, I have bought 4 systems in the last 2 years of them, all over the internet. I find your expeience amazing Rob. Somebodies ass needs kicking or shifting methinks!

[David Rogers]

You see, ‘over the internet’ is the key – it bypasses MOST of the incompetent monkeys manning the phones.

What I sometimes do though is once it’s ordered & I have a ref. no. I’ll call up to customer services or sales & confirm the details.

Slighty O/T:
I also do this when buying car insurance – get the online quote (5-10% cheaper than phoning), and then call customer assistance/sales with your quote ref. You get to speak to a human & iron out any bugs & pay manually yet keep the online quote price. 😀

[John Armstrong]

I’ve been building my own PC’s for the last 8 years. Up until recently, it was pretty cost-effective – but not anymore.

Laptops are as powerful as desk-top units these days and their price has gone through the floor.

Dell are the way to go. Their build quality is great, even on the budget machines and they are one of the biggest suppliers out there.

I would suggest you try to get a machine with a P4 processor (try to avoid the cheaper Celeron variety if you can).

Get a graphics card that is either NVidia or ATI (most of the Dell machines use one of these cards) and make sure the video ram is additional to the on-board ram ie, the graphics card doesn’t share the system ram you have installed on the laptop. Windows XP is pretty ram-hungry, so you don’t want to lose a 64MB chunk to the graphics card – your overall performance will take a nose-dive if this is the case.

Additional ram (at a later date) will be the only ugrade you should need.

One last thing, Dell have a section on their webby that offers machines for sale at reduced prices because they have been returned to Dell. Some of them are only one week old, but are technically ‘used machines’, so they are discounted. If you are in the right place at the right time, you might find a machine with a really high spec for the same price as an entry-level box.

[Stephen Morriss]

quote Robert Lambie:

“OK sir, what about extended warranty”
NO!
“you sure, this machine only has 90 days”
don’t care!
” BUT SIR….”
LOOK… i understand a bit about comps. i dont need anything more than i have chosen in your on-line shop. no warranty etc thank you….

I looked in the terms and conditions for this one as I’m pretty sure they have to provide a minimum of 1 year and it’s in the small print, one year warranty.

They just try to get as much from you as possible as they probably don’t make much on the base system.

Just bought a colour laser printer, includes network card and extra paper try £239.00 including delivery and vat.
Consumables are cheap as well, black refill £30.00 inc del and Vat

Steve

[Peter Normington]

Steve,
did the price for the printer include the toners?

I will have to have a look, which printer was it?

Peter

[Martin Cole]

I’d just like to say thanks for all your suggetions. :lol1:

I won’t be phoning DELL, Rob. People trying to sell extended warranties
are just a pain in the jacksee, they seldon want to take NO as an answer.

If I go to buy white goods etc, and the salesman starts drabbling on about warranties I just walk away, sale lost!

quote Matt Hards:

ADVENT 7102 AMD SEMPRON PROCESSOR 3000+
what about one of these, at £499.99 with 1gb ram . 40gb hd
anything good or bad with advent???

Matt, my dad has just bought an ADVENT and hes over the moon with it!

[Lee Ballard]

I love it when they try and sell me an extended warrenty as I remind them that trading standards state all good should have a ‘reasonable life expectency’ and if it breaks down too early, trust me the manufacturer will be repairing it.

Another fun thing to do is ;

Sales gimp: Would you like the extended warrenty sir
You: Why?
SG: I case it breaks down
You: Are you suggesting it might break down?
SG: Errr no but it could
You: I’d better re-consider my purchase then if you are saying you are selling sub-standard goods
SG: No I’m not saying that
You: Then I don’t need an extended warrenty do I!!!! 😀

Lee

[Chris Dowd]

Not all extended warranties are bad, I took one out on one of our laptops, it included accidental damage, 3 years for around £100 and they even split it over 10 interest free payments!

And, in this instance, the Compaq laptop is about to go back for it’s 4th repair, 3 of which have been under the extended warranty.

I personally wouldn’t dismiss them, they can be very worthwhile!

[Robert Lambie]

i dont down the warranty thing, i just hate being pressured to buy something ive already said i dont want.
we have always had our pc’s built locally from scratch, but recent deals dell are doing with flat screens and comp are unbeatable. the comps in question are just slaves to run cutters. not high spec but still at a good level if need be. im sure problems, like everything else will arrrise, if it does after the standard 90 day warranty ill get our local guy to do it. 😀

[Adam McGuire]

I’m afraid I have to disagree with the whole "PC World" or "Dell" deals being cheaper. I accept you can’t build laptops, but for desktops, I’ve just spec’d up a PC for a friend, and Come up with a cheaper price for a better spec than the Dell website, even with their £40+VAT discout for this week. The only thing I didn’t include was the free Inkjet Dell are throwing in, simply because the printer sells for £15 on eBay and the cartridges, even re-manufactured are £18 for a black and £20 for the coloured one.

With regards to remanufactured toners and ink…..don’t even get me started there! More hassle for a computer engineer than almost anything else out there! I’ve just done a call out now at a Council site where the Toner was killing printers. Proved by swapping out the toner.

Problems with anyone but the big boys (HP and Dell) in the laptop market are that they tend not to include next business day repairs!

Anyway I’ve another printer with a suspected toner related fault to visit, I’ll catch you all later!

Adam