Budget Laptop

Looking to get a laptop for my dad for christmas.

Nothing fancy, just for browsing, downloading music, and maybe the occasionaly game. Nothing too power hungry I wouldn't imagine.

There seems to be a good selection for around £300 - £400 which should get something good enough.

Any personal experience, recommendations or advice welcome.

 

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/HP_530_GU327AA/version.asp

I can recommend both the laptop and the supplier. Pay the extra £19.95 and upgrade the memory.

 

Slightly over budget but a stonking deal...
http://svp.co.uk/product/dell_inspiron_6400_with_3_minus_year_warranty_plus_windows

If you e-mail Steve at SVP (no connection to me, just found the deal elsewhere) mentioning the 'DVD forums', he'll send you a code to enable you to get it for £450 delivered. More than £100 less than getting it from Dell Direct.

 

Sign up with broadband at the car phone warehouse and you get a free slack top, thats what we are thinking to do.

 

MO how portable does the laptop need to be?

There are superlight ones that don't have an onboard dvd/cd drive and have smaller screens

Then there are ones with huge screens and onboard CD/DVD etc which are not really practical for taking along if you are on the road a great deal.

The Dell laptop above looks like a stonking deal - its got Intel Dual Core - the cheaper laptops tend to have Celeron processors which I would not want in my laptop - but having said that for surfing etc they should be fine.

So the things to look at are:

1) screen size - what do you need
2) hard disk - as large as possible 120GB would be good
3) memory - as much as possible - 2GB would be good
4) processor - Intel Dual Core for me!!
5) do you need onboard cd/dvd drive
6) must have onboard ethernet
7) do you need wireless?? a lot have them onboard
8) What software does it come with - most will just have windows with a trial or cut down version of MS Office
etc.

Create your list of must haves and then compare the deals around

 

Have a look at the Inspiron 6400n(N1164015) with 1Gb ram £360 (£420 for 2Gb) vat and delivered to door, plus all free open source software you can manage held in the Ubuntu repositories. I have this running for father, uncle and other family members in simple home surfing using Firefox, Thunderbird with Enigmail and VLC for AV duties, it all just works. I know the software and operating system work but I have no knowledge of this Dell hardware but I expect it works as well as any other laptops from big named shops.

PS You should not have to worry about various virus infections and with the right Fiorefox and Thunderbird extensions installed their machine should be about as secure as it can be without unplugging from the internet.

 

Thanks for the replies!

Portablity wont be a big issue. I can't imagine it leaving the house too often unless he finds some uses for it for work.
The main reason for wanting a laptop over a desktop is just the freedom of moving about the house and packing it away when not in use.

I'd want it to be able to use the wireless internet.

 

On that basis get the one with the biggest screen, onboard wireless LAN, 120GB hard disk, 2mb ram, Intel Dual Core processor, CD/DVD combo drive.

Only questionnow is Operating system. The Linux based machine Auric linked to looks very good. And comes with open soruce equivalents of MS Office. Might exceed your budget a little.

Bear in mind that a laptop screen and keyboard is very uncomfortable to use for extended periods of time. You cannt adjust screen height ( and obviously not independently of the keyboard).

Okay for surfing or use for short periods e.g. hour or less at a time. I actually went for a Mac mini myself although I have yet to use it extensively as I am still hooked to PCs.

Mac minis though within budget don't come with screen, mouse or keyboard so that would blow your budget, unless you had a spare screen lying about the house.

 

At this price point Vista Home basic seems the norm. But at this price point a low spec processor and minimum RAM also seems the norm. Are these machines really up to running Vista?
I noticed somewhere (dell?) that they were offering to supply XP.... but at an additional cost to what Vista would have been!

Regarding Linux.....
My dad has very little computer experience. He's quite technically minded, but MOre in a hands on, rather than software way.
I can just about find my way around Windows so would have thought it best to stick with that to show him the basics.
Is a linux based system really at the point where a complete novice could use it?

Mac mini was suggested by a friend. He said coming at it with no/very little previous OS familiarity to influence things, a mac would be easy to get to grips with.
However, no screen, MOuse 'board etc...
Also I think the appeal of a laptop is to be able to just shut the screen down and slide it under the table. Also will be portable should his interest take off and maybe be able to use it for work.

 

MO,
I would say yes as witnessed by father, uncle and brother using it and the only support questions I have to answer is when they sometimes forget their passwords!

My uncle slips in a silver disk from the Sunday papers and if it is a DVD then VLC does the business otherwise Soundjucer offers him a play list for his perusal. With Firefox and addins like noscript, adblock+ after a bit of white listing things are safe and sound as is Thunderbird and Gmail. As the users run on a non-admin account this also helps and once every couple of weeks I pop over for a chat and run updates on an admin account they can not access. The Gnome desktop may lack the start button and Windows logos but I reckon the menu system can be grasped after a few moments instructions. I can not see a downside to this system for you father may be picked upon by his mates down at the pub out of pure jealousy because his machine just works and is not virus ridden and sluggish most of the time.

Ps I expect that the system comes pre-installed and all you have to do is pick and assign user names and passwords for new users

 

Hi.

The deal robs has linked to seems great!
I tried using the linux based version auric linked to, and taking it to the same spec as the one rob suggested. I think I've done it correct and it works out as Vista version £469.99 v Ubuntu version £564.41

How exactly do I go about getting the discount code?

 

Hi MO,

I'm sure the owner Steve will e-mail it to you if you ask him nicely & say you saw the deal advertised on the DVD forums.
[email protected]
www.thedvdforums.com
They are a forum sponsor or summat like that.

Think your sums are correct, essentially you get a £114 discount for having Vista on it. About right ;-)

 

Yeah the three year on site warranty is preeeety good for that price....

 

My father in law was interested in one so I was looking a couple of days ago & this popped up. Looks non budget spec (dual core, 2Gb Ram, 120GB, DVD writer, upgraded battery + as you say a three year on site warranty) for a pretty good price.
They say on the site "This is a brand new unit from Dell with a 3-Year Dell On-Site Warranty from 15/11/07 and genuine Windows software. These 2 items alone are worth a large part of the price we sell this unit for!".
The warranty is £109 if added when speccing on the Dell website, so I thought it looked pretty good value. Maybe VERY good value!

 

MO Robs deal sounds like the one to go for.
If you are worried about Linux, you can always get this laptop, then download Fedora (free) form the Redhat website and burn it onto a DVD using you new laptop DVd writer. Then run the install - fedora will automatically create a new disk partition and give you a choice at boot up of launching Luinux or Window.

 

Go on, be the first on your block to have one although you may have problems acquiring one before Christmas

 

Very cool!!

This is for ultraportability though.

No hard disk.

I guess there is a sector between Blackberry/PDA and a full size laptop although I'm not sure how much more it would give you over say a Blackberry

 

Firstly many hanks for the replies. Much appreciated.

I purchased the Dell from SVP last night. I'd used them years ago for blanks cds, didn't even realise they sold laptops!

I'd also registered with DVD forums years ago too.

Sending an email to steve requesting the dvd forums member discount code knocked a couple of quid off it. Then also asking for the specific discount code for the laptop and the price came down to £448.81 all in!

Their communications have so far been great.

Obviously I'll have to have a bit of a play with it when it turns up to check all is in order. Woudn't want to give him it on xmas day just to find out it's duff!

I like auric's idea of maybe setting up an admin account so he can't mess anything up, and then user accounts for him and my mum. I assume (i've never used Vista) this is all as straight forward as in previous versions of windows?

Thanks again!

 

Only ever used vista once when setting it up for a friend who was almost incandescent with rage because I was waisting time creating a rescue disk. Not at all like the choose, pay, take it home and play adverts seen on the box. Things may have been going slow because the machine only had 1gb or ram.