Buying Laptops

My housemate is after a laptop...new or reconditioned...just a basic package with net access and a cd burner for around £5-600. Anyone got any recommendations for places to shop? A friend bought one on special offer from Comet but I'm guessing even on special offer it probably wasn't a great deal coming from Comet?
Any suggestions chaps?

 

Here are a couple of Dell Laptops within your price range.

 

Cheers Dev...although I'm sure I read something on here before about Dell being a bit rubbish or have I imagined that?

 

Try Averatec, my GF has one that cost about £600. It is a 2600 AMD with 512mb ram and is very very small and thin.

 

Just remember buy a dell and you are on your own!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/07/14/dell_answers_forum_critics/

 

Don't buy a laptop without a 3 year warranty.

That rules out about 80% of those available.

I'm also looking for a laptop and have been researching the various companies.

Acer laptops are nice until they break which they seem to do a lot and they seem have a terrible reputation for after sales support in the UK.

Dell are not as bad but still plenty of complaints about their service.

Rock Direct are about the same as Dell from what I've seen.

Sony emerge quite well but are poor value for money.

Fujitsu Siemens and HP are the only ones I've found that emerge with a pretty clean bill of health. Very few complaints found.

I'll probably go for the Fujitsu Siemens Amilo 1425 but with 3 year warranty it's slightly above your price range. They do have some cheaper models though.

 

Maybe Comet is the way to go then...at least she can take it back to the shop I suppose?

 

We found Dell notebooks to be OK, certainly a lot better than the average high street bought one - building a decent notebook is an art IMO. Two common problems: overheating due to fast CPU and lack of rigidity, ultimately the motherboard either breaks through stress or melts.

If you can stretch to a Pentium M (ie. in Centrino systems) get that (even a slower one) rather than a Pentium 4. A 1.8 Ghz Pentium M will match a 2.8 Ghz P4 for performance, run much cooler and provide much better battery life - avoid 3.2/3.6 P4 based systems (again IME).

Dell customer service is v poor IMO so you takes your chances. HP/Compaq are well liked for good reason and the IBM T43 which I settled on (now Lenovo) is great (at least mine seems to be) but they overcharge for the peace of mind of properly tested and well supported laptops.

Tough call really, we've tried various models but still havent come to a definite conclusion.

 

In our experience FS systems have come out very poorly indeed - specifically the Amilo 1425. Inserting PCMCIA card would crash the system completely, USB ports would stop working after 30 mins, the graphics card would cause lots of problems, poorly built too.

We also quite like Acer and ASUS are well worth looking at - great value and well liked in the industry, just not a badge for the fashionistas.

 

Thanks for that. Interesting. I was not able to dig much dirt on FS on the web.

There were tons of complaints about Acer though and particularly about their UK support outfit called Esplex. Notably there were lots of complaints where Acer laptops were sent to Esplex for repair under warranty and the company then demanded money (typically several hundred pounds) to fix the laptop. When the customer refuses to pay, the laptop is then returned unrepaired. I have found lots of compaints similar to this. Needless to say Esplex are also known for not returning calls or for their system being down (yeah right!).

I'm beginning to think that buying a laptop is a bad idea. Are there any reliable ones? With decent after sales service? And a long guarantee?

What about HP?

I would look at Toshiba or IBM but they seem to concentrate on business models with VGA screens and I want a high-res widescreen model.

 

I can only say good things about IBM/Lenovo - great support, well tested designs, careful component combinations, good performance, good reliability so far (disk failures on T41, but seems fine on T43 with the HD pre-shock protection feature), downside = they are expensive.

If we didnt buy ThinkPad T43, we'd probably buy HP/Compaq. For budget stuff - probably a low spec Dell Inspiron and try not to drop it. Don't ignore ASUS though.

Just noticed the need for widescreen - yep ThinkPad's are standard dimensions, higher res are a bit pricier.

I'd probably recommend Dell then - widescreen Inspiron.

 

The one thing that stands out most about my iBook is the build quality. Its clear a lot of clever people have sat down in a room, looked over every details and thought 'how can we make this better?'. At first glance Apple laptops seem very overpriced but after a while using one and then seeing other laptops its clear why they cost more. OSX is great as well

IBM seem good too, but not brilliant graphics cards or sound.

My brother swapped his 2.4GHz P4 for a 1.8Centrino laptop and he finds it a little slower, but not by much, so I don?t think its quite equal to a 2.8P4.

 

Well the ATI RADEON MOBILITY X300 is very good IMO for a balance of performance vs battery life - in the reviews I have read it does a great job for games on a laptop - far better then the CAD orientated FireGL cards.

On the subject of performance my T43 with a 1.8 Sonoma CPU and 1GB of RAM is pretty much the same experience as the recent Dell Inspiron 9100 we were playing with with 3.2 HT + dual channel memory. I havent really noticed much if any difference.

 

Well I'm using a Dell Latitude D600 here at work running Windows 2000 and it's not bad but hasn't been totally reliable. It has had some unexplained spontaneous reboots.

I've just been reading a few horror stories about HP support so it seems they are now no better than the rest.

Asus don't (as far as I'm away) offer 3 year warranties. Given all I've read about breaking laptops, I'm simply not prepared to settle for less than 3 years. I am not shelling out a grand for something which could be dustbin fodder in 12 months and 1 day.

I like the IBM Thinkpads. I have examined several and they seem very well made. However I am not prepared to settle for an XGA display. I'm used to 1280x1024. I'd settle for 1200x800 (wide) but nothing less.

Think I'll do some more digging about Sony. I can get them from John Lewis with a 5 year guarantee.

 

I understand how you feel, a few years back I would have recommended Dell, I used Dell's happily for 7 years, my last one (bought in 2000) is still going strong (I did have to have the MB replaced in 2003 though I was probably to blame for that)

These days I havent found the Inspirons to be as good, but they are bloody cheap for what you get.

I bought a 14" ThinkPad T43 with 1400 * 1050 res which I find to be good - I like the fact its light and I chose deliberately it over a 15" with 1600 * 1200 having used 15" screens for the previous 6 years.

I must admit though that business use is the priority, for more home use I can appreciate a widescreen is handy - the Inspirons as far as I recall are home use orientated these days and mostly/all have widescreen.

 

Their displays are very good IMO and whilst they're a little pricey for what you get you would be buying a consumer orientated product which is probably more suited to what you need than a ThinkPad, plus a 5 year warranty is superb for a notebook - that sounds like a goer to me.

 

Then again.... the Sony Vaio FS series looked just the ticket until I started digging. Seems these things are not built to a very high standard and are falling apart left right and centre and Sony doesn't have the parts to repair them so lots of angry customers there.

<sigh>

My Dell (which I shall lose at the end of the week when I leave) has the 14" 1400x1050 display. It's not bad for work. Sideways viewing angle is good. Vertical viewing angle is poor though to the extent that it isn't possible to view even brightness/contrast from top to bottom of the screen. Colours are a little washed out too. Not really an issue for work where the extra resolution is a boon. Not ideal for home where photos and video are important.

Ho hum

 

Well, yes. We used Sonys for a while till one broke, was sent to Paris by Sony for repair, and then got lost.

FWIW we bought our daughter a Dell Inspiron when she went to university and it's been trouble-free, though I'm aware that others' mileage with Dells varies.

If build quality and reliability are important, HP laptops never seem to break and their after-sales service is excellent.

 

I can honestly say all the IT Managers we work with either like/use HP/Compaq (note NOT the Hewlett Packards you get from Comet) or ThinkPads - reliable, well built, well tested, well supported - but not really built for home users.

 

But I read that HP have recently outsourced their support to India and that this has generated a humungous volume of complaints. The kit may be more reliable (although there are a few suggestions to the contrary) but if it does fail, you're on your own because the Indian support staff don't have the knowledge to help and can only parrot what's on the web site already (apparently).