Recommend me a laptop please, up to £300?

Smiler400

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Looking for something to do my Uni` work on whilst travelling for work, Rugby taxi (and the resulting waiting) for the son, etc.

Need wifi internet access and microsoft word.

Not bothered about game playing or downloading massive movies.

As you can probably tell I am not a pc expert, I just use them, after a fashion:augie

Thinking of upto £300 :confused:
 
Go into PC World and talk to them first when you have had a good look around go home and review your options.
A netbook might be what will suit you best priced new from about £200 upwards get at least a 250GB hard drive, rather than MS Office if money is an issue get Open Office it's free and you can save in MS Office format so openable on a PC running MS Office. RAM is often only 1GB so you can't run many progams at the same time.
 
For throwing in the panniers and general travel i use a Acer Aspire One and its fantastic. Its not quite a full laptop nor a net book kinda in between. Really good quality for the money and has taken a battering over the years and is ok. I use it for word/excel and the internet, forget playing games on it.
 
I've recently picked up a Lenovo (ex-IBM) Thinkpad T61 for £200 from eBay. Very impressive, with 250GB HD & 3GB RAM, extended life battery, Win XP & Open Office preinstalled. I like the fact that it's had a lot of practical thought & is designed for a hard life with accelerometer sensing HD shutdown if it's dropped, lightweight metal frame for internal strength & protection of vital bits, wifi/bluetooth, hot-swappable bay for CD/DVD drive.

Look up Viper-IT on eBay - I believe they have others & have seen at least one go for sub-£200.
 
For throwing in the panniers and general travel i use a Acer Aspire One and its fantastic. Its not quite a full laptop nor a net book kinda in between. Really good quality for the money and has taken a battering over the years and is ok. I use it for word/excel and the internet, forget playing games on it.

I have an Acer Aspire One and it is indeed fantastic. Great for travelling or for use on the sofa when multi-tasking between the TV & UKGSer.

I'm currently doing a Masters course, writing a 2500 word essay this weekend and working on a 20,000 word dissertation. I wouldn't want to type it on the netbook, even though the keyboard is 90% of full size it is too small. Plus the screen is not ideal size for editing documents, even less so if your course involves using Excel.

For a £300 full size laptop you aren't going to change the spec much by shopping around. So, I'd just walk into a High St shop and buy something from a brand that you have heard of. John Lewis will give you a 2 year guarantee included in the price.

If you need the Microsoft Office Suite then don't pay full price. You can get the student version for £80 from a retailer and maybe even cheaper or free via your university.
 
I've recently picked up a Lenovo (ex-IBM) Thinkpad T61 for £200 from eBay. Very impressive, with 250GB HD & 3GB RAM, extended life battery, Win XP & Open Office preinstalled. I like the fact that it's had a lot of practical thought & is designed for a hard life with accelerometer sensing HD shutdown if it's dropped, lightweight metal frame for internal strength & protection of vital bits, wifi/bluetooth, hot-swappable bay for CD/DVD drive.

Look up Viper-IT on eBay - I believe they have others & have seen at least one go for sub-£200.

They are the best IMO bullet proof:thumb
 
Sainsburys to You

eMachines E732Z Eme732-372g25MNKK Core i3 2GB/250GB 15.6" Laptop

£329.99

I just saw one in the store for £350, very nice and cheaper on line.
 
Buy a refurbished Lenovo

Hi

Buy a refurbished Lenovo (was IBM). You can find them on eBay or get them direct from tier1online.com.

Their current offer is £279 for a T61 with 2GB RAM and 100gByte hard disk. Comes with a 90 day warranty. The only thing that might cause me to think twice is that its loaded with Vista professional and I would prefer XP. Either use Microsoft Office with a student discount or load OpenOffice which is free.

I bought refurbished T43s for my entire family. Amazing build quality and you would have to look extremely closely to know they weren't new.

Steve
 
Just a couple of things to bear in mind....

1. you sound like a non PC person - therefore you won't be wanting to/know how to fix the software problems that will inevitably go wrong with it at some stage (be it a virus, user error or whatever). Buy new, so it has a clean install that you can always revert to when the wheel comes off. You'll also have a 12month minimum warranty if hardware breaks; (which is more likely in the first 12 months).

2. You've already set your budget. Stick to it. Everyone will be able to suggest something slightly better "for an extra £20" and you can very quickly spend too much.

3. As a student, you're not likely to be in a position to be able to afford to throw £50+ odd at it to get it sorted in 3 months or more time if it goes wrong.

4. You know what you want it to do. ALL laptops/netbooks that are off the shelf (be it Tesco/Asda/PcWorld/ariapc.com etc) will do what you want it to do.

Taking all of the above into account; go into the shops, have a look and feel of the working examples on display and go for the one that you like the look of the screen quality and feel of the keyboard / size & weight etc.

Take note, of the EXACT model number and do a quick check online to see if you can save a couple of quid. if not.....Buy it

When it comes down to it, on your budget, it's down to what looks/feels good.

:)
 


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