What laptop ?

[dibdob69]

I bought a laptop a few weeks back but after two weeks it went pop after a lot of bother i got my money back from Comet only because all the bossies had gone home by 7.45pm, I told the sales girl i had been told i could have a refund even thought the techie on the phone said i was only entitled to a replacement even though it was a hardware problem

Anyway it was an ACER 5742 Core i5 laptop with 4GB memory, 500GB etc,
My question is do i need something this powerful, I only need a laptop to surf the net, store photos, Itunes, youtube, i wont be gaming.

Do i need i5, 4GB, 500GB etc If not what should i be looking for

Sorry for the numpty question

 

[cookie]

it doesn't sound like you need anything fancy for what you do, but a big hard drive is always handy if you have a big itunes library, lots of photos, and especially video.

 

[geordie458]

You can afford to lower the spec for your needs i would say and save yourself a bit of cash. I'd be looking at spending less than £300. If you can put up with a smaller screen, go for a netbook and save some more cash too.

 

[rodders]

what laptop

Have a look on here.
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/
Plenty of choice and service is fine in my experience..

 

[bowser]

The anwser is probably not but: the big problem is that do you WANT a big screen that is the real issue.
You can make do with a net book or lower powered laptop for what you want to do with it the problem is that with the current crop you only get the lower spec with the smaller screen size, even a 13 inch screen will normaly come with the a similar price tag as you have with the 15 incher you had, in the £350 range price bracket then the spec is probably the norm.

Have a look at something like www.laptopsdirect.co.uk, its a good site for comparing size and spec and gives a good idea of what you get for what price.

Hard drive size is not a issue, big laptop drives are cheap and easily upgradable.

For me with a laptop the most important thing is battery life, and connectivity, and porability, so a netbook with a built in 3g modem is what I need, downside is the screen is only 10 inch.

I personaly would steer clear of any Acer their back up and tech support is crap, for somthing like a laptop I would always go for somthing like Samsung/Toshiba or Asus all have good spares backup, good tech support and regulary update drivers etc, tosh for instance still have drivers on their web site for my old libretto which is over 15 years old. Sony are very good but very expensive for what you get.

 

[dibdob69]

I would like a 15" + screen, battery life and portability not that important as i will only be using it around the house but connectivity will be important as my old laptop was always dropping off line

What spec processor should i be looking for ? Do i need 4GB or will 3GB do for my needs ?

 

[JohnnyOldBoy]

I would suggest the difference in price between 3 and 4GB is not much and as a rule of thumb more memory is better. Intel i5 seems the most popular at the moment

Give me a penny for everytime someone says I only need a bit of email and internet and the next thing you know they are editing video files and complaining about performance. You could be using the same laptop in 5 years time so who knows what is around the corner and due to the rapid upgrade programs PC manufacturers have together with technical advances laptops will be disposable items with parts not as available as they are today.

Keep away from netbooks unless portability is crucial. They can be bought cheap on ebay as people realise how crap they are.

 

[Grey Beard]

I would suggest the difference in price between 3 and 4GB is not much and as a rule of thumb more memory is better. Intel i5 seems the most popular at the moment

Give me a penny for everytime someone says I only need a bit of email and internet and the next thing you know they are editing video files and complaining about performance. You could be using the same laptop in 5 years time so who knows what is around the corner and due to the rapid upgrade programs PC manufacturers have together with technical advances laptops will be disposable items with parts not as available as they are today.

Keep away from netbooks unless portability is crucial. They can be bought cheap on ebay as people realise how crap they are.

I just bought a used refurbished Dell Studio 1557 laptop (Intel i7 quad core CPU, 500GB HDD, 4GB RAM, 1920*1200 screen).

I did look at Netbooks, but their usual Atom processor power & 1GB RAM is so limited and in a year or so, it will be next to useless, especially with more and more HD videos being posted on the Internet. I think NetBooks are now moving to Dual Core processors, so that confirms the trend also.

The major advantage of the Net Books is the superior batterery life. I wanted a Firewire connection for our Video Camera so was somewhat restricted in my choice of machines. Firewire is apparently obsolete/legacy technology, even though the Video Camera is only 4-5 years old .

I also plan to do some rough editing of digital photographs when on the road, so chose a better spec'd machine.

Grey Beard

 

[Pukmeister]

I wanted a Firewire connection for our Video Camera so was somewhat restricted in my choice of machines. Firewire is apparently obsolete/legacy technology, even though the Video Camera is only 4-5 years old .

Grey Beard

The latest new thing is 'Thunderbolt', just released today by Apple on the new range of MacBook Pro's with quad core i7 processors. Up to 10GB/Sec throughput, basically making USB3 obsolete before its even in the marketplace.

Should make editing my 1080P HD video a breeze when it's delivered.

 

[Grey Beard]

It really is rather difficult to keep up with the rapid obsolecence of PC electronics these days. No so bad with a desk top when you can just stick another card in the motherboard, but your options are strictly limited with LapTops, etc.

Grey Beard

 

[Pukmeister]

It really is rather difficult to keep up with the rapid obsolecence of PC electronics these days. No so bad with a desk top when you can just stick another card in the motherboard, but your options are strictly limited with LapTops, etc.

Grey Beard

If it still works, and you are happy with its performance, then it's all good whether declared obsolescent/obsolete or not.

FWIW the default Firewire 800 port on most Mac computers are still blisteringly quick for data transfer, and they are still used on the current/latest range of Macs.

Thunderbolt is exceedingly fast and comes into its own when connecting a Laptop to remote storage devices for data transfer between them, an 'agent' who works for apple claims it can download huge HD video files in seconds.