[CONSUMER ADVICE] Laptop Buying

anyways, i also want to use soulseek so macs are out.

i am trying to decide between a Dell Inspiron 5100 vs an Ibm thinkpad. i have not looked into the thinkpads, are they worth the it?

help!

I'm getting my new work to get me one too but I don't really want to have thousands of MP3s on a new job's PC.

Since you seem to be quite iAware, I've been meaning to find out: is it normal to have a 6-7 second delay every between every 5th or 6th track when on 'shuffle'? It sort of growls and sounds like it's doing what it should, and the pause is only vaguely irritating, but I've never heard anybody else mention it. Again, I'm using the old 20G beast...

I need a new laptop.

my current one is OK but for, mostly, its build (probs w/ screen/power supply/CD/DVD). it has 512MB RAM, some shitty shared graphics, 30GB HDD, 1.2GHz processor. I've had it for 2 years and had it around europe and america for almost a quarter of that time--it hasn't lasted too badly.

I will be using the new one for drawing and modelling, mainly, so memory and extra, dedicated graphics memory is most key. the bigger the screen, the better. the better the processor, the better. of course. CD/DVD. not too fussed about HDD, since I have an external 200GB drive, so 30GB or so would prob be fine. the more robust, the better, too.

tell me things I don't know. PLEASE GUYS

COME ON PLEASE

oh, would like to pay less than £1200/$2200 but if there was something great, for a little more, who knows?

COME ON PLEASE PLEASE

I have a 15" screen, just now, and that is OK. ideally, I would have a 12" or 14" and another 19"+ screen to plug it into, on my desk!!!!!!!!

it's the graphics memory that makes it difficulter. HP look good and toshiba look good, too. sony is expensive, yes.

: S

yes, I only just looked at the micro anvika, now--never heard of it, before, but it seems to be priced the same, everywhere else. dabs.com, simplycomputers/whatever.

thanks, for the advice!!!

BUT--it is still over £400 under the retail price and he says it has 1024MB RAM instead of 512MB. I am scared!!! what do I do?

I have even looked at getting a train to WREXHAM, tomorrow or so, and BACK! to pick it up, if I win it. it would cost £70 and ten hours of travelling but I would be a bit safer, that way.

anyone got any ebay horror stories, to put me off? or are you good at spotting potential SCAMS?

but, haha.

I went to john lewis, today, and looked at the HP 17" laptop, that I wanted. it seemed a little less robust, than I had hoped for. I looked around and found this. it is the same spec, as the HP, but with double the RAM and the memory card reader is hotswappable, with a second battery and stuff. also, the lid is steel. robuster. it is also slightly smaller and lighter. it is priced at slightly higher, than the HP. I have found some, on ebay. it seems that gateway have kinda stopped trading, in the UK. does anyone know any more?

Oh, and beware of random refurb outlets, I bought a laptop from Refurb Depot and they sent me a piece of shit that wasn't working properly and then gave me massive attitude and headaches when I tried to return it - had to send my credit card people after them, who luckily saved me from getting ripped off to the tune of $1100.

I've bought parts and things from Buy.com and they've been great so far. What about checking customer reviews on Amazon to see what others say? Also epinions, even searching on Slashdot. Best to do your research.

mine is over a year old and i havent had it freeze up on me to the point of rebooting a single time. it is fabulous. pretty quiet as well.

Well, my sister and a friend, both with good positive feeback, were phished and before they realised it high end electrical goods suddenly appeared on their seller lists. Look at their payment options, avoid anything which asks for a money order or wire transfer only.

- Can't be a Mac. Boo hiss etc.
- Reasonable price (around 1200 UKP tops - cheaper the better)
- It'll be used for basic Home Office stuff - no need for
super-duper graphics accelerator etc. Reasonable sized HD
(20Gb would be fine). Processor needs to be good enough to
handle Dreamweaver, Word, Excel, Acrobat. Not blazing super
duper but not clunky old shite
- key issue - needs built in 56K Modem, Ethernet card and
wireless ready - 11g standard if poss. But wireless is not necessary if has PCMIA card slot for
wireless card - how much do they go for? Is it better to go
for a built in standard, or use card slots?
- Pretty robust as it'll be moved a bit, and not too heavy
either (ie, given the price, a nice Vaio is out, but nor do
we want an anvil typewriter stylee thing).

A general tip is to buy a laptop which uses the Pentium M CPU (Centrino) since the CPU uses less power than the Pentium 4. Oh, and I'd choose a built-in wireless solution instead of using the PCMCIA route.

The Dell Inspiron line looks like it has a few good deals depending on what he's looking for.

Samsung X20 might be what you are looking for.

Asus & Acer seem to be pretty affordable, thanks dmac.

there are some bargains on mycheaplaptop.co.uk, processors are well old though, presumably that's why they're so cheap though. pity they don't have anything a bit more expensive at the moment, because the prices seem good. thanks, will keep an eye on it

dependimg on whats important to you the variations can be fucking dizzying out there tbh

xp yeah having a look they just seem to have the cheaper ones on there right now for some reason.

I went browsing in the shops on tottenham court road before I bought, that was useful.

this isn't going v well.

I thought maybe I'd splash out a bit and upped my budget a bit, but the 2 laptops I had my eye on, at different websites, both went up £350 last week. wtf. so those are way out now because they were already more than I planned to spend.

another thing - are UK keyboards being phased out or something? I keep seeing laptops at UK shops like Currys with US keyboard layouts. what's that about?

thinkpad x1 carbon series is a bit above your price range but are excellent machines that work well with linux

If you're not bothering with Windows, you can save a bit and customize pretty much everything on your laptop (including keyboard layout):
https://frame.work/gb/en/products/laptop-diy-13-gen-intel

Also, if you're mostly using a browser and music playback (not recording), you could save even more with a Chromebook (which does have the option to run Linux within it, but apparently there's no USB support so forget recording music etc...).

Lastly, if you're alright with having your work MacBook do double duty, you could install a Linux virtual machine on it via https://getutm.app/ and work out a backup/encryption scheme if work ever reclaims it, or segregate it entirely by running it off a small external SSD.

don't transport it by wrapping towels around it! laptops are delicate precision machines! spend £20 on a padded laptop protector at least

I have a £300 voucher for Currys/PC World, as a replacement for a laptop that was so slow as to be useless (but had been covered by one of their insurances). Would probably double my spend to get something half decent. Likely to be used a lot but not for much fancy (eg. gaming) - more emails, internet browsing and a small amount of music. As ever, any recommendations? Ta!

And/or anything to particularly look for? (Bloke in shop mentioned Corei3 or above).

Do PC shops in the UK let you test out devices in-store?

Something I think really gets overlooked for laptops is just how comfortable the keyboard is -- try a few typing tests with them.
If they have internet set up, you might also try testing how responsive it is after opening 20 tabs on a browser playing various youtube clips simultaneously -- also pick a movie scene you like to see how much you like the screen.

As far as processor goes -- this wouldn't be a direct test, but if you can, try the above tests using just battery to see how it performs (often, laptops behave quite differently plugged in than on battery), listen to hear if a fan starts revving up.

Chromebook could cover a lot of your requirements while allowing budget for screen/build quality imo

Ta, both.

https://gizmodo.com/hp-pavilion-plus-14-2023-review-performance-1851066819

$900 is budget now?