Laptop advice Part2

[Interpol Shrimper]

Right, I've got the IT guys at work to cast their eyes over my knackered laptop and it appears it's time for a new one (I might when funds allow get the old one back up & running as a spare/backup).

Anyway, has anybody got any tips/bargains they've recently found?
Comet have got a Compaq laptop for £340 (currently with £160 off and spec of 1GB RAM, 160GB memory) but the flaw with 99% of the ones I've looked at is it runs Vista.

Budget is about £350 max. We need something for mainly internet browsing, a bit of downloading, Football Manager, etc. Storage is less of an issue as I've got an external storage drive (which I will now obviously use a whole lot more to backup files!!!). Machine running XP preferred obviously.

How easy is it to overwrite Vista with XP?

I also see Tesco's have got a mini desktop Compaq currently at £289 but I'm having issues convinicing the Mrs this is a good purchase!

Cheers for any help.

 

[Mad Cyril]

I have always kept an eye on the Dell outlet. If you know roughly what you are looking for you can pick up some bargains.

Build quality not always the best but as long as you are not throwing the thing around you should be fine.

 

[Matt the Shrimp]

Yep, any tips gratefully welcomed - my laptop is beginning to play up (it has done almost 6 years, which isn't too bad), in that the cooling fans have stopped working properly which means it keeps overheating and turning itself off. I figured that that would cost several hundred to fix, so it's probably not worth spending the money on - and instead investing in a new one.

I guess I'm on a similar budget and spec to Rich. Any suggestions other than Dell, or should I look no further than them?

Matt

 

[osymandus]

Go for DEll , they also still do the XP option over Vista . To be fair on a new build pc just trash it and install Linux (Umbuntu is free and appears on the front of Linux magazines most month and dead easy to install ;) ). Most laptops now are much for muchness (unless your spending £1000+ . Just avoid Comet , PC world etc ;)

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

Should have said I was wanting to stay away from Dell after the past 2 experiences. Plus why should it take me hours of cleaning up my desktop to delete all their rubbish "free" programs they stick on there?

 

[Pubey]

more and more computers are coming out with the voucher for Windows7, which already looks like a massive improvement to vista. have a check either on here or with the manufacturer:

http://www.dabs.com/articles/promot...-is-coming--upgrade-programme-offer-6598.html

 

[osymandus]

Should have said I was wanting to stay away from Dell after the past 2 experiences. Plus why should it take me hours of cleaning up my desktop to delete all their rubbish "free" programs they stick on there?

Its called owning a PC sadly , its a myth (and 13 years of support tells me this ) that people want it working as they want it from the box . Its a piece of equipment that's needs tinkering and personalising to you.

Anywhere just reformat it and recreate it.

 

[Pubey]

interesting news... no denying that Chrome browser is very fast

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8139711.stm

...and open source! I'd love Mozilla to be able to pull this off

 

[Bluesmanager]

Get yourselves a Macbook Pro each.

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

Get yourselves a Macbook Pro each.

For £750 a pop each???
If you're offering to fund it ;)

 

[phsend]

Im looking too...so far this is what I am thinking of getting...any views?

http://www.laskys.com/computing/laptops_and_pdas/laptops/toshiba_l300_20d.html

 

[Aberdeen Shrimper]

interesting news... no denying that Chrome browser is very fast

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8139711.stm

...and open source! I'd love Mozilla to be able to pull this off

I like the idea behind this, they are going to concentrate on speed, security and ease of use......starting up your laptop and being logged on to the net in a few seconds.

About time the public were offered an operating system with out all the crap that we simply do not use.

 

[osymandus]

interesting news... no denying that Chrome browser is very fast

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8139711.stm

...and open source! I'd love Mozilla to be able to pull this off

But not as fast as Firefox 3.5 or as memory economic
http://dotnetperls.com/chrome-memory

 

[Mad Cyril]

I work as a software developer and have used a Windows XP PC (as well as Open VMS and various *NIX boxes) for 10 hours every day for years at work. It has never really let me down.

Why a casual user would want to pay a premium for an Apple machine is beyond me.

 

[osymandus]

I work as a software developer and have used a Windows XP PC (as well as Open VMS and various *NIX boxes) for 10 hours every day for years at work. It has never really let me down.

Why a casual user would want to pay a premium for an Apple machine is beyond me.

You've got to post your event logs then thats a near miracle ;)

 

[Bluesmanager]

For £750 a pop each???
If you're offering to fund it ;)

Ah. Yes. Will admit, getting it for free from the college (who are getting it for me free off the government - just about the only good thing they've done for me) does somewhat skew my judgement.

 

[Interpol Shrimper]

Just thinking about software I'd need to download for new PC when I get it...

Firefox
Google Chrome

iTunes
Music Recovery
Limewire

CC Cleaner
AVG antivirus
Spybot S&D
Ad-Aware
Windows Defender
Defraggler

Camera/printer & External Storage drive software

Open Office

Anything obvious I might have missed?

 

[Bluesmanager]

Football Manager.

Depends on what you want out of it. The main reason I'm getting a Mac is because they're powerhouses (and thus just about the only computer that can actually hold all the software I need like Final Cut Pro, Garageband and such while still being somewhere near fast about it).

 

[Pubey]

Just thinking about software I'd need to download for new PC when I get it...

Firefox
Google Chrome

iTunes
Music Recovery
Limewire

CC Cleaner
AVG antivirus
Spybot S&D
Ad-Aware
Windows Defender
Defraggler

Camera/printer & External Storage drive software

Open Office

Anything obvious I might have missed?

..
Spotify

 

[Mr Plow]

Windows 7 RC 7100 x64
Notepad++
Paint.net
CDBurnerXP or ImgBurn
7-Zip
VLC or Media Player Classic Home Cinema
WinAmp/Foobar2000
Virtual Clone Drive
MP3Tag
Rocket Dock or Object Dock