Decent Laptop For Around £350 Or Less !!

[coolcars782]

Hi Guys

Its new laptop time. Started looking at the Sony vaio e series but I can't stretch to £500 for a laptop.

I'm trying to find one for about £350. Did you guys find anything good for this price and is it any good, or can you recommend?

Needs to be able to run latest adobe programmes (Photoshop cs4, premiere pro cs4 etc.) Programming programmes (dev.) And website building software (Serif WebPlus & Dreamweaver) Minimum screen size of 15.4" widescreen.

Being able to play games is not important as I have the ps3.

Thanks, Carl.

[MatJohnson]

Take a look at Acer laptops. Decent prices. My only thing this is with using a 15.4" to develop, its a pain. Perhaps a larger screen would be better? in which case, look at HP

[c0sie]

My missus has an Acer laptop for Uni and its shite.

So far the screen has had to be replaced, the cable from screen to mobo and the RAM, all over a perios of 4 times that we had to send the laptop back to Acer.

Its ok-ish now, but the screen still flickers like crazy (normally around the exact same time as we are desperately typing up assignments!)

She looks after her laptop like it was her own child so you can rule out user abuse...its just a shitty laptop.

Ive had a Fujitsi Siemens Li2727(I think) laptop for the last 2 years and it has never missed a beat.

We are doing Computing degrees so both use the laptop for PS CS4, DW CS4, and various other pieces of random stuff that the Uni have us use.

Cant recommend the Fujitsi highly enough really but just as with RC cars there are a thousand different opinions out there as to whats best.

I got my latop from Comet, it was a very good price and im super happy with it.

If I was you id just spend a few hours looking at Dixons, Currys, Comet, eBuyer, Overclockers etc etc, draw up a list of all the laptops within your price range and then start crossing them off as you figure out which has better specs over others....

Hope that helps a little?

[c0sie]

Just an addition, looking at your sig id guess you might be looking to goto Uni or College?

Part of me wishes I had bought a desktop PC with a mahoosive screen rather than a laptop.

I love my laptop but at Uni I dont use it much. There are more than enough PC's at Uni to do what I need to do, the laptop is just good if im sat in the resturant and want to look at the t'interweb.

If you are looking to design graphics and websites id strongly recommend you sell a kidney or whatever young people do nowadays to get money and look at buying a desktop..

Again, hope that helps?

[passy]

If you want the best of both worlds buy a laptop and then when funds permit a mahoosive external monitor.

When I'm at home I connect my laptop up to a 23inch monitor and use an external keyboard and mouse. When it's time to hit the road it's just a case of pulling a few connections and then I have a nice portable laptop.

As far as laptops go I've always bought thinkpads, ugly as hell but built like tanks. They're expensive new but you can pick up good second hand ones on ebay for not a lot of money. The good thing is that ebay carries lots of spares for these. When my other half accidentally kicked my laptop off the desk and shattered the screen I bought a new screen from ebay for £50 and fitted it myself.

[coolcars782]

Cheers for the replies guys

Just an addition, looking at your sig id guess you might be looking to goto Uni or College?

Yes, I am looking at going to college and uni. Well just finished school.

I found this one - Compaq Presario CQ61-405SA Laptop

It looks very good, and its HP/Compaq so it's good quality. I've already got a Compaq desktop, and can not fault it.

The reason I have choose to get a laptop instead of a desktop is because I can then haul it around college with free wifi there, and I'd rather use my laptop there then there computers.

It's not gonna be for hardcore graphic design and website building just normal stuff, as I am currently building websites for local people/companies.

I think Passy's idea is a good'un. Get a large monitor then connect it up when at home. This would make it alot easier then I wouldn't have to look at 17" screens.


Carl

[c0sie]

I like Passy's idea too actually lol

Another tip from experience..DONT rely on USB pens.

Ive managed to lose 2 USB pens in my two Uni years (even though I have treasured them like gold), and had one pen go corrupt on me which lost all my first years work and assignments towards the end of my first year.

Nowadays I store on my laptop and then mack a backup copy of all my Uni work on my portable HDD that I have at home.

We also have storage space on the Uni servers too so I can sometimes have three backups of my work which is reassuring.

Theres nothing like spending 40 hours up all day and night on an assignment to find that just as you go to print it out the file corrupts or your USB pen decides to go on strike

Last thing...as far as Uni goes anyways...if you pursue Web Design at Uni the chances are that the course will be similar to what im currently doing. When I started I wanted to be able to do what you are doing now; designing websites from start to finish for people and companies.
Uni doesnt work like that in the sence that they teach you how to create a perfect web site BEFORE you all the pretty graphics etc.

Its all worthwhile learning about accessability, usability, XHTML and CSS standards, Java.etc etc but chances are you'll have to learn about databases, SQL, Oracle etc etc which might not be your thing.

They dont have any modules that teach anything graphic based as far as the Web design pathway goes so if I want to learn to make pretty graphics for my websites (which I want to do!) I have to do that off my own back...

In the same way that a builder builds a house and then the decorator makes it look pretty, University will probably teach you how to "build" your site with the intention of you hiring a graphics designer to provide you with the "decoration".

Again, hth

[markwilliamson2001]

Pen Drives are 'donkey's...for transporting work to and from home and the workplace.

I would stay clear of Acer as well...rebadged junk! They put their badge on stuff, then never own up to making it..

Go HP if possible. They do some.

If you can stretch to it, how about an iPad

[coolcars782]

Arrr, I hate USB memory sticks I've had two go wrong, one decided it would be a good idea to melt and the other corrupt all my coursework on it so I had to re-write everything- So I now your pain Cris, just on a smaller scale of work.

I'm studying- Computing, Maths, Physics and Geology at college then hopefully going on to study Computing at Uni.

Websites is just a thing I do on the side for some money


Carl

[coolcars782]

Originally Posted by markwilliamson2001

Pen Drives are 'donkey's...for transporting work to and from home and the workplace.

I would stay clear of Acer as well...rebadged junk! They put their badge on stuff, then never own up to making it..

Go HP if possible. They do some.

If you can stretch to it, how about an iPad

Im thinking about going with this Compaq Presario CQ61-405SA Laptop

But unsure at the mo, just seeing what others are saying.

Carl

[MatJohnson]

Funny that, never had an issue with acer, yes its the cheaper end of the market but seems to work for me and performs a lot better than my Dell one.

Check the weight of that Compaq first, looks like a monster at the mo.

[markwilliamson2001]

Yes...sometimes they are fine, sometimes (most of the time!!) terrible, as some kit is actually theirs and some not. You have obviously been lucky!

[MatJohnson]

Must have been lucky twice then, cause both my acer laptops work perfectly.

[JCJC]

http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/cat/Laptops

always find ebuyer hard to beat, me I love my netbook !

[coolcars782]

I have found it very hard to beat the prices on Ebuyer.com but his time I strugglered.

Im gonna go with this one guys - http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Compa...Ea/version.asp

Thanks guys for your help, especially Cris


Carl

[dodgydiy]

have always heard good things about toshiba laptops, my wife has had two over the last six years with no problems. both were bought as factory reconditioned, the first for 325 the second for 375, will post up name of company if i remember it!

[c0sie]

Anytime Carl

[ashleyb4]

My two best mates in school both had acer laptops. One managed to drop his down a steap hill where it sort of kartwheeled down thought it would be ruined but it was fine. Both performed fine. Persoanally i dont like laptops there just havent got the computing power unless you want to spend loads of money...

Ash