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