£500 to spend on a laptop

[JoelSim]

Anyone got any views on how this would be best spent?

Through a small amount of research it appears the Samsung Aura R700 has got some rave reviews, and it's available at dabs.com for £485 inc VAT.

Thoughts appreciated?

PS Main use will be for this forum amongst other things. Will use it for a little working from home but unlikely to go anywhere near the hifi at the moment (but that's another thread entirely).

 

 

[DistortedVision]

Hi Dude,

I've been looking into buying a new laptop and have been researching them for ages. I've come to the conclusion that the first thing you need to decide is what screen size you require and work from there.

I've been looking at getting a 13.3" Samsung. For me the key features are build quality, weight and battery life. I'd recommend you take a look at www.laptopsdirect.co.uk. You can get cash back with Quidco also.

 

[JoelSim]

Screen size isn't too important and most use will be at home, although if I do take it out and about I'd obviously rather it didn't dislocate my shoulder every time. Important things are build qual, and internet usage/speed/wifi access.

 

[Anonymous]

Around this price given your requirements I'd be looking at Asus, Sony or Dell - I think you can have a Dell with Ubuntu these days if you give them a call to save a bit of cash.

I was going to get an Apple laptop a couple of months ago to go with the desktop but ended up with an Asus with Linux, and a saving of around £400.

 

[John Duncan]

Acer, Asus, Dell. Not Sony on cost grounds (from personal experience, though I got some useful software bundled free), and not HP on reliability grounds (from personal experience).

 

[John Duncan]

Though on the face of it that Samsung does look good quality. Don't know about value as haven't compared specs side-by-side with others available.

 

[professorhat]

From my experience, if you persist, you'll likely get the best deal in the long term from Dell. Their laptops are pretty reliable (considering we use them for 10,000 odd business users) and their warranty support service, whilst ultimately frustrating to techies (since we always know better

) is actually very good for the average home user.
I have bought two Dell laptops from their cheapo shop on eBay.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

professorhat:
From my experience, if you persist, you'll likely get the best deal in the long term from Dell. Their laptops are pretty reliable (considering we use them for 10,000 odd business users) and their warranty support service, whilst ultimately frustrating to techies (since we always know better

) is actually very good for the average home user.
I have bought two Dell laptops from their cheapo shop on eBay.

I agree and from what you say that you need from it, I wouldn't spend anymore than £350.

 

[John Duncan]

I would certainly have bought Dell if the lappie I'd wanted hadn't had a 6-week lead time, so if the one you want is available straight away, go for it.

 

[JoelSim]

Do Dell have any that don't look too businesslike, not really into all the corporate stuff

 

[Gerrardasnails]

JoelSim:Do Dell have any that don't look too businesslike, not really into all the corporate stuff

They do a range of colours now. Not sure they do the Bolton strip but you can get them in red! Yellow also...

 

[John Duncan]

And pink.

 

[John Duncan]

And psychedelic

 

[JoelSim]

Hmmm. Looks a bit like a dad at a disco to me...

 

[John Duncan]

They have one where you can put photos behind a clear cover as well so you could have a proper disco dad one:

 

[Dave_]

well i gotta an inspiron in matt black n aluminium finish! and it's "lush" apperently.... according to my missus' daughter, and definately not dad at the disco

 

[John Duncan]

Be aware - if you get a Dell and go for the longer-life battery, they tend to stick out the back and ruin the line of the laptop. If that's important to you (ie either long battery life or clean lines).

 

[Dave_]

standard battery aint to bad though, i get a good 2-3 of hours out of mine using balanced power settings

 

[Andrew Everard]

FWIW I've been using one of these for the past few months, including for all the Far Eastern bloggage that's been going on recently. It's been slung around, dropped (twice) on the Samsung Bouncing Bus, and just keeps on going. It cost me just under £250, which I reckon is a total steal.

Mine now has an extra giggle of RAM and an extended battery - the standard one is rubbish - and the festive project is going to be a hard-disk upgrade, I think, though carrying a slim 160GB USB external drive is no real hardship.

Oh, and I use a Vodafone 3G USB stick for most of the blogging - including all the in-bus stuff in Korea - but there's a new version with a 3G modem embedded if that's your thing.

 

[JoelSim]

That looks quite interesting

 

[JoelSim]

Well my £500 suddenly became £899 for a Macbook Air from John Lewis complete with 2 year guarantee. Nice piece of kit although I suspect for that money you could get a much faster PC albeit nowhere near as nice, light and different.

ÿ

 

[Alec]

JoelSim:
...I suspect for that money you could get a much faster PC...

ÿ

How does it feel in that respect? have you got all your progs and what not loade3d on yet? In other words then you would be getting an accurate feel for how it performs...?

sorry. not sure im making sense. tired.