Value for money laptops

[Miggs]

Who does the best value laptops?

I want to get my 11yr old daughter one for christmas but where do you go. I gave the wife a 17" two years ago, thats a laptop by the way, from Acer and its been no trouble at all. So do I go back to them or do I go to say Dell. Budget is around £450, most be able to get a good one for that, can't I. Thanks in advance.

Miggs.

 

[Anonymous]

Im not sure here, but ive got an acer aspire 5520 here, and not really impressed with it at all, was 400 pound ish, gets warm and noisy. I have freinds who have dell laptops with no worries attall.

If i had 400 pound to spend again, i think a would go for a dell laptop defo, think there a more proper brand if you get what i mean.

dave

 

[Miggs]

Cheers Dave.

Miggs.

 

[Anonymous]

apple they really are that good

 

[basshound]

one off:apple they really are that good

Bet you can`t get one for £450 though

 

[basshound]

Miggs:
Who does the best value laptops?

I want to get my 11yr old daughter one for christmas but where do you go. I gave the wife a 17" two years ago, thats a laptop by the way, from Acer and its been no trouble at all. So do I go back to them or do I go to say Dell. Budget is around £450, most be able to get a good one for that, can't I. Thanks in advance.

Miggs.

Have a look at the Dell website,for £449 you can get a 17" laptop with a pretty good spec or you could go for a smaller screen size and upgrade other components.

 

[Dave_]

one off:apple they really are that goodAll well and good,but try buying one for the OP's budget,unless second hand.

 

[Dave_]

Dell is probably the way i'd go. I've had several Dell laptops and have always found them to be well built,reliable and good VFM.

 

[Anonymous]

your right sorry hadnt read that bit dell then is what id say too

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Miggs:
Who does the best value laptops?

I want to get my 11yr old daughter one for christmas but where do you go. I gave the wife a 17" two years ago, thats a laptop by the way, from Acer and its been no trouble at all. So do I go back to them or do I go to say Dell. Budget is around £450, most be able to get a good one for that, can't I. Thanks in advance.

Miggs.

Dell, all day long.

 

[Gerrardasnails]

Miggs:
Who does the best value laptops?

I want to get my 11yr old daughter one for christmas but where do you go. I gave the wife a 17" two years ago, thats a laptop by the way, from Acer and its been no trouble at all. So do I go back to them or do I go to say Dell. Budget is around £450, most be able to get a good one for that, can't I. Thanks in advance.

Miggs.

Dell, all day long.

 

[DJEPSON]

what about a netbook, they are around £300 and then buy and external DVD drive for around £50, the battery life on the netbooks are giving upto 9 hours on some models

 

[John Duncan]

Acer are best value, followed by Dell and Samsung.

 

[Anonymous]

Sorry to hijack thread, just wanted to no what netbook to buy £250ish, just for general use (facebook etc) if you could give names and model numbers so i can just find best price and buy.

Its not that iam a lazy g_t but dont really know a good one from a bad one, thank you

 

[Miggs]

Its got to be 15" screen. Don't want a netbook. It looks like it will be either Acer or Dell. Problem with Acer though at the moment nearly every laptop comes complete will a web cam, which we don't want our daughter to have. Dell do models without web cam so we might go down that route.

Whats your opinion on paying an extra warranty for say 2 or 3 yrs? Is it worth it? The wifes 17" came with a 3yr warranty, this christmas its 2yrs old and we have never had a problem with it. I put more memory in it a couple of weeks ago and its now flying again as if it was new. Want to order it this week while I am off work looking after wife who has just had major surgery.

Thanks Again

Miggs.

 

[basshound]

Miggs:Whats your opinion on paying an extra warranty for say 2 or 3 yrs? Is it worth it?

IMO,no it`s not worth it,if my laptop went wrong after 2-3 years I`d probably just get a new one considering the pace computer technology moves at.Hope your wife recovers quickly.

 

[Andrew Everard]

one off:apple they really are that good

Unless of course you pay the better part of two grand for a MacBook Pro, it lasts eight weeks before the hard disk goes bang and your company IT department decides it should be repaired rather than binned and replaced...

 

[Alec]

first time ive ever heard a bad word about acer in this thread. ive never had one tho, just thought that was noteworthy.

i view warranties with suspicion, but am no expert on their terms and what not. i just know many dont consider them worrth it. however, i got one (3 years - i lack the courage of my convictions, y'see) with my current dell desktop and did have to invoke it at two years and x months. 3 parts were replaced. it would have been a pain to get a new one; i knew win7 should be on the way soon and that many thought vista a melon. And what i paid for the warranty was nowhere near the price of a new pc. i mean, theyre not cheap (tho relatively, one might argue they are) and i believe it reasonable to expect them to work for years. Whether or not they become outdated quicker than that is another matter of course.

No idea how much the new mobo, power supply and power button mechanism thingy (I/O...?) would have cost me to buy tho...

Its now over 3 years old and ill replace it with a win7 machine in jan.

 

[John Duncan]

al7478:first time ive ever heard a bad word about acer in this thread. ive never had one tho, just thought that was noteworthy.

Except it was a bad word about apple (and our IT department

)

 

[Anonymous]

why did your it department decide to repair it and not return it to apple as i assume its under warranty

unless of course their apple certified of course

 

[John Duncan]

Possibly because the first thing we do is stick a new disk image on it? Dunno if that voids the warranty...

 

[professorhat]

one off:why did your it department decide to repair it and not return it to apple as i assume its under warranty

Fairly standard practice for most companies.

 

[Anonymous]

JohnDuncan:Possibly because the first thing we do is stick a new disk image on it? Dunno if that voids the warranty...no its only if theres an actual hardware failure and you decide to replace the failed component but your service people arent apple certified that its a problem

at least that used to be the case

on the other hand you can add memory without voiding warranty

 

[Dave_]

JohnDuncan:al7478:
first time ive ever heard a bad word about acer in this thread. ive never had one tho, just thought that was noteworthy.

Except it was a bad word about apple (and our IT department

)

I think al's comment may have been in reply to reggaedaves post......

reggaedave: Im not sure here, but ive got an acer aspire 5520 here, and not really
impressed with it at all, was 400 pound ish, gets warm and noisy. I
have freinds who have dell laptops with no worries attall.

 

[Alec]

quite right daveh75, but i didnt make it very clear. a new disk image should usually fix a software problem - if it is one - shouldnt it?