Laptop help requested

Kerioak

Kerioak

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Christine
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My laptop has died :'( so I have pinched my husband's much lower spec machine and put my ram in it to try and boost it but it is still not enough. )

Does anyone know of a reputable site where I can choose a laptop by a series of elimination or choices - ie amount of ram and hard drive, size of screen, operating system etc etc rather than just looking at every single machine?
 
So far their prices seem to be cheaper than Dabs - would they be considered a reputable firm?

I am after a powerful/fast laptop for graphic work - any recommendations (not Mac) - I am going around in circles and not really getting anywhere. I am not really interested in getting one with an OS with it as I already have XP which I understand limits me to 3Gb of ram. The hard drive does not have to be enormous as I work mostly on external hard drives. Minimum of three USB ports essential, 4 useful. Widescreen 15.4 or 17" . DVD writer - that covers as many permutations as possible. Wireless.
 
Would it be blasphemous to recommend a Dell? :p The XPS M1530 might be a feasible choice, I've not tried it myself but I have had experience with its little brother the 1330 and that's a very good laptop. What kind of budget do you have?
 
Is the old laptop really beyond repair?

I have to agree Dell are hard to beat on value, I am no Dell fan but I used to be a network administrator and always ended up buying Dell as I could not beat the performance vs cost.

What budget are we talking about? Cutting back on HD space isn't really associated with high performance. If graphics are important you need to be considering the graphics card as much as the amount of ram.
 
The CD/DVD drive had ceased to work, the screen went, completely and suddenly and then when I took it to someone to get the unbacked up bits off the Harddrive we found that that had problems as well. I could have sent it away for an estimate but it would have been a few hundred so it did not seem worth it. I have already started cannablising it :)

I had not even considered Dell to be honest, always thought of them as being very expensive but they seem to be well in line with the others.
 
Look at some of the ASUS lappies.
Some come with a 2 year warranty as standard.
 
Kerioak,

I have not long been bought a Dell m6300 by my work.

It runs my 3D cad modelling software perfectly (pro engineer wildfire 3), and its very reliable. I would have though it it can run pro it will suit your needs.

Take a look on the Dell website, PM me if you want my laptops spec.
 
laptops direct are reputable.. however I found that because I lived on a remote island (we call it north of Glasgow ;) ) they were going to pull down my trousers and.. well charge me extra.

So for me dabs was cheaper.

I went for an Asus because I like the look and it was just right for me at the time.. But I think dell is a good choice due to the availability of parts/support.
 
Just got two new Dells for general use and the better spec'd one is more than capable of doing all my photography stuff if I need it to and was still under £600 including XP Pro installed with vista update disc. I am not a fan of Dell tbh, but no one could match the spec/price across both machines, so Dell it was.
 
Kerioak said:
I wonder why none of them want to supply a machine without an operating system, I have two perfectly good ones that are currently not in use and don't need to buy more. The only people I can find so far who sell without are Novatech (who I normally get my spare parts through)
Click to expand...

They would have to build / pack it specially for you.

No stickers on the Lappy, different HD compared to standard units, drivers etc on CD, different package info, different install / setup instructions and how would they do a pre-delivery test / inspection:shrug:
 
They usually pack them with a cd containing all the drivers and preloaded software anyway, in the case of acer, they are called recovery discs, you can completely reformat the whole thing, back to standard with all original drivers, clean OS, etc, using 3 discs. As for dell, they pached 2 discs, an OS disc and a driver/utility disc.

I wouldnt touch Acer again mind, we bought 3 units 3 years ago, 2 had to have new motherboards, mine had 2 failed DVD writers, niether of which was used very often but they both still failed, and I think in total I bought 4 new chargers across teh 3 machines as the originals and one of teh replacements just packed up. I think we were particularly unlucky, but it has still put me off them.
 
Chances of finding laptops without OS's are quite slim these days, especially from major PC retailers/manufacturers. You're probably better off saving those for a future PC build or something. Then again if you have your heart set on making use of your OS's, that's probably the direction to take.

As Yv rightly said, they usually throw in recovery disks just in case. For around £500 for a Studio 15 or slightly more for a XPS M1530, Dell are hard to beat price/spec-wise.
 
Dell were very efficient and my new laptop arrived within a few days.

One of the first things I noticed was that there is a patch near the middle of the screen that looks as either someone is pressing their thumb on and off against it or it has some liquid moving around inside as the laptop moves - I use it on my lap so it often moves as I fidgit or adjust its opening for light. I left it a few days before reporting the problem in case there was anything else.

The only other thing I have found (apart from all the preloaded programmes I do not want) is a squeaky space bar.

I contacted Dell and after going through a few tests they emailed me to try, they are going to collect and replace screen and keyboard
 
Jeez I'd expect them to replace the whole thing not just half of it.
 
If only they would just send you a brand new one.. Last thing you want is a laptop that has been taken to bits. You have paid for a new laptop not a refurbished/repaired one. I'd be tempted to tell them to replace the entire laptop or refund.. But not sure where you stand with that... I'm sure statutory rights would be in your favour.
 
She has 7 days under distance selling but I'd kick up a fuss if they said they would just fix it by swapping components if it was me.
 
I will see what the replacement is like - I have "nearly" everything set up how I like it now (although I will delete a lot before I send it away) and that took me a few days to do. All those little gadgety things like opanda exif that you use without thinking and then miss when they are not there, plus everything that had to be redownloaded from the web to get the bits that would work with Vista instead of XP etc.
 
Just out of interest, what model did you go for in the end?

I hope all turns out will with the screen and keyboard too.

Rob
 
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