Sorry - yet another "recommend me a laptop" thread

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In a nutshell the old man wants a laptop, and since I'm the least computer illiterate family member the responsibility of selection has fallen on me.

He wants it to view photos and digital video (and possibly edit them too), as well as possibly using it for business / accounting use (Word and Excel, I suspect). It's being bought as an alternative to a desktop due to space limitations, so will stay in the house most of the time.

All he knows is that he wants something with a decent size screen (16" min?). In addition to this, I want him to get something that will last as long as possible (in terms of hardware performance, upgrade potential and robustness). Also want a decent quality screen (pref. able to take profiling since I already have the hardware).

Probably looking in the £500-700 range. My natural instinct is to get something with the fastest processer he can afford and look to add more RAM later as necc. I had a brief look at the Dell XPS range, but I've heard mixed reports about their build quality.

Does anyone care to furnish me with some suggestions / reviews? Whilst I can hold my own with Desktops, I know nothing about laptops :thinking:

Cheers ;)
 
ASUS K70IO-TY014V - £579.79
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T6500 Processor, 17.3" HD+ Screen (1600 x 900), Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, DVD Rewriter, (
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 120M with 1GB DDR Dedicated Memory, Wireless N, 3-in-1 card reader (SD/SDHC,MMC), 4x USB 2.0 Ports, ASUS 2 Year Global Hardware Warranty

Being a bit lasy, but also check:

www.laptopsdirect.co.uk
www.ebuyer.co.uk
www.scan.co.uk
www.amazon.co.uk

Also worth going down to PCworld, they have good offers on sometimes.

Asus are good make, good quality (backed up by 2 year warranty which is good as most only have 1), and the spec on the one above is great for the price imo.
 
CraigyBoy86 said:
ASUS K70IO-TY014V - £579.79
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T6500 Processor, 17.3" HD+ Screen (1600 x 900), Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64-bit, 4GB RAM, 320GB HDD, DVD Rewriter, (
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 120M with 1GB DDR Dedicated Memory, Wireless N, 3-in-1 card reader (SD/SDHC,MMC), 4x USB 2.0 Ports, ASUS 2 Year Global Hardware Warranty

Being a bit lasy, but also check:

www.laptopsdirect.co.uk
www.ebuyer.co.uk
www.scan.co.uk
www.amazon.co.uk

Also worth going down to PCworld, they have good offers on sometimes.

Asus are good make, good quality (backed up by 2 year warranty which is good as most only have 1), and the spec on the one above is great for the price imo.
Click to expand...

On paper it looks a good deal, however you really need to find out the hard drive speed, 5,400 is woeful and will kill its performance, 7,200 is what you should look for.

Battery life "2-3 Hours (up to 3 hours with power management)" this should also be a worry, manufacturers always give the best figure based on not a single application running, you stick a DVD in and i bet it wont last the 90 mins of the film, shouldnt be a major worry if its not going to leave the house but just something to be aware of.
 
Gary Coyle said:
On paper it looks a good deal, however you really need to find out the hard drive speed, 5,400 is woeful and will kill its performance, 7,200 is what you should look for.

Battery life "2-3 Hours (up to 3 hours with power management)" this should also be a worry, manufacturers always give the best figure based on not a single application running, you stick a DVD in and i bet it wont last the 90 mins of the film, shouldnt be a major worry if its not going to leave the house but just something to be aware of.
Click to expand...

True, maybe worth giving the sales team a call to check it's speed and whether or not you can upgrade. Also considering it's at the lower end of the budget their is money to upgrade if it needs it.

Regarding battery life, if he's wanting a 'desktop replacement' laptop then this is less of an issue if using it around the house mainly, as it can be plugged in. Not the best I agree, but a powerful laptop usually means not as good battery life.
 
Agree on the battery comment and if he is going to turn on the wireless, that number will plummet.
 
how about toshiba a500 17 inch screen super fast decent speakers and 4mg cache inportant form running multiple apps got mine from pc worl £700 notes and it is just brilliant cant fault it
 
Thanks for the suggestions - I'll trawl through them when I get a minute.

Battery life isn't a huge concern as it'll be plugged in most of the time, although obviously a longer lasting battery can only be a good thing.

Tbh I think I need to take the plunge and learn about the bloody things so I can make an educated choice.. it's an uphill struggle though - intel appear to have about a million dual core mobile processors, and that's before I've even considered all the other bits. There are also a load more things to consider than when buying a desktop..

I notice that a load of i5 and i3 moblie processors have been released this month - I'm thinking it might be an idea to wait for a while until these become avalable as they're doubtless better than the core 2 Duo, and should drive the cost of the older processers down, should we not want to go with the i3 / i5.

Thanks again for the suggestions - please feel free to continue humouring me :D
 
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