Which laptop?

skyline_kid

skyline_kid

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Chris
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Hi guys, as i said in another thread i have some money to burn, i have decided to buy a new laptop for editing and showing photos on the move and was wondering if anyone had any suggestions, was looking at the big dell 20" desktop replacements but they are big heavy buggers so not sure what to get maybe a tablet pc?

Anyone got any suggestions?

i can stretch to maybe £800

Chris.
 
I'm using a rock laptop (linky), and can't say enough good things about it! They're not the best if you're wanting absolute value for money but in terms of performance and the ability to customise to your requirements they're top.
The customer service, although not exactly rapid, is excellent in my experience. I cracked the case near one of the clasps to shut it and they replaced the entire housing, keyboard and all!
 
TriggerHappy said:
I'm using a rock laptop (linky), and can't say enough good things about it! They're not the best if you're wanting absolute value for money but in terms of performance and the ability to customise to your requirements they're top.
The customer service, although not exactly rapid, is excellent in my experience. I cracked the case near one of the clasps to shut it and they replaced the entire housing, keyboard and all!
Click to expand...

Woah, they're DAMN expensive :eek:

Chris.
 
Some of the latest machines with LED screens (i.e. Sony TT series) are advertising perfect colour - certainly they do look good next to TFT counterparts. Whether this means they don't need calibrating I don't know.
 
If you fancy a Dell (I use an XPS M1710 as my primary laptop and an XPS 420 as my desktop machine), hunt down the better Dell deals through www.dmxdimension.com. If you see anything you like, go to Dell's site using Quidco for 6% off the price (before VAT) and then use code - MRGGBGN26K2ZBS - for a further 10% off an order over £599 in value. The code expires tonight. Here's the Quidco link - http://www.quidco.com/dell/

You need to be a member of Quidco, which costs £5 per year, but the fee is only taken from the money you save. You do not have to pay anything up front.

Maybe this would be a good starting point - http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&oc=N05X1602 - at £899 before discounts, which should end up at below £800 with the 10% off and the further ~6% off after that. Heck, if your credit card gives cash back, as mine does, you may even save another 1% or so. You must go to Dell's site via Quidco to get the 6% off.
 
how about an apple? refurbished from the apple site might fall within your budget? at any rate it’s a purchase you'll never regret :p
 
I bought my first Dell laptop (Inspiron 7000) in 1998. It's of no use to me nowadays but it still works.
I bought my second Dell laptop (Inspiron 8000) in 2001 and that got 6 years of hard use - on for 12 hours of the day or more, most days of the week.
I bought my third Dell laptop (XPS M1710) in Jan 2007. That also gets 12 hours+ of use per day, most days of the week, and the nVidia 7950 GTX video card did go "Pffftttttt" last Easter. I called Dell on their 24x7 XPS support line over the Easter weekend and I had an engineer with me the following Wednesday with a replacement part, taken care of under my 3 year warranty.
I bought my Dell PC (XPS 420) in January 2008. No problems to date.
I bought my fourth Dell laptop (Inspiron 15) last Xmas, for my girlfriend, and so far so good.

All in all I have no complaints about Dell reliability. An nVidia GFX card can go "pop" in any machine, and after over two years of faultless performance I don't think I can blame Dell's design/production for that incident. Their handling of the problem was exemplary.

I'm not a complete Dell fanboy. I do also have a 12.1" Philips (Rebadged Averatech) laptop for travel and my girlfriend liked it so much she bought herself a similar Philips (Rebadged Averatech) machine with an 11" screen. They're both 18 months old and doing nicely. I've looked at Apple on a number of occasions and, while they look pretty, IMO they do not offer good VFM.
 
I've been using Dell for the past 5 years (currently on an Inspiron 1720) and have had no problems with them.
 
i have had HP laptops in my family all the time, when i went to uni i bought a dell laptop and i will never buy another brand. They are fantastic. I bought it off ebay, refurb, never crashes, and runs photoshop flawlessly!
 
Why not look at a used Macbook Pro or one of the last G4 Powerbooks? You can get 15" 1.5ghz G4s for under £500 these days, used of course, off of ebay that will still be working fine in five years time. They run OSX and are pretty powerful, albeit with a RAM and HD mod here and there o future-proof them. Or even a used 20" iMac? For space-saving the iMac is wondeful and gives you the benefit of desktop power and that beautiful screen.

This 17" Powerbook G4 is an absolute steal - massive screen that's fantastic for editing and the fastest G4 processor (1.67ghz). One of the finest laptops ever made and as tough as old boots covered in cement and then gaurded by a flock of rampant geese :)
 
another good opinion of dell over here too. we use 99% dell kit at work, lattitude laptops and optiplex desktops, 1950 and 2950 servers yadda yadda.

hardware issues are extremely rare, 99.9% of laptop hardware issues are caused by user (breakages, splillages etc). desktop hardware issues are pretty much non existant up until retirement age.

the support (albeit business support) is fantastic. calls are logged with the minimum of fuss etc i had a replacement server PSU turn up in 4 hours once.
 
specialman said:
This 17" Powerbook G4 is an absolute steal - massive screen that's fantastic for editing and the fastest G4 processor (1.67ghz). One of the finest laptops ever made and as tough as old boots covered in cement and then gaurded by a flock of rampant geese :)
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no offence but we've got a small pile of G4 powerbooks that have fallen to bits (keyboards falling apart, broken hinges, broken lid latches, pink screens). its not a model of apple notebook i would recommend tbh.
 
Thanks for the input guys, Think upon looking into it i might go for one of the new dell studio 13" range with the new generation of white LED screens, bit pricey but look lovely and nice and mobile. (y)

Chris
 
The only problem with Dells is the crappy power brick they supply. Lost count of the number I've had replaced on my work laptops, the cable just frays and splits after a while. The build quality on Dells imo isn't as good as IBM/Lenovo either.

I did have an Alienware laptop that cost the same as a new hatchback years ago, which was an awesome machine, but you pay through the nose for that performance, and customer support won't be as good now they're owned by Dell.
 
mid_gen said:
The only problem with Dells is the crappy power brick they supply. Lost count of the number I've had replaced on my work laptops, the cable just frays and splits after a while. The build quality on Dells imo isn't as good as IBM/Lenovo either.

I did have an Alienware laptop that cost the same as a new hatchback years ago, which was an awesome machine, but you pay through the nose for that performance, and customer support won't be as good now they're owned by Dell.
Click to expand...

re powerbricks - it depends how you treat them. and to be honest its the same with ANY cable. if you twist them over and over theyll break.. simple. we get about 1 power supply back every 6 months or so at work, my spare powerbrick which i use at home is from my orginal work laptop 3 years ago and its still mint.

re alienware - they are owned by dell and have dell supply chain but as far as i know have their own tech support. to be honest i think alienware is overpriced.. but thats my personal opinion.
 
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