Looking for a Laptop...

[Peerzy]

Hi,

Basically I'm looking for a Laptop, the main use will be for Uni, however it's still going to need to do a few extra things:

* I have quite a bit of Music, so HDD needs to be a healthy 120GB+
* Ram must be 1GB or more
* I'd like it to come with some sort of version of Vista, but no other software is needed.
* DVD+/-RW is a must
* The usual stuff like a couple of USB and Firewire slots.
* Memory Card Reader, although it only really needs to read Memory Stick Pro cards.
* Wireless inbuilt (Isn't that standard on new laptops anyway) and it must have a LAN port.
* Processor needs to be relatively good. I'd like the best type if possible (Core 2 Duo - I think is the best but I really have no idea)
* 15" Display
* Not too fussed about the graphics card to be honest, just as long as it doesn't eat into the RAM
* Weight and Size doesn't matter as I'll be driving to Uni, although a nice battery life would be a plus
* Don't mind what brand

Any advice would be great, I'm not sure on a budget yet as I've gotta wait for the finance part of my Uni application to be processed and such.

Needs to be a UK site or UK shop. I've been looking round Ebuyer (http://www.ebuyer.co.uk) because I've used them before for other things but like I've said I'm not to sure what I'm looking for.

Thanks

[samoyan]

I recommend you to look for HP Pavilion series.

[lynx]

I'm pretty sure all systems have USB 2.0 built in these days.
On the other hand Firewire is rapidly becoming obsolete, so if you really want it you will probably need to get a PCMCIA card for about a tenner.

Other than that, here's one that pretty much meets your needs.
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=13881&category_id=265&manufacturer_id=0&tid=lx.awp0x.092

OK, it's an AMD Turion X2 as opposed to Intel, but you get a 17" monitor and save about £100 for very little performance difference.

Full specs here (http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/as9300.htm)

[clocker]

OK, it's an AMD Turion X2 as opposed to Intel
My but times have changed, haven't they?

Have to be self-deprecating when recommending an AMD now when just a year or so ago everyone wanted a green chip instead of blue.

[Virtualbody1234]

I'm pretty sure all systems have USB 2.0 built in these days.
On the other hand Firewire is rapidly becoming obsolete, so if you really want it you will probably need to get a PCMCIA card for about a tenner.

Other than that, here's one that pretty much meets your needs.
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=13881&category_id=265&manufacturer_id=0&tid=lx.awp0x.092

OK, it's an AMD Turion X2 as opposed to Intel, but you get a 17" monitor and save about £100 for very little performance difference.

Full specs here (http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/as9300.htm)

Yeah but maybe 15" screen is more important to him. A more compact size is important with a laptop.

I know that I personally wouldn't buy a laptop with a 17" screen.

[Peerzy]

I'm pretty sure all systems have USB 2.0 built in these days.
On the other hand Firewire is rapidly becoming obsolete, so if you really want it you will probably need to get a PCMCIA card for about a tenner.

Other than that, here's one that pretty much meets your needs.
http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=13881&category_id=265&manufacturer_id=0&tid=lx.awp0x.092

OK, it's an AMD Turion X2 as opposed to Intel, but you get a 17" monitor and save about £100 for very little performance difference.

Full specs here (http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/as9300.htm)


Cheers,

I wasn't aware that Firewire was going out, and just thought it would be useful to have, but to be honest all my camera's and even Ipod are all USB now anyways so yeah I wouldn't need it.

Thats a nice Laptop, it's a brand I've heard of which is good, and the price seems very good compared to what I've been looking at.


Yeah but maybe 15" screen is more important to him. A more compact size is important with a laptop.

I know that I personally wouldn't buy a laptop with a 17" screen.

I'm a bit stuck on this one. I've never really seen a 17" in the flesh. All my mates have 14" or 15" and such. The compact size and portability isn't so much of an issue as I won't really be carrying it anywhere. It will be in my car as I drive to Uni everyday and then I'll just carry it to class or wherever, so weight isn't a massive issue either. I'd rather get laptop that's got a better battery life that look at the weight and size of it.

I'm going to look over that laptop Lynx suggested, my only reservation is the graphics card, but do you even get dedicated chips in laptops:ermm:

Also under the extras part theres a TV Tuner USB for like £10, am I right in thinking I plug that into the Laptop then connect my TV up to the laptop and can record and watch TV on the laptop?

Cheers for all the suggestions guys.

[lynx]

my only reservation is the graphics card, but do you even get dedicated chips in laptops:ermm:You said you weren't bothered about the graphics card, but unless you are intending to do some serious gaming the built-in Go6100 chip should be perfectly adequate. Going for a higher spec chip bumps the price up dramatically.

Also under the extras part theres a TV Tuner USB for like £10, am I right in thinking I plug that into the Laptop then connect my TV up to the laptop and can record and watch TV on the laptop?Don't know about connecting the TV up to the laptop, I haven't see anything that says it has TV-out. The next model up (9303) has TV-out, but that's based on the Go7300 chip. You'd need to check to be certain.

You can certainly watch Freeview TV on the monitor, and can probably record it too (depending on which model you get).

[Peerzy]

You said you weren't bothered about the graphics card, but unless you are intending to do some serious gaming the built-in Go6100 chip should be perfectly adequate. Going for a higher spec chip bumps the price up dramatically.

Also under the extras part theres a TV Tuner USB for like £10, am I right in thinking I plug that into the Laptop then connect my TV up to the laptop and can record and watch TV on the laptop?Don't know about connecting the TV up to the laptop, I haven't see anything that says it has TV-out. The next model up (9303) has TV-out, but that's based on the Go7300 chip. You'd need to check to be certain.

You can certainly watch Freeview TV on the monitor, and can probably record it too (depending on which model you get).

The only game I'll be playing is Football Manager, which is all 2D and thus doesn't require a good graphics card. The only thing I was worried about is that with the Laptop having 1GB of RAM and running Vista and all my other programs I didn't want a graphics card taking away lots of shared memory.

I basically have a Freeview box in my room and I'd like to be able to connect that to my Laptop so I can record programs, I don't need the Laptop to output anything onto a TV screen and I saw that when I clicked the link for the Laptop as an added extra it had a TV Tuner USB Stick for like £15.

Also funny you picked that Laptop out because my Uni acceptance letter came through today with all the finance information and adverts from certain companies and there was a leaflet in there advertising this range of Laptops.

The one up from the one you suggested is £589 (Model: Acer Aspire 5613AWLMi) and is an Intel Core Duo T2350 Processor, 2GB of Ram, 160GB HDD but it has a smaller screen.

The budget is going to be about £600 and is it worth spending the extra £100 on that model?

Cheers again:01:

[Peerzy]

This is a link to the stuff I got in the post;

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/deals

I think this (http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_9301WSMi_Laptop_LX.AWP0X.092/version-1.asp) is the same Laptop you mentioned, and this (http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5613AWLMi_LX.AY50X.062/version-1.asp) is the next model up.

[lynx]

I thought the difference between the 9301 and 9302 was the integrated webcam, but I can't see any difference between them now. :unsure:

Unless you can see a desperate need for 2GB of memory, I'd recommend you go for the cheaper model and spend a large portion of the difference on the 3yr Collect and Return with Accidental Damage Upgrade. Suddenly ending up without a laptop during a critical part of your course could be disastrous.

I don't think you've got the idea of the USB TV stick - you don't need anything else except possibly an aerial connector. If you are in a good reception area the supplied mini-aerial will probably suffice.

[Peerzy]

I thought the difference between the 9301 and 9302 was the integrated webcam, but I can't see any difference between them now. :unsure:

Unless you can see a desperate need for 2GB of memory, I'd recommend you go for the cheaper model and spend a large portion of the difference on the 3yr Collect and Return with Accidental Damage Upgrade. Suddenly ending up without a laptop during a critical part of your course could be disastrous.

I don't think you've got the idea of the USB TV stick - you don't need anything else except possibly an aerial connector. If you are in a good reception area the supplied mini-aerial will probably suffice.

Yeah not going to need 2GB of RAM. Unsure if I should get the extra warranty. I have a desktop at home with enough space to backup onto, and a 1GB memory stick on my keys. Seems a lot for something I doubt I'll use, and it comes with 1 year as standard.

Yeah the advert I got through for the 9301 states Built In Webcam, and all the specs from the link I gave for the 9302 and your 9301 are the same, the price is only £5 difference as well. The 9301 might be some sorta student edition, or have slightly different software is all I can think of.

Right I'm going to go with the 9301 as per your advice. Just adding all the addons up and such now.

Am I right in thinking that this (http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/125744) will allow me to connect my laptop to my freeview box and watch and record freeview through the laptop?

Getting a 320GB External HDD as there quite cheap at the mo, and the usual stuff like a mouse and carry case. Anything else I'll need?

Order so far;

1 x AS9301WSMi / MK38 / 2*512MB / 120GB HDD / 17" CRYSTALBRITE TFT DISPLAY / GEFORCE 6100 / DVD-SUPER MULTI / 802.11BG / 5-IN-1 CARD READER / 0.3MP ORBICAM / 6 CELL BATTERY £417.01
1 x Toshiba 320GB USB External Hard Drive 8MB Cache - Retail £46.80
1 x Belkin Stone Street Notebook Case for 17" Displays, Ballistic Nylon £20.27
1 x Ultra Mini Mouse - Ns £12.72
1 x Belkin Cat5e Snagless UTP Patch Cable (White) 10m £2.12
1 x Ebuyer Extra Value DVB-T Vista TV Freeview USB Stick £16.64

Subtotal £515.56
VAT £90.25
Order Total £605.81

[Peerzy]

Just made my order.

Went for the Acer Aspire AS9302WSMi from CCLOnline (http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.asp?product_id=13881&category_id=265&manufacturer_id=0&tid=lx.awp0x.092).

Also, upon reading the comments for the laptop on Ebuyer (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?rb=0&action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X3Jldmlld3M=&product_uid=126338) I decided to buy 2 X Crucial 1GB DDR2 667MHz/PC2-5300 Laptop Memory SODIMM CL5 (http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/products/index.html?action=c2hvd19wcm9kdWN0X292ZXJ2aWV3=&product_uid=119282&_LOC=UK) to replace the 2 X 512MB of RAM that will be in there.

Laptop should come Wednesday but the RAM and other little extras I've brought won't get here till Monday so I'll have a few days of the Laptop on 1GB and then when the RAM comes i'll install the rest of it.

Any idea how hard laptop RAM installs are? I've never had a laptop before but from reading the comments it sounds very easy.

Also the graphics card is a Geforce 6100. Obviously its going to be a laptop version but how will that compare to a FX5700 and a MX440, which are the two cards I've had a lot of experience with.

I was thinking although it's not idle I may play a few older games (Max Payne 2, Far Cry, Painkiller and maybe F.E.A.R) on the laptop because I can't play anything for more than 30minutes on my desktop without it restarting (http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/f-hardware-24/t-new-graphics-card-227208).