Other Looking for a cheap laptop on a budget £450 max

Ok so I'm looking for a new laptop for my mother, she's had a dell (something or other) for about 5 years now and its still going (just) so we both feel it would be good to get her a new one, and although I know a reasonable amount about desktop pc's, I have almost no clue where to start when it comes to laptop's

budget is pretty low, around £400-450 max I'd say

She'll only be using it for pretty basic things, watching hd video's, editing some photo's looking on the internet and possible a couple of games, but there pretty old, anyone remember roller-coaster tycoon? and playing her music on itunes

I've been looking at dell as there build quality seems pretty good, also sony as I have a viao thats a few years old and its still going, i've also dropped it right on the hard drive and its still fine, but i do know sony laptops are maybe over priced I've also heard good things about asus, I will be staying well clear of acer as I've heard people having so many problems with them.

so a few specs that I know she wants, a 15.6 inch screen, no bigger and no smaller.
hard drive size doesn't matter really to much, she doesn't have that much music anyway and I'm probably going to change the hard drive out for an ssd.

So I'm not really sure what dictates laptop performance, obviously for a desktop and someone thats gaming it'll be gpu, someone who's using heavily multithreaded applications it'll be a 6 core cpu for example

I know amd fusion apu's will be coming along in maybe a month or two's time right? I also know there first lot will be aimed at low power netbook's etc, whereas where going to have to wait till llano to see ones aimed at mainstream laptop market. Think thats right, but the llano design isn't meant to be out till the middle of this year, also does anyone know when any sandy bridge chips will be hitting laptop's, or will they be above my budget?

The only laptop's I've seen so far that look any good is a HP G62-a44sa, which is about £400 and has an amd x3 p820 @1.8Ghz, this seems to be a good way to go as more cores is always good right and quad laptop's are damn expensive, but then again this is using my extremly limited knowledge of laptops, so yeah any help from the wise people of the forums can offer me would be of great help

 

Dell Inspiron 15R

Intel® CoreTM i3-370M Processor (3M Cache, 2.4 GHz)
Genuine Windows® 7 Home Premium, 64bit
15.6" High Definition (1366x768) WLED
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator HD
3072MB 1333MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [1x1024 + 1x2048]
250GB (5,400rpm) Serial ATA Hard Drive
DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD)

http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/hom...5r/pd.aspx?refid=inspiron-15r&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1

£449 including VAT & shipping

My reasoning is that as she has had Dell, you will be comfortable with the brand. The i3 CPU will be more than powerful enough for what she wants to do, so should the integrated Intel GPU.

 

I have this one

http://www.comet.co.uk/p/Laptops/buy-HP-G62-A30-Laptop/651303?cm_mmc=Google+Shopping-_-Feed-_-_Laptops-_-651303_HP_G62-A30&_$ja=tsid:8360%7Ccc:%7Cprd:G62-A30%7Ccat:_Laptops

Really love it alot works great and looks great!! (sort of a mac sleek style....)

 

id rather eat poo than buy an HP laptop.

when i used to repair laptops 70-80% were HP with faulty HDD bad RAM and the most common issue faulty mobo chipset !!!!!!

i guess its just down to personal experience but id never opt for an HP, non-brand, acer or sony

im all for samsungs, ASUS and toshibas

 

thanks for the advice guys, shall be staying away from hp laptops then, was only looking at that hp because I thought it had a decent cpu, also that dell looks good, would make sense to go with them again, will the i3 in that laptop be enough for watching hd video's?

 

theres this although never had an MSI before but heard good things about the MSI wind

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/240480

cant complain at that dell though after having a look around its a damm good price for what it is.

 

I'm on an even tighter budget than you and the one I'm leaning towards is:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Notebo...m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0DC2YRFH5K4AHHXP93W9

 

This link shows the features of the Intel HD Graphics on the Core i3 CPU's: http://software.intel.com/en-us/articles/quick-reference-guide-to-intel-integrated-graphics/.

Note that the i3 CPU on the Dell Inspiron 15R is the left-hand column, the right-hand column is the new Sandy Bridge CPU feature list.

HD videos will be fine on the Dell.

 

http://www.ebuyer.com/search?condition=outlet&store=5

Not sure if they're any good, crazy cheap though!

 

that msi also looks good, and similar or exactly the same specs to the dell apart from the bigger hard drive, anyone know what msi are like in terms of build quality reliability servicing etc? Also I'm guessing that the dell would also be upgradeable to 4 gigs of ram in the future just as the msi says it would be seeing as the dell has one 2gig stick and 1x1gig stick ja? :]

 

that looks quite good, spec wise, unfortunately I have no faith in acer what so ever

also does anyone know if packard bell are any good, i found this http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/packard-bell-easynote-tm97-gn-030uk-red-07857708-pdt.html just wondering if anyone's heard anything about there computers, warranty, service etc

 

Oh and are there any decent asus laptops knocking about around this price?

 

If you don't want Acer then I'd avoid PB as well, Acer owns them now.
Might be worth considering a reconditioned Lenovo? Those things are bullet-proof! After working in repairs they're just about the only brand I have any faith in now.

 

Mate laptops direct. They do recon ones of different grades with some fantastic deals. Just scored a HP core i3 for £380

 

Dell Vostro - It's the business line, and have much better build quality and support than consumer models. At the mo, they're very cheap too.

also, imo they are one of the best looking laptops out there

oh, and also Lenovo do some solid laptops - The ThinkPad range are good, but the IdeaPad range don't have as god build quality according to reviews

 

I think the vostro's look great thanks Gryphon , I've heard bad things about lenovo, might be wrong but I think I read someone on here thought they where even worse than acer, anyone think that laptops with 1156 cpu's are going to come down in price now with sand bridge m cpu's coming? (i assume)

 

I think you'll be hard pressed to find a bad work about lenovo thinkpads - really solid laptops. (but iirc well out of your budget)

They might come down in price a bit, but they're pretty cheap as is, so i don't imagine the difference will be huge.

 

A new Lenovo would definitely be out of the budget you're thinking of. As was said earlier, Laptops Direct have a massive range of refurbs at decent prices.
Been very impressed with the Vostro range as well.
With regards to Sandy Bridge, the OEM's will just continue to market them as i3, i5 and i7. The laptop market is completely different to the desktop market, most consumers don't know what SB even is so there's no reason for them to make the previous range cheaper and lose money.
(Sorry to be cynical, I work for PC World and it kind of batters the hope out of you )

 

haha, I know what you mean, I was in there other day and a couple where being pretty much taken for a ride by sales guy just because they didn't know anything, I actually felt so sorry for them after he went I told them what they did actually need, so hopefully that helped them. What its like working there? I need a new part/fulll time job really and was looking at jobs they had there. :]

 

I think you might be over-qualified, you actually know what you are talking about...