I'm going off to uni at the end of September and so I'll need a laptop, for as cheap as possible. Now I've not paid much attention to hardware recently, and I never pay attention to laptops so I'm hoping you'll all bear with me. I do have a few minimum requirements - It must be dual core and have at least 2GB of RAM. Hard drive size is unimportant, I'd sacrifice size for speed (7200rpm please). A tablet PC - one of the convertible ones would really be the best option I believe, however I'm even less knowledgable about those. Under £1000 if possible. Thanks for the help.
Dell XPS M1330 Dell Vostro 1310 Zepto Znote 6224W Any of those take your fancy? They are all reasonably cheap, reasonably powerful 13-14" screened laptops. None of them are tablets but all can have 7200RPM hard drives. I no nothing about convertible tablets, but I think they will cost a lot more. IBM/Lenovo would be a good place to look
Taking a look a tablet would be do-able but definately not ideal so I've scrapped that. Just a nice quick sturdy 13" laptop would be best, I've heard Asus are good but browsing product ranges is always horrible and doesn't get me much further. Under £800 if possible, £600 is ideal.
I'm forever getting newsletters from the major online stores, with special offers - including laptops. It might be worth signing up to a few of 'em In the meantime, I'd advise checking laptop specialist sites such as Laptops Direct, Laptop Superstore, Laptop Shop, Samuel King etc
As far as spec goes, you've basically outlined it - a Core 2 Duo will be the best choice, but any of the older Centrino/Core Duo's are actually quite respectable too. For your drive is 7200rpm really a must? That might limit your choices a little.
No it's not an absolute but it'd be nice. Essentially what I'm looking for is a Macbook, but not a Macbook itself.
When i was looking at what i would get for my money i found dell gave me the most for my cash. I got a vostro 1700, prob abit big for your needs if you want a 12". Check out other deals though, XPS perhaps?
Dell seem good bang for buck, keep an eye out for offers from Dell Direct at hotukdeals. And remember Dell give Quidco...
Thanks guys you've really helped. Had a look at the XPS M1330 and it seems perfect, provided no-one has had any bad experiences with it I think that'll be my choice.
I have one with the stats as seen in my sig, and I love it, I'd recommend it to anyone who is looking at one.
I hear if you go to apple and show them an acceptance letter and you prove your the person on the letter (simple piece of photo id) they take a fair chunk off the price because your a student, not sure if it's true though.
It's only going to be a couple hundred bucks max. If you order off their on line store you just have to plug in your school. They'll check with the school's registrar to see.
Yes however their laptops are too expensive in the first place, I tried it with the discount and it barely made a difference.
The HE discount is about £150-200 on an MBP, so it's not actually too bad at all. It's more than the standard Education discount (as long as all Uni's are the same). Where are you going btw?
If you want a performance pc with MacBook style flair, look for a mid-range Sony Vaio CR- Series... its what I'd have: Though I wouldn't say no to one of these: An older one will cost less than £1000, and what you get is the coolest laptop ever. One of the few things which look infinitely better in person, than in photos.
I'm quite liking my new samsung NP-Q45A00D from herehttps://www.saveonsamsung.com , 3GB ram, 320GB HDD, T5550 1.8KG 12.1" screen and a really nice long battery life for £560 with next day delivery. it a little bit chucnky though and doesn't look as nice as the M1330
Indeed, it's slightly less than being tax free, so I suspect you'll save about £50-100 on a £600 MB. If you wait around till October for the Back To School deals, you'll get an ~£100 rebate on an iPod on top of that. Presumably if you don't want one, you can still flog it on eBay. Also consider buying second hand; you can score some serious deals that way. IIRC a guy was selling his mint condition, 2 month old MBP for £800 on the ucam.adverts.forsale.computer newsgroups - simply because he was leaving.
You massively limit your options if you insist on 7200rpm in a laptop. I'd just check out the online stores and see what's on offer. Some laptops are always on offer it just changes month to month as to which ones. My Dad just recently bought a ASUS from ebuyer, I believe they're laptops are good these days. At work we get Toshiba and those with the larger screens are prone to partial screen failures, lots of people with dead lines across the screen! I've got one with the smaller screen (sat pro A120) and it's been perfect.
Thanks for all the replies. Yes I could get a Macbook a bit cheaper, I just don't want one. The Vaio looks nice but in my experience Vaio's are generally expensive, and I do not trust Sony at all. I'd kill for a thinkpad but most are out of my price range - and those that aren't I've found are not the best specs for the money.
