For reasons I won't go into, I'm looking at replacing my current Windows laptop. I have provisionally sold my old one to a friend and I'm now looking at its replacement. I do have my MacBook Pro, and yes I can run boot camp it, but having tried it I prefer having OSX on a dedicated machine and then a Windows based laptop - makes my life easier. Looking at getting something business grade and spoke to the guys from IT the other week and they can't fault the above machines highly enough. Yes I am looking buying used and eBay has no shortage of them. I wasn't expecting to be able to pick up a Core i5 based laptop for under £150 ! The IT guys say these have been dropped, prodded, poked, pushed & bounced up and down like sausages in a pan and they still work perfectly. I was told the only time one didn't work was when it got dropped 40 foot down a lift shaft. Also looking at these as they are a really decent size and I do a fair bit of traveling about between home in Weston and Redruth in Cornwall so a 12 - 13 inch laptop is much lighter and saves me much needed room in my bag Also they look so easy to upgrade unlike my current Lenovo consumer grade laptop, putting an SSD and 8 gig of RAM in that thing was a nightmare.
I be been using dell's for the last 9 years, and I must say the latitudes can take a hell of a beating. 7240 has now passed the 3 year cycle, so expect there to be some refurbished stock of them on the bay. For that you get nice upgrades like msata and a much more balanced battery. Watch out for screens in general though, lots of ex Corp run 1366 x 768 rather than 1080, and you you really want to avoid glossy! Finally word of warning if you intend on replacing the battery stick with original stock, I've never had a good experience with oem replacement batteries.
Hmm hadn't thought of looking at Dell, good call there mate thanks 1366 x 768 isn't a deal breaker for me, but I have seen some out thee with 1600 x 900 screens and non glossy for the same money. The only thing I keep finding is "Bios Password" or "Encrypted Bios"
