Buying a laptop

[Longshanks]

Looking for a new laptop lads and dunno what to go with, been looking at acer and they seem to have some good deals and the computers look decent enough..

I'm looking it for writing up coursework,uploading films and music and probably playing a few games so needs some memory.

Any ideas?

[Gaoth Dobhair Abu]

Carphone warehouse, take out a contract phone on a £35 per month contract, loads of free minutes and unlimited texts every month, free good phone and a free laptop.

[mylestheslasher]

I got a flyer in the door at work for Dell business. They have some very cheap laptops at the moment. Have a look at them. Playing games puts you in a different league of laptop though. You need to spend €1500 to get a decent one. If you don't need to be too mobile then get a 17" monitor, Standalone graphics card and 2GB Ram. This will be a bit heavier than a normal laptop but that is the sacrifice for performance. Have a look here...

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/xpsnb_gaming?c=ie&cs=iedhs1&l=en&s=dhs

I'd stay away from acer. Always found their build to be lightweight and crappy.

[Our Nail Loney]

What sorta memory would ya get on standard laptops these days??

[Donagh]

I like the Lenovos (IMB). Good solid no nonsense laptops with the an up to date spec. Haven't a great graphics card but if its serious gaming you're after you shouldn't be getting a laptop anyway. Fine for watching downloaded or streamed movies though.

http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=53CQ&CategorySelectedId=11012&fb=600&NavigationKey=11012&InMerch=1

[el_cuervo_fc]

I bought a Toshiba Sat Pro a few months ago off DABS.  I've had no problems so far

[westmayo]

Had a sony viao for two years there, top quality machine. But decided to move to Mac and got a Macbook a few weeks ago.  Not to into the whole tech stuff, but everything seems to run a bit smoother on it and quciker on it compared to a windows based machine. But I still have windows on it because i have a few things like my mp3 player, which only runs with windows

[J70]

Carphone warehouse, take out a contract phone on a £35 per month contract, loads of free minutes and unlimited texts every month, free good phone and a free laptop.

I would have my doubts about whether a free laptop would be up to the rigours of gaming!

[J70]

Looking for a new laptop lads and dunno what to go with, been looking at acer and they seem to have some good deals and the computers look decent enough..

I'm looking it for writing up coursework,uploading films and music and probably playing a few games so needs some memory.

Any ideas?

Take a look at the Dell XPS series, particularly the higher end ones, if its games you're after.

[aidanmcg33]

It's hard to beat most of the HP laptops at the minute. Some very nice looking ones there too. Have a VAIO myself and it's very good but slightly expensive. HP provide better all round value. Acer are very good value laptop but do have a history of problems although I have used several myself and never had one complaint.

[stephenite]

Looking for a new laptop lads and dunno what to go with, been looking at acer and they seem to have some good deals and the computers look decent enough..

I'm looking it for writing up coursework,uploading films and music and probably playing a few games so needs some memory.

Any ideas?

Take a look at the Dell XPS series, particularly the higher end ones, if its games you're after.

Yep - the very best on the market for the high end gamers.

I recently went through a few different brands that I bought for people here in work, couple of HP's, couples of Lenovo's and whilst for business purposes there's not that much difference these days in terms of performance, Dell kick the shit out of the opposition when it comes to after sales service and warranty repairs.


DO NOT BUY HP/COMPAQ laptops, when it breaks, which it will, you'll be left waiting for eons trying to get it resolved.

Get a Dell laptop with 3 year NBD (Next business day) warranty, from experience they're the best available on the market

[J70]

And with a laptop I would also suggest accidental breakage coverage. If you drop it or spill something on it, warranties don't cover anything, and if its a computer that it going to be moved about a lot and travelled with, chances are something is going to happen. I was glad I had it when I dropped mine and broke the ethernet port and a USB port. I wouldn't bother with that with a desktop, but laptops are not really designed for the amateur to open up and start replacing things, unless its just adding some RAM or something.

[Longshanks]

Cheers lads, actually not a massive game head, must have came out wrong, more a few hours playing Football manager, do most of my great gaming with pro evo on the PS3  Not bad either!!

[The Iceman]

get a mac

you'll not regret it

i take mine into work here and plug it into the network rather than using the desktop PC they have here

its the only job

[lfdown2]

2.0GHz
Intel Core 2 Duo
2GB DDR3 Memory
160GB hard drive1
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics

2.4GHz
Intel Core 2 Duo
15-inch widescreen
2GB Memory
250GB hard drive1
NVIDIA GeForce 9400M + 9600M GT with 256MB


Alright nerds, looking to get a new laptop, and have heard nothing but good things about the macs, above are 2 specs 1st one £900 odd and the 2nd £1300 odd, i will be using it for streaming video, dowloading and storing music storing photos and general gaaboard stuff! was wondering would i be safer getting the top one, ie would the 2nd one be over spec'ed? would rather go for the 1st one obviously but dont want it to be loaded with music video and pics in a couple of years and slow up like hell, what ye's think?