Lappies ...........

[foxy]

now that everyone is paying attention...... I meant Laptops.....


For home use, playing on the web and storing music/photies(lots of photies).....which one???

What do I need to look for if I want wireless etc????:confused: :confused:

All advice very gratefully received:D :D

TIA;)

PS Steve, meant to ask about this earlier but I was taking down your recipes:cool:

[Biscuit]

:D

Don't think you can beat PC World TBH, thats were i buy for work and my own customers. See what package deals they do too, i recently put in a wireless network for a friend and got her an Advent laptop with a multi printer / scanner / copier thrown in. Perfect for home use, cost £399 IIRC. Personally I use a Macbook but if I needed a PC laptop my own choice would be a high end Sony Vaio, but they cost £500 upwards.

presumably you will need a wireless modem / router too? Think I have a wireless modem kicking about somewhere, yours if you need it, shame, i could have brought you today :(

[Biscuit]

oh and heres a bit of great free advice, go into the store, be it PC World, comet wherever, whatever the price is, ask them if there is a 'web exclusive' with click and pick. I just bought a new GPS, store price was £240, web offer was £199, told them they either sold me it for £199 or id nip home, "click and pick" and return in 20mins and pick it up from the same store, I got it for £199 :thumbs:

[foxy]

thanx Steve....

Yep needing the whole lot as I have decided to move out of the jurassic age with my pc at home :o Basically I do most things at work .... this antique takes forever and is in the back room (and take up alomost the whole back room too :rolleyes: )
I had wee look at PC World but haven't got a clue as to whats good and whats not.

[Biscuit]

their website is a bit of a minefield when looking for laptops. best bet go to the store, they're advertising a Tosh laptop for 3 or £400, not a bad deal but you will prolly find you can get a higher spec Advent for same or even less money.


just had a look, the Tosh (http://www.pcworld.co.uk:80/martprd/product/seo/339848#productInformationSection) looks quite good, the equvilant Advent (http://www.pcworld.co.uk:80/martprd/store/pcw_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@0643702824.1199050197@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccehaddmlmlgjdgcflgceggdhhmdfok.0&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null&sku=751897&category_oid=#productInformationSection) is virtually same spec but the Tosh looks like it has a better screen. the Advent would appear to be pink tho, prolly the dealer clincher :rolleyes:

Oh and dont be sold on anti-virus and anti spam stuff, plenty of free ones out there that are as good if not better than Norton / Macafee etc.

[Biscuit]

pretty sure Davie's laptops the is Advent one thinking about it?

[foxy]

Don't remember Davie's being pink though :eek: then again - it was turned against the wall so it may well have been :D On a serious note I have had a wee shot of Davie's and quite liked it :)

Looks like I might be popping out to do a wee bit of shopping in the next week or so then.... thanx for your help Steve. Offer's still there for New Year - get the Tuesday off work ;)

[239desmo]

I am using an Advent from PC World with a wireless connection.
Does all and more that I require.
Very impressed with the graphics but sound is not good but suspect that is the case with all the laptops.

[Rob998]

A couple of months ago I bought (and am typing on now..) an Acer 9304WSMi from Amazon, £449.99 delivered. 2gb Ram, 160gb HDD (not massive by desktop standards, but plenty for me, especially as I bought a 500gb external drive for £65 a while back!), 17" Crystalbright screen, wireless, Vista Home Premium, bluetooth, AMD Turion 64x2 processor (AMDs Dual core chipset, & faster than Intel) blah blah.

I like it, and it was good value at the time. I bet it's even cheaper now. I've not run into any probs as yet, it runs smoothly & quickly & has a trick internal antenna so I get a good signal all over the house.

Don't skimp on your wireless modem/router though. Go for a "G+/Mimo" at the minimum. If you're on cable, you can get a Mimo router a lot cheaper than if you're on ADSL. My Modem/Router is a Belkin, cost about £80, and their tech support is brilliant, once you tune into the accent.

[Spud Raver]

Yeah, I got the Advent, its 1 of those dual core jobbies and is pretty fast. Ive had it a few months now and Im sure technology hasn't stood still. Ive also got all my music and photos on an external drive so it doesnt clog up the main gubbings.

It was only £400 odds and TBH not that much different spec compared to the top of the range Sony nonsense.

[Freak]

If it were me spending the money have a look at a known brand, Advent aren't a big player in the computing world I say this as a laptop is like a bike if a part goes wrong you're pretty much lumbered with replacing it with the exact same part.

My choices would be:-

Acer
Dell
Toshiba
Compaq/HP
IBM
Sony

I've bought and sold a few Acer laptops for people now and so far no complaints

[Scotty]

Don't think you can beat PC World TBH

you jest sheerly ?

I'm sure they have the high street sewn up, but I'm sure there's better (read cheaper) places to buy from

for instance

http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computers/cat/Laptops

[Biscuit]

Looking at ebuyer, you would have to spend £50 more to get a similarly spec'ed machine and its a brand less known than advent.

Plus, me personally, I like to go into a shop and see it b4 buying and also having somewhere you can take it back too if it goes wrong.

[Scotty]

Looking at ebuyer, you would have to spend £50 more to get a similarly spec'ed machine and its a brand less known than advent.

Plus, me personally, I like to go into a shop and see it b4 buying and also having somewhere you can take it back too if it goes wrong.

haway then , (I'm board) pick on out and I'll see if I can find it cheaper elsewhere :comp2:

[DKM]

If you're going for a machine with Windows Vista installed it's vital that it has not less than 2GB of RAM or there's a good chance that it will be slower than you expected, regardless of what processor it has.

(You can still get laptops with XP installed. PC World Business (http://www.ducati-upnorth.com/forum/www,pcwb.com) for example still sell more laptops with XP installed than Vista. Vista doesn't do anything that XP can't do, its differences are nearly all bells and whistles. And compatibility problems with older peripheral equipment. And Vista makes any given computer run more slowly than XP)

Avoid Norton Antivirus/360 etc like the plague. These programmes would slow down a Cray supercomputer. Also they have not been doing too well in comparison tests recently, performing less well than some of the free AV programmes.

Your new laptop may well come with Norton preinstalled. It's very important to uninstall it before attempting to install another antivirus program. Do this by running the Norton Removal Tool (ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/removal_tools/Norton_Removal_Tool.exe) , not by the normal uninstall procedure which leaves parts of the programme behind.

If your new laptop comes with an evaluation version of Microsoft Office 2007, as many do, and if you decide to pay for it and keep it, bear in mind that the documents it creates cannot be read by any earlier version of Office as they are in a different format. It does, however, provide options to produce its documents in the formats which can be read by any version of Office from 97-2003 but you will have to select this option in each programme (Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc).

[Derek]

Speaking of laptops. Has anyone got an old ancient one they want to get rid of?
I have the Technoresearch VDSTS diagnostic software that have it currently installed on a Palm PDA. This is fine in that it is portable and I can easily take it out to the garage and plug it into the bike but the PC version has a much nicer interface and offers a few things that the PDA doesn't.
All I need is a working laptop with a serial port, a minimum of 8Mb Ram although 16Mb is preferred and any version of Windows from 95 up. It doesn't need USB or internet connections. There must be a few lying around out there being used for doorstops. Anybody?

[Lily]

Speaking of laptops. Has anyone got an old ancient one they want to get rid of?
I have the Technoresearch VDSTS diagnostic software that have it currently installed on a Palm PDA. This is fine in that it is portable and I can easily take it out to the garage and plug it into the bike but the PC version has a much nicer interface and offers a few things that the PDA doesn't.
All I need is a working laptop with a serial port, a minimum of 8Mb Ram although 16Mb is preferred and any version of Windows from 95 up. It doesn't need USB or internet connections. There must be a few lying around out there being used for doorstops. Anybody?

i might have one somewhere but cannot say what condition it might be in.

also have a variety of older desktops if anyone is interested.. :D

[alane]

If your new laptop comes with an evaluation version of Microsoft Office 2007, as many do, and if you decide to pay for it and keep it, bear in mind that the documents it creates cannot be read by any earlier version of Office as they are in a different format. It does, however, provide options to produce its documents in the formats which can be read by any version of Office from 97-2003 but you will have to select this option in each programme (Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc).

Careful with the powerpoint save_as option. Saving as previous power point version does not strip out some of the underlying data and so any subsequent presentations will always start with the warning "This presentation uses asian fonts which are not available on this pc...blah blah blah" or some such similar.
The "Replace fonts" option in powerpoint does not resolve this.
Only know cause currently one of the problems where I work.

[DKM]

Foxy, if you end up coming to Glasgow for your laptop, take a look at Laptops Direct in Dumbarton Road, less than a mile from PC World - and basically on the same road. Argyll Street at the top end of the PC World car park runs straight into Dumbarton Road. You pass the Art Galleries on your right, Kelvin Hall on your left, and it's on your left about 2-300 yards further on.

Laptops Direct have been around for many years, have a very good reputation, and are much more knowledgeable than the numpties in PC World.

[Freak]

Last resort are high street shops, I never buy anything from PC World or alikes as they are way overpriced, plenty of on-line stores that can be upto 50% cheaper than PC World, mind you you might need to be a business to get that sort of price

[Neepdocker]

Lynn, I might have a laptop for sale.Top spec.


Sold my last one to Gary Glitter.;) ;)