Advice Needed (Sub £450 Lappy)

[Razorfish]

Hi guys, Ive just got some money together for my first laptop, I’m not looking for some high end desktop replacement (to be honest that what my PC is for) I just want a reasonable laptop for all the usual stuff and a bit movie watching when Im away from home.

I would also love to play some of my old classic games on it if it’s possible. (I.e. C&C tiberium Sun, Sims Etc.)...

Other than the above requirements, I’d prefer to stay away from Celerons and for it to look fairly attractive.

Around the £450 mark

Everyone’s opinion is welcome...

Heres what Ive come up with so far,

Asus X51RL-AP999

Asus X51RL-AP999 Laptop Intel Core 2 Duo T5250 120GB 2048MB DVD-RW WLAN ATI XPRESS X1100 128M Share VRAM 15.4" Vista Home Premium 2 year warranty - Ebuyer

HP Media Centre G6032

Amazon.co.uk: HP Media Centre G6032, AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK53, 15" Widescreen, 2048 MB, 160 GB Hard-drive, 802.11b/g WLAN, Windows Vista Home Premium: Electronics & Photo

Cheers guys...

Nick

[kellamne]

Im currently using a Toshiba Satellite L10 (psl33) w 2 gigs. It is dual core - but not C2D, also only single channel, not tested battery much.
On the plus side it looks nice, cost less than £400 and will do for a few more months. So you should get something much better with your bigger budget - would it be worth waiting until after Christmas for sales?

[aghastpumpkin]

Look on eBay.
I paid £300 a year ago for a Laptop that was only 6 months old and when new cost its owner £1200.
A similar priced new laptop would not have come at all close to what I got. I still had a warranty and the guy even sent me a free wireless router and a free £25 laptop bag for it too.

If you have the patience, there's great deals to be had.

[aghastpumpkin]

Dell Inspiron 6400 E1505 3.46ghz 1GB 160GB Core 2 Duo on eBay, also, Laptops, Computing (end time 29-Nov-07 19:01:12 GMT)


New @Samsung@ R60 Laptop Notebook 1.6GHz 2GB on eBay, also, Laptops, Computing (end time 30-Nov-07 19:33:03 GMT)

Notebook Samsung R20 Core 2 Duo T5300 Laptop Vista on eBay, also, Laptops, Computing (end time 03-Dec-07 21:24:30 GMT)

[Toro]

Originally Posted by aghastpumpkin

Look on eBay.
I paid £300 a year ago for a Laptop that was only 6 months old and when new cost its owner £1200.

Or it fell off the back of a lorry

you would need to be pretty crazy to sell something at a 75% loss

[aghastpumpkin]

No. It was his laptop alright, he just needed to sell it quickly as he was moving abroad.

[Razorfish]

Hi guys, sorry to revive this old thread, but just wanted to give a bit of an update. I went an took the plunge on a laptop brand ive always really wanted but never thought i could afford... A Sony Vaio... After much deliberation and finding one an an unbeatable price of £600 with free postage i ordered my Sony Vaio FZ18L and all i can say is im astounded!

Spec:

Intel Core 2 Duo T7100 - 1.8GHz (x2), 800MHz FSB, 2MB L2 Cache
1024MB DDR2 667 SDRAM (2x512MB)
Serial ATA 160GB HDD
NVIDIA® GeForce® 8400M GT
DVD+-RW/+-R DL/RAM
15.4 X-black LCD
Wireless 802.11a/b/g
Bluetooth Enabled
Built-in 'Motion Eye' Digital Camera
S-Video + HDMI 1.2 supporting HDCP
Windows Vista Home Premium

Some Pictures:

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n...6/DSC00438.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n...6/DSC00434.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n...6/DSC00431.jpg

Thoughts:
Im definatly going to upgrade to 2GB of memory, its a shame Sony felt fit to install 2 x 512 SODIMMS, but seeing as Cricial are doing a 2GB (2 x 1GB) for whisper over £30 i cant complain too much.

The laptop is very slim for such a big screen,from my personal experiance of 15.4' widescreen laptops anyway. Its build quality is amazing, if i had seen it before knowing the price i would have put it well in the £1K area, the only thing that annoys me is it doesnt have a catch for holding the lid shut... but to honest the hinges are so firm and good quality it hardly needs them.

Bluetooth and HDMI out put are nice bonuses.

Overall... One happy chappy... Please let me know what you think.

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n...6/DSC00432.jpg

http://i115.photobucket.com/albums/n...6/DSC00433.jpg

[Razorfish]

No thoughts on this? Did i get a good deal?

Some AOA hosted photos>>>

[Pitch]

My only gripe with Sony laptops are the ever reflective LCD's the insist on using, annoying..

Besides that, looks like a fair deal!

[keithwalton]

looks good i'm glad you are happy with it :-)

whats the native res on its screen ? as i notice it has a 1080 full hd sticker on it, im guessing that is for hdmi out rather than using its own screen!

[Razorfish]

Originally Posted by keithwalton

looks good i'm glad you are happy with it :-)

whats the native res on its screen ? as i notice it has a 1080 full hd sticker on it, im guessing that is for hdmi out rather than using its own screen!

Yeah very happy, it really does look nice... and on a table really looks 'premium', native res is low as you suspected (1280x800) but apparently 1080p out of the HDMI...