laptop advice

[johnr]

ok, im after a laptop, but i know little about them. tesco have some dell ones in for about 250 quid, and morrisons have some emachines ones in for a little more. im only going to use it for surfing the www, ebay and this placde etc, and storing photos from my camera. doesnt need to be all singing and dancing, but wireless would be useful for when i can get a signal at work, anyone got any advice on what to look for, or more interesting, what to avoid, and why?

[Cold Snail]

What to avoid?

Any refurbished ones from PC world online. (It's a very long story, but it's taken them over a month to collect it for a refund (from the local store), after they sent the wrong unit (better than the one I had ordered) and lasted two days before it was dead).

All of them do wireless now John, I would look for something with a decent battery life and I see that 13" screens are making a return (which is the perfect size for out and about and use less power than a 15.6), but make sure it had a DVD drive as I notice some do and some don't.

http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-co ... ou--901574" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

If you get one, maybe look at finding one with 3G connectivity (then you don't need to have a phone/dongle swinging about if you're using mobile internet)

[callyboy]

I like Dell . Try and get the fastest processor you can. If your surfing the web mostley, i wouldnt worry to much about a big hard drive. maybe instead buy a external hard drive for your pics and music (for when the laptop goes wrong or you pick up a virus - it will happen and its nice to have stuff stored externally).

Cheers

Pete

[bobster]

I like Dell . Try and get the fastest processor you can. If your surfing the web mostley, i wouldnt worry to much about a big hard drive. maybe instead buy a external hard drive for your pics and music (for when the laptop goes wrong or you pick up a virus - it will happen and its nice to have stuff stored externally).

Cheers

Pete

Just dont look at p0rn and you wont get viruses!

[JACKJABBA]

Use to work in IT, we always got Toshiba laptops, never went wrong and were pretty robust. The one time we moved away from them we started getting problems.


Bit of advise with Laptops, don't pick them up with one hand with the screen open, buy lifting at the front corner of the keyboard. (hope that makes sense). I know we all do it, but its one of the quickest ways of breaking the circuit board inside.

I agree with Cold Snail, DONT get a PC World refurb, my mates mum just got one, piece of doggy doo.

[johnr]

ok, just bought a new dell from tesco, 3gig ram, 250gig rom, and a load of geekery terms after it. apparently as well as doing loads of geeky stuff, it will also go on the tinterweb.