Advice on which laptop

[kasavien]

Hi all!

I'm in the process of looking for a laptop, to give me more mobility with the work i have to do and something that i can take home in the holidays. The aim is to have something which i can use for the usual web browsing, writing documents etc, but also something that i could do development work on, so something that can run Visual Studio 2005.

I have a very small budget ie less than £300 if possible so as you can imagine my options are rather limited, but thankfully performance is not essential i have my main PC for that, i just need something that will run VS 2005 i don't mind waiting for compilation etc. I'd like something that is compact too so a 15" screen or less would be good.

With this in mind i have looked at the dell vostro range as they provide the best value for money it seems, although that depends on VAT and delivery. Which processor would be better though the AMD Sempron or intel Celeron?

Something like this perhaps?

Components
AMD® Sempron Mobile Technology 3600+
Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English
Base Warranty - 1 Year Business Hardware Support
15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display with TrueLife™
1024 MB 667MHz Dual-Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x 512 MB)
80GB (5400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
ATI Radeon® Xpress 1150 HyperMemory (integrated)
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including Software
9 cell Lithium-Ion Battery (85 Whr)

Although the killer with dell is when they add £60 for delivery

One other option could be the EEE pc but i'm not sure how successful it would prove installing XP and Visual Studio? I also came across this which looks really cool although it's a £100 over budger I like the idea of having an ultra portable laptop but i don't think i'll find anything in budget.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Andy

[staffsMike]

The problem with the EEE is the celeron processor. With its SSD and 2GB of RAM it would be quite good at everything other than raw processing though.

Give dell a call and see if they will move on the price as they will normally do you a deal.

Also try configuring the £249 vostro 1000 as it's a much higher spec to start with and a pretty good price.