bang for buck carry-about work laptop?

[jamena]

I've been looking at all these nice low prices for intel c2d 5xxx laptops but there's such a degree of variability in prices for seemingly similar spec that the deals sometimes worry me - am I missing something?

What I'm after is a laptop that'll happily churn through msoffice/browsing/email (goes without saying really...), a bit of photo-editing / processing, have a good battery life and be as light as possible. I've been looking for intel 5xxx processors, 2Gb+ RAM, 160Gb+ hard drive spec with 15"ish widescreen. half-decent gpu like nvidia 84xx(?) for film-support and the occasional game would be great but isn't essential. I should stress the portability is a bit of a decider - it'll get lugged about quite a bit so can't break at the slightest touch either. Budget is as low as I can find for that spec, realistically maybe a £500 cap but I'd much much rather it was cheaper (seen decent specs for around the £300-ish mark?!) I don't really care what OS but good/proper windows vista 64-bit supported hardware wouldn't hurt if possible? My desktop is happy with vista64

Oh yes - the screen should probably work as well as possible in bright sunny conditions (for working outdoors! )

I have an old, slightly abused, Toshiba Tecra M2 from work that is slowly withering, but it's 2.4ish kg weight does make it rather handy! ...and they might remember I have it and ask for it back soon

on a side note - any advice for cleaning up an XP install on a laptop to speed it up without any harsh reinstallation?

[staffsMike]

Dell have just done some refresh vostro's. The 1510 sounds like it's up your street.

From reviews i've read it's a bit plasticy but a solid performer all round You can probably get a matte screen too with anti glare.

Sticking with Dell (as I always do) There is the XPS M1530 which will be the upper end of your budget if not over it but it's certainly a nice light powerful laptop and looks a lot better than the vostro. Made with better material too

They will also be releasing the insipron studio range next month which is set to be somewhere between xps and inspiron, should be good

ebay resellers are generally very cheap for dell and check out Dell Special Offers, Cheapest Deals, E-Value Codes and Discount Coupons | dmXdimension

[Zadock]

I've been looking at all these nice low prices for intel c2d 5xxx laptops but there's such a degree of variability in prices for seemingly similar spec that the deals sometimes worry me - am I missing something?

What I'm after is a laptop that'll happily churn through msoffice/browsing/email (goes without saying really...), a bit of photo-editing / processing, have a good battery life and be as light as possible. I've been looking for intel 5xxx processors, 2Gb+ RAM, 160Gb+ hard drive spec with 15"ish widescreen. half-decent gpu like nvidia 84xx(?) for film-support and the occasional game would be great but isn't essential. I should stress the portability is a bit of a decider - it'll get lugged about quite a bit so can't break at the slightest touch either. Budget is as low as I can find for that spec, realistically maybe a £500 cap but I'd much much rather it was cheaper (seen decent specs for around the £300-ish mark?!) I don't really care what OS but good/proper windows vista 64-bit supported hardware wouldn't hurt if possible? My desktop is happy with vista64

Oh yes - the screen should probably work as well as possible in bright sunny conditions (for working outdoors! )

I have an old, slightly abused, Toshiba Tecra M2 from work that is slowly withering, but it's 2.4ish kg weight does make it rather handy! ...and they might remember I have it and ask for it back soon

on a side note - any advice for cleaning up an XP install on a laptop to speed it up without any harsh reinstallation?

If you just want your old laptop to be a bit quicker for emailing, browsing etc why not look at some of the lightweight Linux Distros? you can get abiword or open office for docs, thunderbird or evo mail for emails and GIMP for image editing.

[jamena]

dells look like an option. I can wait for the studio lineup to see what they're like I guess.



Def. want a windows solution for this laptop, so linux is not getting a look in, sorry.