Advent 5421 vs HP G7035ea M540

[drew]

Hi there,

I'm sorry if I'm in the wrond section, I'm pretty new to this posting malarky.

Anyway, Ive been looking to buy a laptop for my son as a xmas present. I'm on a bit of a budget of £300, and after lots of searching have narrowed it down to these two.

I have very basic knowledge about computers and from what I can see they are fairly similar in spec. Ive never heard of advent though so thought id ask on here.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.203-0232.aspx

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/sto...&category_oid=

I was just after some help / advice in choosing one of these. Should I stay away from either (or both!) of these ie operating problems, build quality etc??

Many thanks in advance,

Drew

[MSIC]

Well they are both pretty similar, and will certainly both do a basic job fairly well.
The processors for both are are 'Celeron' which is the budget model, however the current (dual core) Celerons which i think they both are (the Tesco one is not clear) are adequate.

They both are 15.4" widescreen screens, which i'm sure will be relatively lower resolution however again, adequate. Also at 2.9 and 3.1 kg, they are both carry-able but i wouldnt call them 'light' as such.

The only real hiccup is going to be the onboard memory (also called RAM) - each only has 1GB, which given how cheap this is these days is a bit of a con. This will by far be your bottleneck and will make the whole computer 'feel' sluggish, using the Vista Operating System.

You have 3 choices - buy one of them, and dont worry since it'll all still work, just slowly. Or buy one, and then buy an extra stick of 1GB to slot in (usually just a really simple flap underneath that you put the memory into - it really is easy). Or get a slightly different laptop.

All in all however, they are perfectly adequate for the job and will not break or anything worrying like that (but please dont quote me if one suddenly breaks!)

Something like this Acer should be better, although it is £50 more and i'd understand if you were more comfortable buying from a shop.

Actually for £300 dead on, i can't find a 2 Gigabyte machine.
The alternative is to get a new 'netbook' which is seriosuly small and light, however you wont be able to do as much with them (no DVD drive) and wont be as powerful.

I'd advise getting one of your original machines, and then get a single stick of DDR2 SO-DIMM for £7 (told you it was cheap!)

[strike-down]

I would recommend one of the dell vostros
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pr...dt1&l=en&s=bsd
You will get a far better support service than from either pc world or tesco
and if your budget will go slightly over £300, can be configured with a pentium dual core, which is far better than an intel cellery

[drew]

Hey MSIC & strike-down, thanks for the posts very helpful indeed!

There is a rumor going around that lots of shops are reducing prices this weekend so I'll see if something slightly better (as you mentioned) comes up for the money.

If not, then the stick of ram seems like a good idea. I had no idea you could do that, and it is cheap as well!!
I might have to look into that for my Toshiba laptop as well.

Thanks again.

[MSIC]

Great, but be aware there is no such thing as 'general memory' - it comes in different physical sizes and different speeds and voltages, some of which will work in your toshiba and some which wont.
You can either verify for yourself what you need at Crucial's (very good) website:
www.crucial.com/uk (oh and by the way, although crucial are not always the very cheapest the do provide an absolutely excellent service including full refund if the memory you buy doesnt work for whatever reason!)
Or just tell us what toshiba laptop you have and we can advise you.

But yes, have a look at good deals this friday (a number of shops are mirroring the US, which has deals on Friday only but not Saturday).

[drew]

ok thanks for the info. Its a bit of a relic by todays standards but I have a Toshiba Satellite Pro M40. Can it be upgraded in any way?

Just to let you know that I went with th HP laptop. Found a tesco voucher for £13, and as a special offer I got a printer for £10, bringing it to a total of £290. I'll prob get the stick of ram as recommended as well.

[MSIC]

I've had a look, and it seems that (surprisingly) the Toshiba also supports DDR2 So-DIMMS (the same as your new laptop).
See here for Crucial's website about your M40.
So you could probably buy a 1 Gig stick for each laptop.

[drew]

That's good news indeed, so thanks for that. The crucial website is very good but I couldnt seem to find the memory stick for the HP?

Its only because I would rather buy them from one place. Can you help with this please?

This is what I have so far (just to double check, dont want to end up with the wrong stuff!):

http://crucial.com/uk/store/listpart...20M40%20Series

http://www.scan.co.uk/Products/1GB-S...ECC-Unbuffered

For the HP would it be this?
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...DDR2/list.html

A friends laptop:
http://www.crucial.com/uk/store/list...lo%20Pi%201505

Im sorry for all of the links, I have no idea how to abbreviate it.

Thanks

[MSIC]

Not sure about your friends' laptop, but it looks like you have the right ones for your 2. Get from either source, although i'd possibly recommend crucial in your case for the ability to get a full refund just in case.
When your current laptop, with 1/4 Gig RAM, suddenly has 1 and a quarter Gig, it'll be transformed.

The analogy i use is:
If you earnt £700 per month, and have £350 to pay in rent, £150 in bills and £150 on food, you're only left with £50 spare cash to do stuff with.
But if your earn £1700 per month, your spare cash becomes £1050, and you can do measurably more.

[drew]

OK thanks that makes sense, I will get it from crucial.

Ive seen a few clips on youtube on how to install it, looks pretty simple even for someone like myself.

Just one last question, when installing would you remove the battery and is it essential to be grounded (anti static)??

Thanks for all of your help!