New laptop

[ShadoWolf]

Hello

I am looking to buy a laptop for somwhere between £300 to £400 (the cheaper the better) The person I am buying this for dosent seem to sure what he wants to use it for so a good allrounder would be cool, and the longer the batery life the better (i guess this would be more importent than anything else) I have looked into netbooks but would like to look at regular laptops aswell as they are more versatile.

I dont know much about which manufacturers to go for or to stay away from. I have found a NovaTech Laptop which seems to have good enough specs but I have no idea what this make of lap top is like?

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/r...b&c=home&r=E15

Any advise and/or recommendations would be much appreciated!

[staffsMike]

Novatech are ok they are just using a generic chassis much like rock/zepto/rizeon use. Good or bad thing I don't know tbh but I doubt there is much harm in it.

I prefer my laptops from dell though
http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...N1252503&s=dhs

That is there most basic on to rival the novatech and then there is the Studio
http://configure.euro.dell.com/dells...N1253502&s=dhs

this can be had a little cheaper, say £390 and is a little better due to having a discrete graphics card capable of blu ray and light gaming. Also has a nice LED screen.

[FifthFreedom]

I know its not really a fully fledged Notebook but I bought my ASUS Eee 1000H a month ago and love it to bits.

You would actually be surprised by the performance; it runs office 2007, Firefox, iTunes and any movies you may want to watch as good as my Desktop. It also has 5 hours tested battery life which is better then your going to get anywhere else. Also its so small you can carry it anywhere. Keyboard is full size though.

You can get for £300 from SCAN here: http://www.scan.co.uk/Product.aspx?WebProductId=924478

[staffsMike]

I know its not really a fully fledged Notebook but I bought my ASUS Eee 1000H a month ago and love it to bits.

Is the 10" a new chassis or the same old same old?

[ShadoWolf]

Well I was concidering getting this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-NC10.../dp/B001GZGEJO

But as they dont have DVD rive I assume any media that wants to be watched will need to be moved via USB or Wifi directly to Hdd? I think it will also be used for watching TV aswell, I guess USB dongal can be used for that aswell though. Whats the screen size like for watchin TV and such?

[staffsMike]

The NC10 screen is actually very nice. I really want to buy that amazon one but I wanted black. It's not like me to buy something based on it's colour but I can't stand the white.

[ShadoWolf]

Thinking about it, how would you install software of these if there is no dvd drive? USB pen drive?

[Ice_Black]

You might like this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149335

[staffsMike]

see here http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...-hdd-dock.html

As long as there wasn't dodgy write protection stuff on the disc you should be able to copy it's contents on to other mediums though yeah.

[ShadoWolf]

You might like this http://www.ebuyer.com/product/149335

That looks very good value! What are HP laptops like? whats the battery life like? Also, Is the AMS CPU ok? I would tend to go for the intel for speed?

see here http://forums.hexus.net/hexus-hardwa...-hdd-dock.html

As long as there wasn't dodgy write protection stuff on the disc you should be able to copy it's contents on to other mediums though yeah.

I guess any HDD encasement will do like the icy box? but then again im not sure he is that technicaly minded to work out how to install from the hdd, plus it would mean having to buy another HDD aswell. If he does go this way I would suggest he gets a large USB pen drive, you can get 4gb for about a tenna nowadays!

[staffsMike]

Well yeah but the kit will allow you to plug in a desktop DVD drive via USB

[ShadoWolf]

duh! sorry being a dumb ass!

Any views on the HP AMD rig?

[staffsMike]

Yea it's actually very good for the money. I don't like HP personally as they have always let me down in one way or another but this isn't true for everyone. I just hope you don't need to make use of the warranty.

I didn't realise it was a PUMA based AMD at first. This means you have very strong integrated graphics but it appears to be lacking HDMI so you can make little use of it for HD video etc..

[ShadoWolf]

I dont think he would notice the difference bettween HD and normal. Then again, I dont think I would notice the difference either!