Laptop for uni

[Englander]

Well, yesterday proved quite successful so I'm now in the market for buying a laptop for my impending studies. I believe Dell are quite good but I was wondering who else at the moment does decent quality, affordable laptops? I'm not very clued up on this part of the market!

[kalniel]

Dell, Acer, Toshiba, Samsung, HP. All great laptop makes.

But I'd just go for the Dell M101z and be done with it
(Hexus review: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=25904)

[Englander]

Dell, Acer, Toshiba, Samsung, HP. All great laptop makes.

But I'd just go for the Dell M101z and be done with it
(Hexus review: http://www.hexus.net/content/item.php?item=25904)

That Dell you linked does look very good - my only reservation is whether or not I will find 11" too small. A trip to a generic computer retailer may be in order to assess sizes. In the mean time, this doesn't look bad either.

[spac3d]

In a unrelated post, I know someone who bought a brand new MacBook Pro on the University Education scheme that Apple have going, it was a beautiful laptop...

.. Until he was violently sick all over it, and created the worlds most expensive door stop.

[Lee`]

If your concerned that 11" is too small to write essays on, buy a cheap monitor, keyboard and mouse, so you have the comforts of a desktop in your room, but then have a portability advantages of a small laptop for taking to the library, lectures etc.

[usxhe190]

If you don't want to use a separate monitor, people usually think 13.3" screen laptops have the best balance.

You also didn't say your budget as well

[oolon]

If you order from dell, it will take quite a while to arrive, they customise most of them in china and ship them over they can (mine just did) take over 2 weeks to arrive. So you need to be ordering soon to make sure you get it before uni starts.

[Lee`]

It might be worth you spending some time on dell outlet to find a good deal! Cheaper than from the main site and should arrive sooner.

[TAKTAK]

Budget ??

[DDY]

Consider a convertible tablet if your budget allows it, they're not too expensive at around £600 for the "cheaper good" ones, dead useful for taking notes in lecture and doing mini presentations. I've been using a tablet for a year and I can't go back to using paper.

Have a look at the HP TouchSmart TM2 series, also check out my Dell Latitude XT2 thread in the bargains section here.

[Englander]

Absolute max is £500, closer to £400/450 is optimum. I'm not the one paying though so I'll have to run some of these ideas past the person who is!

[jim]

Still holding out for the Inspiron 11z, if it ever arrives. They were doing the old one for £450 a few weeks back with 4GB RAM and an SU7300 processor.

Otherwise I'm waiting for the Acer 1830T, but I don't know if it will get here in time. Thankfully I don't start til October, so got a bit of time.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I would check this website first for any Dell offers:

http://www.dmxdimension.com/

[Behemoth]

Avoid a Toshiba Laptop like the plague. Put it this way when I was offered a Toshiba Laptop quite cheaply when I was still working @ Curry's I made sure I went to the moons of Jupiter to avoid buying it.

They are awful awful machines. They feel cheap, they last just over 18 months a piece, they are the hotest running Laptop ever. everyone our store sold over a 2 year period came back outside of their warranty for similar faults. Hard drives failing (Seagate !) Over heating, motherboards failing for no apparant reason.

HP/Compaq, Dell, Acer, Asus and the like are fine, just don't buy a Toshiba !

[Flibb]

what about a used T60, or other business class laptop?
http://www.studentcomputers.co.uk/IB...__1401271.html

Recently picked up the HP equivalent for the wife, the difference in build quality, and keyboard when compared to a new cheap laptop is an eye opener. Then again it would have cost £1000 new (2 years ago), I paid £225 from student computers. If your after a bit of kit to be used every day, and survive hard use I would look at 2nd hand business stuff.

[Cheapy]

I recently picked up a Asus UL-30A from carphone warhouse to use at uni. Not the fastest or best out there but for £350 it was perfect for what I wanted. Just have to ask in your local store if they have any as they were in clearance and arnt listed on the website anymore. 13.3" screen, 3Gb RAM, 320Gb Hard drive, Celeron dual core SU2300 and windows 7. Get about 6 to 8 hours of battery life with continuous wifi and office documents open.