New laptop needed, £400-500 max.

[Terbinator]

or preferably, cheap as possible The new one will most probably be bought within 1/2 weeks (student loan time frame, tee hee).

Most stuff would be a step up form her current machine which is some sort of single-core Celeron with 1GB of DDR2 and a form of Intel GMA.

Needs are basic Word processing [currently for a 3rd year uni friend with the aim of doing her masters in a year or two], browsing, Itunes (shudder) and the like.

I was thinking of something along the Llano lines but systems seem few and far between from a quick look. Reasons for this being the relatively decent GPU. While her needs are basic, i know she would really like to play the Sims 3 [which she bought and wouldn't run on her laptop LOL and maybe the odd Steam game, Portal et al] and my other thought was the HD acceleration it would offer up, while the Llano dual-cores, at the very least, would be plenty of CPU for her needs and a massive improvement from what she has.

Obviously I'm not against going Intel so suggestions for platforms from blue team are welcome.

[nibbler]

What kind of screen size?

[Terbinator]

What kind of screen size?

I would imagine the usual >15" would be fine. In regards to that, 1080p would be somewhat hopeful in the price bracket so 1600*900 wouldn't be a right off if it came to that IMO.

[nibbler]

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_...G_1091433.html

That's got to be the best bang per buck, apart from the 3gb ram which is still respectable. Could probably get something cheaper but it won't last as long I guess.

[Terbinator]

Bump. Anymore suggestions?

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

There is a Dell Vostro 3550 with a Core i3 and HD6630M for around £478:

http://www.dmxdimension.com/dell-uk/...n/#vostro-3450

[Time Bandit]

Anymore suggestions?

I was looking at the Llano dual cores in this price range presumably you have seen this A4 at£407.45:

http://www.ebuyer.com/271940-acer-as...p-lx-rnt02-055

- 4GB RAM keep Win7 happy
- 500GB hard drive should be tons for uni
- USB 3.0

The HD 6650M looks capable enough - notebookcheck suggests that COD Black Ops is playable on medium settings (49fps) on their test rig so the SIMs should not present too many problems.

Tesco also seem to be offering it at £399:
http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.212-0281.aspx

Every little helps! (Helps Tesco I assume.)

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

The laptop that nibbler found seems quite decent for the price but the £400 laptop Time Bandit found has probably the fastest graphics card in a laptop for that price. The HD6650M is between a GT540M and GT525M in performance but closer to the GT540M.

[Terbinator]

I've been trying to avoid Acer's as there seems to be a bit of hate when it comes to their reliability. But yeah, I've seen a few well specced Acer's for their price, i just don't want her coming back to em telling me its melted after 2 weeks.

[dean n91]

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/l...repro2410.html

Novatech have a nice range of laptops Give them a go if you want to give Acer a miss. I haven't had a good experience with Acer laptops.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

This Lenovo laptop looks good for under £400:

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/thin...hop-38/1013319

The GT540M and HD6650M will be faster than the HD6620G IGP though.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

I tried configuring a laptop on the website.

I am upgraded the CPU to an A8 quad core,increased the RAM to 4GB,changed the hard drive to a 7200RPM one and changed the battery to a nine cell one. The total with the code came to £378.62! If you stick with the A8 quad core and increase the RAM to 4GB it comes to £350.11!

On top of this Quidco does 6% cashback too.

Only thing,Lenovo has configured the RAM as one 4GB DIMM of 1333MHZ DDR3. It might be worth getitng the 2GB option and buying the RAM separately.

[dean n91]

I tried configuring a laptop on the website.

I am upgraded the CPU to an A8 quad core,increased the RAM to 4GB,changed the hard drive to a 7200RPM one and changed the battery to a nine cell one. The total with the code came to £378.62! If you stick with the A8 quad core and increase the RAM to 4GB it comes to £350.11!

On top of this Quidco does 6% cashback too.

Only thing,Lenovo has configured the RAM as one 4GB DIMM of 1333MHZ DDR3. It might be worth getitng the 2GB option and buying the RAM separately.

That's still a wicked deal! I think this is the one to get!

[Terbinator]

Oh toss, my loan isn't until the 19th - that is a superb deal!

Edit: I can't seem to find when the 10% off ends, but i think i will recommend this to her - with a few tweaks.

Cheers guys.

[Terbinator]

Just tried to order one of these and keeps saying 'Payment authorisation failed'. Very annoying.

I think it may be a bank issue though as Nationwide's online banking system has been down for the past hour.