Laptop recommendations circa £450

Looking for a laptop for a friend, mainly for office use but also for playback of movies etc. Really want an HD screen and theres a few on the market with plenty of memory and HDD space.
Im really not quite sure which are decent brands in that price range though. I've heard that Toshiba quality has dropped at this level, Acer to be avoided too. Hoping for some opinions on HP, Lenovo, Asus, Dell and anything else people want to throw in the mix.


looking at :
http://www.ebuyer.com/584159-asus-x5...-x550cc-xo071h which looks ideal, but res is not 1080p

http://www.ebuyer.com/624117-lenovo-...aptop-59416301 but haven't ever had hands on a lenovo

http://www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-15...15-5547-laptop again not 1080p

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/laptop...22700~-~130814 appears to have an updated processor on the other lenovo but its PCWorld and cashback in order to get it at £499


any opinions welcome

any alternative solutions even more welcome :)

I was going to suggest the Lenovo I'd seen on the PCWorld ad, seems a pretty decent machine.

A mate of mine's got the Z50, and he's pretty pleased with it. I don't think he got a 1080p screen though...

Acer aren't as bad as everyone makes out IMNSHO, never had any issues with mine (a 13.3" CULV ulatrportable). I'm currently on an AMD-based HP (after swearing I'd never buy HP again a couple of years ago) which is great but not 1080p.

Bit of a wildcard, how about a 17" 1600x900 screened Lenovo Ideapad G700 from Ebuyer, £379, Pentium 2020M, 6GB, 1TB. Might be a little bulky, but 1600x900 is a way better resolution than you normally get in a sub-£400 laptop.

Or if he doesn't mind the colour scheme and a touchscreen, HP Pavilion Beats Edition from PC World - £499, AMD A8-5545, 8GB, 1TB. Decent specs, 1080p screen and alledgedly a 2.1 beats audio speaker system - if it's not going through external sound for the movies that might be a decent option....

Thanks for the info guys, reason for purchase is that my friend currently has a Tosh 17" thats been a nightmare to find a bag for, its also damn heavy. I sourced it back then and while its been a decent laptop, its a bit of a dinosaur (originally came with Vista on it). The HD screen is my personal preference but I think I may have to pass on it. My friend is a teacher, and heads up her dept, and has had to give up her classroom to fit other teachers timetables (she's nice like that). This means she is essentially mobile within her school (theres a term for it, for the life of me cant remember it) and if lesson plans etc are kept on a laptop rather than stored in folders and files in classrooms, it becomes easier in just about every way.

The Beats edition gets terrible reviews Jim, utterly awful, and I have always anything associated with that brand anyways :)

I think its going to come down to Lenovo with cashback or the Asus. Pretty certain I can get it at the same price without the cashback tho.
I also agree with you on Acer as a whole Jim, just that the lower end of the range can be problematic, at least in the past.

Im kinda hoping that with schools south of the border going back next week or so, a few deals might pop up, if not it will be Asus or Lenovo atm.

You might have missed the boat on the Asus, it's out of stock! Seems to have a 768 screen as well, which is fine if you're mainly attaching it to a screen, but for true laptop use, it's a bit poor.

If it's for carting round a school from room to room every half hour (which it potentially could be if she's shifting to a different room every lesson) I'd personally go for portability as the main goal, and IMNSHO a 15.6" is a bit bulky to carry around all day.

Neither of these has a 1080p screen, but personally I'd go for one of:

ASUS S400CA - http://www.ebuyer.com/406982-asus-s4...-s400ca-ca038h - 14" intel ULV, 4GB/500GB, £339

Samsung Ativ 9 Lite - http://www.ebuyer.com/542793-samsung...np915s3g-k02uk - 13.3" AMD (Temash, A6-1450), 4GB/128GB SSD, £359

Both good specs, both nice and portable. They also both have a touch screen, which might be a bit gimmicky on a laptop but I suspect with Windows 8 on an ultraportable it's actually quite nice to use....

i'll talk it over with her :)