Laptop

[mavic]

Hey people....

Right im of to uni soon and im looking into buying a laptop i have done some resurch and

i know a little about computers, but not alot. i have around £500 to spend on one, it does need the basics

like good amount of memory, the usual like windows and stuff like word and bits lol. I am also looking at a hardive aswell for back up or just storing general large files.

i have been looking and found this: Acer Aspire...

i have also been told not to go through people like pc world because they are not as good as they say lol.

anyhelp will be appretiated

thanks

dan.

Edited September 2, 2007 by mavic

[Shaun H]

17" ones are massive. Go for a 15.4", much more manageable then.

Also the one you posted, integrated graphics are usually shocking, look for one with a seperate card, even if it shares it's memory with the RAM.

Last year I picked up my Asus off of Mesh computers for about £550 and it has:

1.8 ghz 64 bit AMD Turion processor

1GB RAM

100GB HD

Geforce Go 7300 128mb card

DVD RW thingy drive

Wireless capability

Just checked the same site and they don't have anything similar atm, but if I managed to find that a year ago I'm sure you can find better nowadays.

[mavic]

17" ones are massive. Go for a 15.4", much more manageable then.

Also the one you posted, integrated graphics are usually shocking, look for one with a seperate card, even if it shares it's memory with the RAM.

Last year I picked up my Asus off of Mesh computers for about £550 and it has:

1.8 ghz 64 bit AMD Turion processor

1GB RAM

100GB HD

Geforce Go 7300 128mb card

DVD RW thingy drive

Wireless capability

Just checked the same site and they don't have anything similar atm, but if I managed to find that a year ago I'm sure you can find better nowadays.

Ah k hmmm, did not think about graphics cards and stuff, right well i have noted that man thanks .

and yer 17" is bit large thinking about it.

Edited September 2, 2007 by mavic

[Fish-Finger-er]

17" ones are massive. Go for a 15.4", much more manageable then.

Also the one you posted, integrated graphics are usually shocking, look for one with a seperate card, even if it shares it's memory with the RAM.

Last year I picked up my Asus off of Mesh computers for about £550 and it has:

1.8 ghz 64 bit AMD Turion processor

1GB RAM

100GB HD

Geforce Go 7300 128mb card

DVD RW thingy drive

Wireless capability

Just checked the same site and they don't have anything similar atm, but if I managed to find that a year ago I'm sure you can find better nowadays.

got mine off mesh about a year ago, and it was a mint laptop, however stuffs now stopped working, and mesh are uber slow on delivery i found, like 4 weeks slow. gunna have to send it back under warranty too, i currently have no wifi/bluetooth. no cd drive, no ethernet port, no tv out, no aerial in for tv tuner.

[mavic]

There are soooooooo many laptop out there, the reason im looking at Aspire is i have been told they are very good for the money

what about this:

Aspire2

im also thinking there is no need to spend £500.

[fruitbat]

I got a good one from PC world recently. They had a £399 Toshiba deal, Pentium t2080 dual core processor, 120 gig hard drive, 1 gig ram and most other stuff average (graphics, monitor etc), 15.4 monitor. Didn't come with Microsoft office but that can be picked up easily enough

They also had another one, same spec as above bu 2 gig ram for £449, probably not got the deal now but might be worth keeping your eyes open.

Works a treat for me!(Others might have something to say but hey)

Frooty

[mavic]

Fruitbat, thats the sort of price i was thinking, i did have a quick look at Toshiba some seemed good.

Pc world though, good service and stuff?.

[Krisboats]

Pc world though, good service and stuff?.

Like the halfords of the computing world sometimes you'll find a member of staff who know what they're on about, most of the time its just some spotty teen who'll try and flog you something to get rid of you. Prices, again like halfords, are on par or just slightly more than most other places. And again, like halfords... their service centre is a complete joke and far too expensive for what it is.

[fruitbat]

I didn't have a problem at the time of the purchase, they tried to sell me all this home cover stuff which I didn't want but which company doesn't

Not had an issue with the laptop yet as only got it a week ago, so don't know what the follow up service is like

Frooty

[Nick Garland]

If you find something better than this for the same price I will be impressed.

Acer Aspire

Core 2 Duo T2350 1.86ghz : Arguably the best processors around, check all the sites Core 2 Duo/Quad are the processors to have, desktop or laptop.

160 GB hard drive: Massive storage for a laptop, probaboly more than you will need.

2GB Ram : Double the memory of any laptop near this price, and its fast at DDR667 (quick for a laptop)

Other good features, Vista Home Premium, Wireless Ready, 7300 with turbocache, so if your not gaming no need to use masses of video memory.

I ordered this yesterday, absolutly amazing deal, I defy you to find better.

Only downside is that is has 24bit colour support rather than the normal 32bit, but I really doubt you will notice that.

Edited September 2, 2007 by Team War Rider

[manuel]

hijack time .....

I needs one 400 max .....

anything wrong with the third one on THIS PAGE

+ would you get vista ? or XP - as all the software I currently have on the tower is XP .... so is it worth having vista ?

I only went to dell as they are usually pretty damned cheap ....

Edited September 2, 2007 by manuel

[Nick Garland]

That laptop seems pretty good for £400.

I personally would say go with Vista, I have recently switched from XP to Vista and its a lot nicer. Cannot do a direct comparison in terms of boot speeds etc as I upgraded whole pc.

It has a lot of visual effects which you can turn off to save battery life on the laptop. It has some nice featurs such as saving searches (not sure why you would need to but you can if need be). Its pretty much just a refresh of XP, looks different with a few different features, nothing amazingly different.

Only complaint being the hella anoying promts when you install anything, move anything, asks you to give it administrator approval then to actually confirm what you want it to do. Be nice to turn this off, I am suer there is a way. Happens when you are an administrator on the system too.

[Krisboats]

nothing amazingly different.

Much better networking and security features. I read in a magazine the other day its one of the most secure operating systems ever made.

[manuel]

so could you do any better than the ol dell for 400 squids ? Plus - If I get vista will any of my old software work on it - or will i have to obtain a whole new set and have 2 sets of software DVDs ?

also (I havent bought any PC stuff for like 4 years) everyone seems to be creaming over the dual core intel thingies - how is the AMD job in there ? as at the time I put my pc together, smart money went on AMD ...

[Krisboats]

so could you do any better than the ol dell for 400 squids ? Plus - If I get vista will any of my old software work on it - or will i have to obtain a whole new set and have 2 sets of software DVDs ?

also (I havent bought any PC stuff for like 4 years) everyone seems to be creaming over the dual core intel thingies - how is the AMD job in there ? as at the time I put my pc together, smart money went on AMD ...

Intel core 2 duo's seem to be far better than the AMD offerings at the minute, especially in desktops as they overclock by stupid amounts so become really good value for money.

If you want some competition for dell, go to your local tesco's or other computer selling supermarket. They have really good spec machines available for very cheap prices as they buy them in bulk. I know its a bit over £400, but the processor is much better linky.

As to the software, you should be able to install your old software on there so long as you havn't exceeded any maximum installation limits particular software may or may not have. You may find the bigger problem will be is the software vista compatible... things like nero 6 just don't won't on vista.

[Greetings]

If you find something better than this for the same price I will be impressed.

Acer Aspire

Very good find, that's definitely what you should go for.

[manuel]

You may find the bigger problem will be is the software vista compatible... things like nero 6 just don't won't on vista.

thats whaT i meant....

[Nick Garland]

You might have toupgrade some software purely so its compatible with Vista but its deffinately worth it.

I am running the 64bit verison on this pc with a nice Q6600 Intel processors, runs beautifully. Not sure if its 32 or 64bit on the laptop but will find out soon.

I would go with Intels CPUs at the moment they are superior to anything AMD have at the moment.

EDIT: Cannot say about networking I have 1 pc in this house at the moment but it was nice and simple to connect it to the wireless router etc. The "most secure os ever", hmm, not as secure as it was in the Beta stages as companies such as Norton wanted better access to the kernal so Microsoft had to open it up a bit more. Deffinately better than XP though.

Edited September 3, 2007 by Team War Rider

[Krisboats]

thats whaT i meant....

Yeah, you should be fine with 90% of it. Most companies failed to make their products vista compatible and at the time of release nobody had support for the new operating system. Since then though most programs have been made compatible through new editions or updates but you'll only be able to find out whats going to work by installing it.

For better compatibility go with the 32bit version rather than the 64 bit one, a lot of programs won't work in 64 bit, yet nearly all work in 32. And go with home premium if you can, it just looks a bit nicer and comes with the media centre software.

[Nick Garland]

So far I have not found a single program that does not work with X64.

A lot of companies offer 64bit software now, many are supporting it in their next releases and it also makes better use of most recent CPUs that are 64bit.

Any most 32bit programs work anyway, as I say I have not discovered any that do not.

[Krisboats]

So far I have not found a single program that does not work with X64.

A lot of companies offer 64bit software now, many are supporting it in their next releases and it also makes better use of most recent CPUs that are 64bit.

Any most 32bit programs work anyway, as I say I have not discovered any that do not.

It isn't so much that the programs themselves don't work, its the driver support in the programs that has been causing many people problems. Like some people find they are all of a sudden without a dvd burner. In x64 (the 64 bit version) any driver that isn't signed off by microsft isn't allowed into the kernel and will simply fail to load. With the amount of times you get that little notice when installing something like a webcam saying "the driver for this device is not authenticated... blah blah blah" and you click okay because you want your mp3 player, webcam, dvd drive etc to work, well in vista x64 they won't. Network adapters, audio controllers and card readers are common problems because the drivers are not usually signed off by microsoft, meaning they won't work.

Vista x64 also has no backwards compatibility with 16 or 32bit software, i'm still unsure as to whether a fix has been released for this by microsoft... but this means that unless a program or driver is specifically coded for x64, it simply will not work.

You may well have had no problems, and in such a case you would be fortunate. But at the current point in time, the drawbacks of unsupported drivers and programs and general incompatibility far outweigh the benefits of a slightly faster system.

Edited September 3, 2007 by Krisboats

[Nick Garland]

Im pretty sure it has been patched with the 32bit software, seeing as I am running Mozilla Firefox which is only 32bit unless you run the special x64 version which I do not.

I would not say that it is faster as such, cannot do a direct comparison but I would imagine on budget/mid range hardware it would possibly be slightly slower with all the visual effects of Vista turned on.

Good none the less and I deffinately reccomend Vista to all users and those who feel confident with computers and have the 64 capabilties go X64.

EDIT: Just re-read your post, most companies are starting to get the 64bit drivers out the door and a lot of people are saying now is the time to switch. Unless there is the demand for 64bit drivers and software companies will not invest in producing it and unless everyone starts to shift over it wont really happen till the companies force you to use 64bit. Check out a few of the tech websites most have a thread in the forum about whether its the right time to switch to x64 or not.

I have not had any problems with drivers as yet but my friend did with his DVD burner, they released the 64bit driver for it though a couple of months after Vista was released, he got it the day it came out when it had many bugs and lots of driver problems.

Edited September 3, 2007 by Team War Rider

[mavic]

Very good find, that's definitely what you should go for.

Thats a little on the pricey side im really looking for £400 max now. there are soo many laptops to choose from.

Think i will go for an Aspire.

[Nick Garland]

There is a dell somewhre in this thread for about £400 which was pretty good for the price. Bottom of the first page I think.

[Krisboats]

Im pretty sure it has been patched with the 32bit software, seeing as I am running Mozilla Firefox which is only 32bit unless you run the special x64 version which I do not.

I would not say that it is faster as such, cannot do a direct comparison but I would imagine on budget/mid range hardware it would possibly be slightly slower with all the visual effects of Vista turned on.

Good none the less and I deffinately reccomend Vista to all users and those who feel confident with computers and have the 64 capabilties go X64.

EDIT: Just re-read your post, most companies are starting to get the 64bit drivers out the door and a lot of people are saying now is the time to switch. Unless there is the demand for 64bit drivers and software companies will not invest in producing it and unless everyone starts to shift over it wont really happen till the companies force you to use 64bit. Check out a few of the tech websites most have a thread in the forum about whether its the right time to switch to x64 or not.

I have not had any problems with drivers as yet but my friend did with his DVD burner, they released the 64bit driver for it though a couple of months after Vista was released, he got it the day it came out when it had many bugs and lots of driver problems.

Visual effects... Even on the old athlon 64's and XP x64 there was a noteable difference in speed. Though driver support was virtually non-existant. Turning on visual effects in vista won't reduce the speed of the processor, the visual effects are handled by the graphics card... the benefits of 64-bit are seen in the processors increased ability to calcualte mathematical data, so encoding, copying files and even gaming runs slightly faster. The downside however is 32-bit software running on a 64-bit operating system runs slightly slower than on a native 32-bit operating system.

Unless you want to see benefits from enhanced features like ASLR, high speed data handling/encoding and support for 8gb or more of RAM then vista 64-bit isn't needed. Microsoft have just recently pulled the plug on their promise to allow unsigned drivers on vista x64, and kernel patching by companies like symantec should be allowed after the release of service pack 1. Either way, at the minute for your average user, 32-bit is definately the best option to choose.