I've got exactly £450 to spend on a laptop, I'll be using it for all the usual things, email, internet and general household backup to keep everyone off my desktop (kids for homework, wife movies in bed), training presentations in work mostly Powerpoint but some video etc through a projector and maybe some on the fly video editing.
maybe some light gaming (not necessarily the latest FPS)

I've got my eye on this but know feck all about laptops really. Seems ok to me what do you all think?

HP Pavilion dv6-3120sa

Not that clued up on laptops either myself tbh ..

But this looks comparable Samsung RV711 Core i3-380M 4GB 500GB Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit 17.3" Laptop

Aye that looks good, I'm struggling with the whole dedicated graphics vs integrated. I'd also like it to last a good couple of years, I believe the kids are calling it 'future-proofing' or some such new fangled flippery.

Dedicated is good if the laptop has a small amount of memory say 2gb
Intergrated, which means the graphics card shares system memory, is ok if your laptop has a larger amount of memory say 4gb maybe even 6gb.

For me the main things i look for in a laptop is a nice large screen. I have a 15" company laptop and the screen is way too small imo. A new hard drive and more memory at a later date for a laptop is a relatively cheap expense now

Yeah I can see what you mean about the screen but the one I have is 15 inch and it suits me fine, plus the wife and kids will be lugging it around so I don't want something big.

nopes

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/261450

or..

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/261451

or..
http://www.ebuyer.com/product/257135

Personally I think you're mental if you don't get either the "extra value" or zoostorm laptop myself.

8GB ram at that price is not to be sniffed at.

If you're wary of any of those brands I personally use a Lenovo at work. They're incredibly solid, reliable but a bit on the weighty side..

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Lenovo-Notebook ... omputers_1

You'll notice I've gone with the newer i3-2310m processor and the sandybridge chipsets on all selections.

If you check here:
http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup. ... 40+2.10GHz

You can see that this processor is faster than the i3-390m and is ALOT faster than most of the core duo processors fitted to laptops.

My advise is to stay well away from anything non i3 and really, look out for the 2310m or better.

If you buy anything less you're getting old kit and irrespective of spec an i3-2310 will outperform it 99% of the time.

M

I've got a Intel Core i7-2630QM in mine and can certainly tell the difference between it and the old Core 2 Duo I had in my old laptop, wasn't really expecting much difference.

Every time I see people ask for recommendations Lenovo seems to be at the top of the lists so they're certainly worth a look. Personally I'm on my 3rd Dell laptop and never had an issue with them other than self/child inflicted problems so I stick with them.

I've seen a lot of people say 17 inch laptops are too big or heavy to carry and I can only imagine the world is full of puny gits or something. My last 2 have been 17 inches and they're much lighter than the 15 inch laptop I had before them and are no problem to carry, they'd probably be even easier if I wasn't too tight to buy a bag for them. I certainly wouldn't trade the bigger screen and full keyboard for the few ounces less to carry.

ta for the advice guys.

Lenovo are pretty much the best bang for buck if you want a "professional" laptop. They're korean I think or something like that and modelled heavily on IBM's thinkpads. Essentially you're getting thinkpad quality for rock bottom price

Let me know what you go with gyng and how it performs for you. Either way, make sure you ditch the shitty free av that they give you and install the microsoft security essentials free av.

M

Lenovo are essentially IBM .. We have them in the Distribution Centres on our contract at work and are covered by an IBM warranty. Spare part numbers also follow the IBM numbering convention.

Shouldn't they be using Fujitsu stuff?

Unsuprisingly the "break fix/ Maintenance" arm of Fujitsu doesnt force companies into using all fujitsu kit. But rather supports a customers existing infrastructure be it IBM , HP etc..

IBM are the only company i know that when they tender for a contract they give a quote for that campany to convert to IBM kit and then give a quote for the maintenance contract.

I ended up going with the HP, one of the guys I work with buys all HP kit for his events company. He has that model and let me have some 'hands on' time with it, he also gave me a discount voucher so got £50 off and a free travel kit (bag & mouse).
Got to say I'm quite happy with it. Came with Norton but chucked that and put Security Essentials on. I'm running decent video in my presentations and my boy had Farcry 2 banging away on it yesterday at fairly high settings.

The others looked good and if I can save some cash, I may well get one of them come Chrimbo for the kids. The Zoostorm had amazing specs but I'd like to see more reviews before taking the plunge.

Thanks for all the advice though guys, appreciate it.