New laptop (1 Viewer)

[sleepy]

Hoping to buy a laptop in the next week or 2. Only have about 500 - 600 to spend. Can't afford a macbook and won't be getting dell again. Any recommendations? Anyone any experience using toshiba or acer? they any good?

 

[RayRay]

Whats wrong with Dell?

 

[David Kronenbourg]

toshiba's are grand. my current laptop is a toshiba. i got it for £360 reduced from £450 in curries. my previous one was a toshiba too and i had that for a good 6 - 7 years before it fully crapped out

 

[mark]

I have a friend selling his Macbook Pro. If you could throw another ton onto your budget, you'd get it. Lots of deadly software on it too. PM me if you're interested.

5.4" Macbook Pro.
OSX 10.6.3 Snow Leopard
120 gb hard drive
2.2ghz Intel Core 2 duo
2 GB RAM
Superdrive
Bought June 2007, extended Applecare expires June 2010
Battery & optical drive replaced April 2010
Apple Front Row remote control and all original leads and adapters &
packaging included.
1 careful owner.
Dublin city location.

 

[sleepy]

Howrya Mark, sounds like a deadly laptop and thanks for the offer but I think I'll just shell out for a newer model. They have some alright offers in curry's at the moment

And I've had a dell laptop for the last 3 years and it's been fecking crawling for the last 2 so just thought i'd try something different

 

[RED(tape)MENACE]

Compaq 610s are cheap and decent.

 

[mr pharmacist!!!!1]

toshiba's are grand. my current laptop is a toshiba. i got it for £360 reduced from £450 in curries. my previous one was a toshiba too and i had that for a good 6 - 7 years before it fully crapped out

curries wha

 

[shower another shower]

5.4" Macbook Pro.
OSX 10.6.3 Snow Leopard
120 gb hard drive
2.2ghz Intel Core 2 duo
2 GB RAM
Superdrive
Bought June 2007, extended Applecare expires June 2010
Battery & optical drive replaced April 2010
Apple Front Row remote control and all original leads and adapters &
packaging included.
1 careful owner.
Dublin city location.

Is that the Macbook Pro Nano?

 

[mark]

pro pad nano clam.

 

[Theseus Mock]

Lots of food (or laptops) for thought over on argos on their 400-499.99 range http://www.argos.ie/static/Browse/I...6164800/r_001/4|Price|400+<=++<=+499.99|2.htm There's a handy compare function along the right hand-side for checking RAM/CPU/Hard-disk space. For that price you'd definitely get 4GB and about 250gb of HD space. I don't know what function you'd be using the machine for, but any of those machines are fine for browsing/ms office applications. Handy thing about Windows 7 is that all the versions of the OS (home, premium, ultimate, etc) are baked into it so say if you get a machine with Win 7 Home pre-installed, it's just a matter of acquiring the license key for a higher version, tapping it in, computer thinks for 10 mins, reboots and bam, it's upgraded (although the need for the 'better' version of win 7 would only be useful for networking stuff).

 

[pete]

And I've had a dell laptop for the last 3 years and it's been fecking crawling for the last 2 so just thought i'd try something different

If you bought it new 3 years ago and it had a halfway decent spec it should still be performing ok.

Run Crap Cleaner. Run PC Decrapifier. Uninstall stuff you're not using. Have a look at the startup options in msconfig and turn off stuff you don't want running in the background (hello quicktime, real player, adobe updater, java updater, skype, google updater...). Run Crap cleaner again. Virus scan. Malware scan.

Failing that, backup your data, reinstall your OS (preferably not one Dell gave you with all that extra shit software on it) and only install stuff you know you need.

I just installed Win7 Ultimate on a 5 year old Dell laptop with 512mb ram and it's faster than it was with Vista on it...

 

[RayRay]

Dell are also doing good deals: http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/t...laptops_great_deals?c=ie&cs=iedhs1&l=en&s=dhs

I wouldnt be a fan of Dells usually but i have no choice but to use the min work and they're not the worst. Pete's right with the Dell software crap tho, every new dell laptop/desktop i get in gets wiped and built from scratch with only the bear essentials

 

[sleepy]

If you bought it new 3 years ago and it had a halfway decent spec it should still be performing ok.

Run Crap Cleaner. Run PC Decrapifier. Uninstall stuff you're not using. Have a look at the startup options in msconfig and turn off stuff you don't want running in the background (hello quicktime, real player, adobe updater, java updater, skype, google updater...). Run Crap cleaner again. Virus scan. Malware scan.

Still haven't gotten that new laptop yet but I did run crap cleaner the other night and had a look at startup options on msconfig and stopped a good few programs that were running on startup. It seems to have helped it a good bit. it's running a lot faster now. Thanks for the tip and the links

 

[Napalm]

Just seen a decent Acer for 369 yo yo's in PC World in the Square today, well worth the money, can't remember all the details but a sturdy old workhorse of a thing it was...

 

[7 - No tomorrow]

Anyone heard anything good or bad about this?

THE NEW YOGA 3 PRO | Lenovo US

A friend wants to buy one.

 

[eoinzy2000]

OK. In the market for a new laptop, cant seem to find the best sellers like I used to. I guess everyone sold out to amazon or something. Dell are dearest of the lot. Komplett which used to be really competitive are just nicely priced now. This being the best Ive seen so far: Lenovo Essential G50-80 | Komplett.ie
i5, 8gb ram and reasonable graphics card. for €550.
Is there anywhere at the minute that is fighting for market place like komplett used to be? I guess I'll struggle to beat that Lenovo price, but any recommendations are appreciated.

 

[Theseus Mock]

Pay heed to the wirecutter, they know their stuff and keep all their advice up to date. How to Buy a Budget Laptop See if you can source any of their recommendations over at this side of the pond.