Spec me a new Laptop People!

[The Shutting Downs]

So Mrs TSD's lap top is on the way out, and she is looking at a new one, any recommendations.

300-400 quid
Not Dell.
Needs to stand up to a lot of typing.

Cheers.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I had an Asus somethingorother before it died, stood up to a shitload of abuse* and was relatively cheap.


*2 pints of koppaberg and being ripped off various desks by the power cable.

[fabyak]

Misco do decent refurbs for not much money

[HereComesPete]

Why not dell?

[Dog Pants]

Why not dell?

I was wondering that. For desktops I would agree, but I've had my Dell for 8 years and it's fine (apart from having Fista on it). Not that I want to sway your opinion particularly.

[deject]

I have a cheapy Asus touchscreen "ultrabook" and it's been quite great. I got it over a year ago for under $700 USD so I would hope you could get something similar around your price range.

[The Shutting Downs]

She has had...Issues... with Dell computers in the past, and the lack of abuse they have taken.

[ProfHawking]

Trick with dell laptops is to go for the lattitude range, not the el-cheapo mass-market grade inspirons. Lattitudes are built v solid in my experience.

[Grimmie]

Thread resurrect!

Dell Latitudes no longer seem to be on sale. How do the Inspirons stand up?

I'm just looking for a utility laptop, as my ageing Samsung NC10 just isn't cutting it any more, and I could use some more screen real-estate. Looking for something that runs Win 7 rather than 8, but Dell doesn't seem to have an option for that.

Ebuyer seem to be selling laptops that have 7 and a license for 8 installed on them, which is more appealing - but I have no idea what I'm looking for. I've heard bad things about he bloatware that comes pre-installed on HP laptops, should I be concerned? (http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/ca ... 2B+8.1+Pro)

Thanks, tech-heads!

[Joose]

Looking for something that runs Win 7 rather than 8, but Dell doesn't seem to have an option for that.

I would suggest dropping this requirement. Win 8 certainly isn't good enough to warrant seeking it out over 7, but its also not bad enough that actively avoiding it makes any kind of sense. Ive been using it for ages now, and 99% of the time you won't even notice the difference.

Inspirons are pretty good in my experience. Always seemed a bit on the heavy side, but that may have just been the particular one I was using, I don't know.

HP laptops can eat a dick. I have never had good times with HP laptops.

[HereComesPete]

My work laptop is HP and it sucks.

Also the upgrade to 10 is free for 7 and 8 users right?

[Dr. kitteny berk]

thirded, my dad had/has a HP laptop that started to fall apart a week after he got it and never improved.

[Grimmie]

Win 8 certainly isn't good enough to warrant seeking it out over 7, but its also not bad enough that actively avoiding it makes any kind of sense. Ive been using it for ages now, and 99% of the time you won't even notice the difference.

I had a really crappy experience trying to troubleshoot problems on my parents' Win 8 laptop, I just don't like how much they've cut things down. If I can find something decent with Win 7 on it, then I'd prefer that over the Dell with 8.

[Dog Pants]

Is it maybe worth waiting for Win 10 then? I'm not sure when that's out.

[Grimmie]

5punk consensus is "Dell or Bust" then?

[Dog Pants]

My Dell's served me well for about 8 years of occasional use now, but I'm not sure I'd say it was Dell or nothing. Just not HP. I've got a HP laptop with work too, but I'm not sure if it's shit because of the hardware or the customer's OS build on it. Which was most likely designed by HP too, actually. Personally I'm waiting for one of those hybrid laptop/tablets with Win 10 on.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

I seem to remember hearing a lot of good about lenovo, so that's also possibly an option.

[HereComesPete]

I've never had a bad experience with the toshiba laptops I've had.

Alternative possibly a windows surface?

[Grimmie]

I was gawping at http://www.ebuyer.com/660265-lenovo-ess ... op-mcc2huk - which has £50 of cashback on it too. Anyone technically minded want to have a quick nose at the specs and tell me if I'd be throwing money away?

Edit: Christ, there's three versions of that laptop with the same name, but different processors and optical drives. My head hurts.

[Dr. kitteny berk]

Looks alright to me, probably no good for any real gaming (as you'd expect with a £275 laptop) but should do nicely for a general purpose computing device.