Best laptop

[Drift]

A friend in work has £400 to spend on a laptop, what would be the best at that price?
General surfing mostly and media stuff.
Cheers

[Dannyboy]

Firstly i know absolutely nothing about these technical things but our lass has had a few and she really rates this new ASUS thing weve got?? Probably no help what so ever but i thought id reply to your post anyway mate
Now im going to the fridge!

[Trugga]

I bought one of these last year for £320

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/hp-pavili ... 5-pdt.html

A mighty fine bit of kit for the price.

Therefore, your friends £400 could go quite far.

Lawrence

[RatCav]

To be honest you can do a lot lot worse than the one Trugga posted.

Go in store and say you like it but would also like Office suite. make them an offer with the cash in your hand of £400 for the laptop, office suite and a free laptop bag

They might give you some shim sham, but settle for nothing less than the laptop and Office.

[BoxCleva]

Make sure it's the full office suite. Not the starter edition .

I wouldn't give PC World the steam off my s**t.

Try here http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Computer/cat/Laptops . Free delivery, excellent service and always cheaper than PCW

[Retro Pedro]

Here's the reason why I've got a massive credit card bill this month. Bought my grand-daughter something similar to this ready for when she starts secondary school next September
http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/toshiba-s ... 5-pdt.html
I need to double check because the one we bought Chloe was definately advertised as having 8gb memory, 750gb hard drive.
As always it's horses for courses and for top draw stuff Sony as got the name. The salesman told us that the Toshiba promotion had manufacturers support, hence why there were 3 flavours - 4gb memory at £329, 6gb memory at £369 and 8gb at £399 - thereabouts.
The deal I got was to sign up for the monthly anything happens insurance (£8) with the first instalment free then an additional £25 off for signing up to the insurance. Although I haven't cancelled, the idea is that you cancel the insurance before the next payment is due. I've decided to leave it on Chloe's laptop because her little brother can be a right little shitte when he's having is temper and there is a risk of the lappy getting launched down the stairs.
Again, individuals choice, I've always been under the opinion to get the best memory spec etc you can afford, what with updates and new versions of operating systems possibly coming round the corner.

[BoxCleva]

I have two customers who pay me rather than use their 'free' PCW warranty.

[Mr Mud]

I totally agree with Boxy.......I also wouldn't give PC World my steam all their interested in is flogging over priced insurance to vulnerable people

[Retro Pedro]

Don't take this the wrong way guys - but why are PC World so crap?
I've got no personal reason to defend them or attack them - all I know is I bought an HP laptop from them over 3 years ago and, touch wood, it still seems to run OK with no issues.
Is it the staff knowledge levels or is it what they sale in the boxes?
Believe me I'm no expert, far from it, I just listen to the younger geekier peeps at work etc. and try and get the jist of what their on about. I have a look online at purchase time, and if nothing comes up astonishingly cheaper at the same spec, I personally prefer go down the local store to buy just in case there are any issues and it as to be sent back.
Are there far more superior quality component machines to be had from the online selllers - ebuyer, etc. or is all the affordable stuff made in China anyway?


Just straying a bit, but I'm going to mention it, the only bloke I know that as spent mega money on building a PC is the IT fella from work - oil cooled this and that with all the high speed gubbings. This fella happens to be into online gaming so reaction speed is very important - and then 6 months down the line it's not fast enough.

[BoxCleva]

@Pete.

The products they sell are not the issue. A HP Model no. xxxxx is the same from PCW as any other supplier (although usually a tad more expensive). The problem is absolutely everything else they do.

1. Staff are paid on commission which isnt always a good thing and certainly does not mean you (the punter) gets the independant advice you would expect. It is not unusual to go into PCW one month and be told that Norton is the best Anti Virus on the planet, then go in a month later to be told that McAfee is the best thing since sliced bread. They are targeted to sell X amount of products and base their advice on this. Not ideal !

2. Warranties. They are expensive and have more get out clauses than you could possibly imagine. They offer little 'real world' peace of mind and should be avoided at all costs.
To cut costs all of PCW's machines go to a repair company on the south coast (the exact location escapes me now) . They had one of my clients PC's for 3 weeks to replace a hard drive. It came back with a second hand hard drive with someone else's documents on it I pulled the hard drive and it was 18 months old. PCW appologised profusely and it was collected again. 2 weeks later a new hard drive was fitted. That's five weeks with no laptop and the planks that did the job said they couldn't recover any data from it, so they'd wiped the lot and reinstalled Windows on the new drive. No updates, no A/V, nothing (thankfully I'd backed up all the data from it prior to it being sent off). This client now pays me to do work on this machine rather than get it done 'free' by PCW.

3. I have had clients mocked and belittled by staff members because they have refused their very persistant attempts to sell the add on's. I had one lady leave the store almost in tears because of the way she was treated, purely because she said she was happy to use free anti virus and firewall solutions rather than the paid for versions PCW were trying to sell.

4. And then there are stories like this http://www.channelregister.co.uk/2007/0 ... orld_dogs/ , I'd like to say it was an isolated case but it isn't.


It would appear that you have been lucky Pete and your laptop has been reliable which is brilliant. Unfortunatly the only way to judge any company is how they deal with things when things go wrong. Thankfully you haven't had that problem.


Make up you own mind

[JEOH]

Well, a few years old but doing fine - got a Dell 501 insp - ordered by phone and cc - got excellent advice and a good discount.
Go for "professional" editions with the system and office. Have win xp - cannot tell anything more actual...

[stretch]

Personally i'd stay clear of PCWORLD many many years ago I went in there ot look at a desktop found one I liked asked the guy if the one next to it was any better he said yes however the spec was the same but the other was more expensive, they'll try and and see you the most expensive thing they got and many people have told me the same. Their warranty isn't worth the paper it's written on and again they get paid commission for selling this.

I recommended to my mate this http://www.ebuyer.com/294485-asus-x54c- ... 54c-sx127v he bought it and loves it. If you buy a bag at the same time it's £334.98 all in.

[Drift]

Top tips and comments thank you very much guys, I will pass the info on

[furball]

DSG (PCWorld/Currys/Dixons) don't operate a comission system anymore. They got rid of it many many years ago.

As someone who spends 1/2 his working life fixing stuff for them all over the country I can safely say that as with any organisation of that size there are good staff and there are bad staff. The geekier ones will absorb the training they get and use it to help whereas the people who are there because it's a job and they aren't necessarily interested in computers will learn the words and the lingo but they won't really understand what they're talking about. They'll just focus on the relentless sales targets set by DSG.

As with any large purchase you should do your research and look up anything you aren't sure about on google. It's definitely worth checking out sites like ebuyer, dabs and misco too though as they are often cheaper than places that have the overheads of running physical shops.

One thing I would say is that whatever you decide avoid Comet at all costs as they will most definitely stiff you.

[yaki]

I tend to go and look in Comets/PC World/Tesco Extra etc to see what is on display and which ones are still in 1 piece. Did this last Christmas before buying my youngest a laptop for Christmas.

Why

Display models get all sorts poking and prodding and you can see which laptop's cope with wear and tear and how well the keyboards hold up

PC World cover, not impressed although my experience is now several years old, had a Sony laptop which kept over heating and would crash, took it back 3 times and all they did was reinstall the Operating System when obviously there was something else wrong. After having strong words with them they promised it would be sorted and when collected I opened up the box to check only find it was still in bits with lots of broken bits of plastic

Had a new replacement out of them tho

[BoxCleva]

DSG (PCWorld/Currys/Dixons) don't operate a comission system anymore. They got rid of it many many years ago.

They'll just focus on the relentless sales targets set by DSG.

So the end result is the same .

[furball]

DSG (PCWorld/Currys/Dixons) don't operate a comission system anymore. They got rid of it many many years ago.

They'll just focus on the relentless sales targets set by DSG.

So the end result is the same .

Well.. kinda.. yes

[adyclemo]

PC World and the staff are not paid on commision, any bonuses they get are not worth the paper theyre on and get nothing in return for selling you the other stuff. In a nut shell its like this:

sell laptop/pc + warranties + extras = peace and quiet from manager + higher targets + pressure to do more + keep your job
sell laptop/pc withought anything else = harrasment and constant questioning as to why + performance managed + threat of job = no job

Recommend Dixons Retail as a place to work = NO they just need the job, or maybe thats just my local stores


In relation to Ste's original question you wouldnt go far wrong with that laptop suggested by trugga if that is all your friend wishes to do.