9 replies to this topic

[Toddyuk]

This is abit off topic but i thought id ask you guys as you seem to be on the ball.
Am looking to buy a laptop as this will be my first laptop iam not up to speed with what i need ..
Iam not wanting to spend a fortune around £600 but i want a half decent one say 1.5ghz 15.4 screen and 40gb hard drive but i want a wireless network one, Now iam not sure what i should be looking for as i have seen a few saying 10/100 Lan and others saying something like 11b/g and i want to be able to use it with my broadband connection which is 2mb but dont want to lose any speed from this connection , Do i need the 10/100 Lan one or is it the b/g one and do i need to get a router aswell ....
Any advice ? Sorry to sound dumb

[Dmaskeze]

You will not lose any speed from your broadband on the ethernet or the wireless G connection. Wireless G apparently runs at 54MB/s I have an E-machines laptop with wireless G and runs my 2MB broadband through a router, the chip runs at 2.5GHz so it's quick, It cost £649 from Dixons!!! and it's fantastic, has a 40GB HD 256MB RAM and a widescreen! 64MB 3D graphics card too... have a look at PC world/Dixons (UK) and see see what you can find.. Your Braodband connection wont even put a dent in your wireless connections bandwidth and will run at full speed, with ample headroom!

[Toddyuk]

Thanks for that dmaskeze , That helps alot ill look out for wireless G connection , seems like a good bargain that 2.5ghz . I have been looking at that Dell 6000 which sells at £557 at the moment its at 1.5ghz 40gb 512 ram ethernet connection its got some good reviews on laptop review site .
I have had a look in pc world and they also have some good bargains prob the cheapest ive seen and a good range .But as i say wasnt too sure what i needed..
Nice to know that my broadband would not be strangled by wireless that was prob one of my main concerns .. Thanks alot

[Bencrest]

Well, you DON'T want [and this is my humble opinion!]

64mb Shared [also called UMA] Graphics -

Nowhere NEAR as fast as say my 32mb Rad9000M chip, and a resource hog. When you consider the laptop only has 256mb RAM, you are only able to access 192mb because of the graphics subset and even that is damn apalling

2GHz+ Celeron, P4 or Athlon processors - unless you are next to a mains socket!

If you are like me and want mobility, then you really need to get a Centrino/Pentium M or one of the Athlon M processors that operate around 1.5GHz. You'll get 2x the battery life, and exactly the same performance as the equivalent processor [my Centrino 1.3GHz is approx a 2Ghz P4 if I remember]


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As for Wireless Networking, while I love the Centrino chipset and use the inbuild 802.11b on my laptop [yeah it's only 11mbit, but when my ADSL is 0.5mbit who cares?!], you CAN get a wireless laptop card or USB adaptor for about £15 these days, so don't reject a good laptop because it doesn't have it

If you really need Floppy Discs, don't forget to keep an eye on the specs. I reckon about 5% of current laptops have an FDD

IF you buy on eBay, for gods sake ask them for real life battery life figures. Many eBayers say 'includes battery', when it comes with a 100% dead battery and a replacement is, in my case, about £80 [thank god it still holds 4>5 hour charge on Solitaire ]

[Toddyuk]

Nice one cheers bencrest thats perfect advice for me i noticed alot of these laptops in the lower range were shared graphics and wasnt to sure what that meant ..
also having a 1.5ghz could be just as good as a p4 2ghz if you know what your looking for , now i do Cheers
Iam taking a print out of this to my shop and demanding your specs ..
Cheers for this ben worth its weight in gold to me

[Bencrest]

If it is cheapness you are after...

http://www.ebuyer.co...oduct_uid=86368

Best bets would be things like Acers at eBuyer, they recently had some GREAT Centrino based lappys in, from memory with decent Radeon graphics, for around £600.

Staples do sometimes get the Acer Centrinos in for about £500 as well.

When I go on about graphics, I guess if you don't intend to do graphically intensive work then 'Shared UMA' type graphics are fine, but it is seriously a waste of RAM - only consider it if the unit had 512mb of RAM and you know that you definately don't want to run anything more recent than Quake3

[Toddyuk]

Cheers ben ill look into them acers

[Toddyuk]

Just a word of warning ebuyer are great if the item purchased works but a right c*** to get hold of if it f***s up.

alth

Point noted cheers

[Toddyuk]

What do you think of this one ben

http://www.ebuyer.co...oduct_uid=90091