My laptop just died - could someone help me pick a new one please?

[KatyMac]

Idealy I want:

17 inch screen
long battery life
reasonably portable (although I do have a case on wheels for a 17inch)
Good keyboard with a separate number bit
fairly fast delivery (by the end of the week?)

No need for graphics or anything gaming (but I do a bit of music editing/sampling - much against my better judgement)

My Dell has been lovely (I may give it a lovely memorial service), and I could be tempted for another - but I don't think I am in the right place to change to a Mac (as my degree is due in 2 weeks and I have 7000 words to write on it, a new computer is bad enough a new OS would kill me I think)

Thanks for listening to my ansgt & please, please, help me

[VivaLeBeaver]

I bought a toshiba satellite 5 years ago. They probably don't do the same model now but it's the best laptop I've every had. I'd really recommend toshibas.

[NaokHoHoHo]

What's your budget?

[AloeSailor]

Watching

[pourmeanotherglass]

Watching too (DD is saving for a laptop). The Toshiba satellite was one of the options we were looking at. Our budget is around £200-£300

[NaokHoHoHo]

Pour - at a budget of £200-300, you're looking at a smaller screen than the 17" OP wants, those are usually more expensive than that. They are also quite heavy and less suitable for a child/teenager, I used to have one and it was a pain to lug about even as an adult! I had a look for someone with a similar budget on another thread earlier and came across this, which has pretty solid specs for the money. The processor is a little lower powered than I'd like but I assume she just wants it for homework/fb/internet etc, which it'd be fine for. The poster on the other thread ended up buying this, which is a good deal, but note that the screen is only 14" and it does not have a DVD drive if that matters to you.

[We3bunniesOfOrientAre]

Watching as I want same spec as you OP, except to mark rather than write essays! Our Compaq has been really good, but getting to be an old lady now, we got her 6 years ago and had no problems, but begining to over heat a bit, not liking getting going etc. I would buy another Compaq again if as good as that one.

[KatyMac]

The DVD is less important - but the 17 inch is vital (unfortunatley)

I do a lot of spreadsheets so I need the wide visibility to get a decent font size

But the FUJITSU looks OK & much less than I expected.

[NaokHoHoHo]

I was aiming that at one of the other posters Katy while I awaited you returning with a ballpark figure of what you want to spend, I figured the 14" would be far too small for you :)

[KatyMac]

I guess I was thinking 5-600 but after seeing that one I wonder if I could cope with 14 inches - I guess not thou' my varifocals just won't take a smaller font & read it clearly

[KatyMac]

It's my own fault I plugged it in on the cruise ship to a 'normal' looking plug that wasn't - so it died

[MadCap]

We just bought this one two days ago, and it's brilliant. Don't know loads about computers, bit loads of people have told us what a good deal it was.

www.johnlewis.com/231740124/Product.aspx

[MadCap]

sorry just saw that the 17 inch was essential. It's a 15.6"

[NaokHoHoHo]

Right.

This is a very cheap option at that screen size. However, I think the processor is a little underpowered, and if you have a bit more to spend, I'd not cut that corner if it's avoidable. For an extra £65, you'd get www.ebuyer.com/395564-acer-aspire-v3-laptop-nx-ryrek-006, which contains one of the new generation i3 processors, and will be faster. Both these laptops have 6GB RAM, and I don't think you should accept less than that for your budget and a 17" machine.

If you're actually willing to go to into your £500-600 budget, you'd be looking at something with an i5 processor (it's the next range up from the i3 in the previous machine) and they're really quite nice. Something like this here, which also has a faster harddrive, although it is the same 500GB size (which means faster data access/saving/opening). At a hair under 3kg it's also reasonably light for a 17" (but still pretty hefty...tis the nature of the beast though).

Basically, what I'd look for at a 5-600 quid budget in 17":

• Intel Core i5 processor with the fastest clockspeed (ie the x Ghz number) you can get for the money
  
• 6GB RAM or more
  
• 500GB HD or more
  
• check out the OS - Windows 7 machines are becoming hard to find, so if you really don't want to go to 8 your choice may be limited. If you're ok with going to 8 you'll have many more options
  
• You say you do a lot of Excel work. If it is important to you that this is actually MS Excel and not one of the compatible free alternatives like OpenOffice, make sure you leave some room in your budget for an MS Office license as most of these machines will not come with it.
  

Good places to look are ebuyer.com Ebuyer, Dabs and Scan. All these will deliver in a hurry, with good customer service. I also noticed some good deals with Argos earlier in their sale so that may be worth a look with those parameters in mind but obviously as they're not a tech specialist they'll be a lot more hit and miss.

Hope that helps :)

[NaokHoHoHo]

Bah, rogue extra space broke my ebuyer link. Here, of course.

[NaokHoHoHo]

Oh, and if you should decide that 15.6" is actually enough, that john lewis link above is in fact a good deal :) 15.6" is the most common laptop screen size so there are many many deals to be had, that one is nice - there'll be others out there too though.

[MadCap]

Thanks Naok for letting me know that it was a good deal! We had to replace our Dell finally after ds, who's just turned 2, bashed it one too many times.

[KatyMac]

Thanks I'll have a good look when I get home - I had assumed my Office would just install on the new laptop - I don't really want to learn a new version this week [eek]

[KatyMac]

I don't have Windows 7 yet.....gulp

[Chanatan]

Found a load of17 inch Dells.

[KatyMac]

Wow - lots there

I found one on Tesco - but I'm struggling to check the spec - so I might look in the morning when I'm not so tired

[ladyWordy]

My copy of excel 2010 has a handy zoom slider, bottom right hand side - so if the fonts are too small to see on your choice of screen, that may help?

Mine is a 15.6", with numeric keypad as standard (most 15.6s are, not all though). The screen resolution is 1366x768. I use spreadsheets on it without difficulty. The numeric keypad was the clincher for me! But that larger screen size might make all the difference for you.

Madcap thank you for that link, am in the market for something just like that. Brilliant price!

[KatyMac]

I can change the size of the fonts easily enough but in order to read accross the page I need the screen to be that bit bigger for the main spreadsheets I use - otherwise I am sliding backwards & forwards over pages to see the line I need.

It's probably the size I made them - but any smaller so I can see the entire page & I can't read the words/figures & if I make them big enough I need multiple pages

I'll start shopping in ernest this morning

[Theas18]

See my thread. I can't say I'm feeling the lurve for windows 8 but there isn't a lot of choice otherwise (JL had a lot of high spec £500 plus machines with win 7 but my budget isn't that big..). I think the one I got is going to be OK overall.

[KatyMac]

I've come to a conclusion

I want to keep my old laptop - the XP thingie is so much better

Very cross

[NetworkGuy]

I picked up a s/h Dell laptop on Ebay for a little under 100 quid back in the summer.
XP is still alive and well (though 'younger' laptops I bought before or after that one had Windows 7 on them).

"It's probably the size I made them - but any smaller so I can see the entire page & I can't read the words/figures & if I make them big enough I need multiple pages"

Quite a number of laptops have the ability to expand your desktop to be not just the laptop screen, but that and a monitor plugged in (assuming there's a VGA, DisplayPort, or HDMI output on the laptop). You would have to raise the laptop to keep the two screens level (and perhaps add in a 'blank' column to bridge the gap) but could then display left and right halves of the spreadsheet on the laptop and the monitor (assuming monitor to the right of the laptop).

Not saying it is ideal (not portable setup, uses additional power, and may confuse the brain at first) but could be a solution where a smaller laptop screen (and similar size flatscreen display) could be placed side by side.

More common to use 2 screens side by side with a desktop (with 2 video cards) than a laptop, but in theory one could have more than 2 screens (eg 2x2 or 3 in a row, as there have been some USB adaptors developed which add further 'graphics' outputs [via wireless, so no need for extra cards to fill the PC]). Gets to look a bit like a science lab or CSI though, if you have a load of monitors on one desk.