tell me which laptop to buy please

[ladysybil]

my brain is going all fuzzy and my eyes are crossing now. Help please. i NEED someone else to make a decision for me please.

i need a new laptop. i know i want the following things.
samll screen size , so 13.6 inches or smaller
2ghz or above processor
2gb ram minimum
not bothered about size of hard drive as i have a separate extra one
webcam, dvd drive, and a memory card slot for camera. and lots of those slots for flash keys.

i dont care what make it is, as long as its not a sony vaio (bad experience. mine is currently impersonating a pink brick, aged only 20 months) i would hav eloved the macbook pro, but funds said otherwise. have also been told to stay away from atom processors and celeron ones. you would think that with all this info, i would know what i want, but, its impossible to make sense of all the stuff on line.
all advice and links appreciated.

"have also been told to stay away from atom processors and celeron ones."

I think that might be a restricting factor.

Any idea of max budget you want to play with ?

650? preferably less?

i had a sony vaio. had heard lots of good things about it, but it wont charge. having spent 75 pounds fixing it a few months ago, and to have a similarish problem happen to it again, i dont want to repeat the same mistake.

Wow! (Glad I asked - had been looking in the sub 450 range... having myself bought a Win7 laptop for 247.00 in February, as a 'thank you' gift for my sister)...

Well, I'll certainly see if I cam find something suitable to suggest...

Thank you. I want one that will last me duration of university. Am incredibly disappointed with Sony vaio. would prefer cheaper rather than pricier. Iyswim. Would appreciate all and any help you can give me.
Ps what is this 247 laptop you bought your sis. Can I get one for my son ?

It was a Compaq, reduced by 100 quid in Asda Living to clear the shelves for their other models (310 and 380 last time I was in local store) ...

Incidentally, they had a Lenovo [IBM I think] with 4GB RAM for sale at 299 ... not on the shelves but one in the stock room that was brought out to show me, as I noticed only one of the two models had a price shown, so guy brought all three from stock room.

Trip to asda then. :).

Any other advice please on what to get for me? The options are endless and I really am frazzled by the excessive choice

If your Asda is out of stock, thereś a similar model online on Ebuyer:

www.ebuyer.com/product/186602

Shame it is 15.6"and only 1.8 GHz. It does have a relatively low price (329 at present) but only 2 GB RAM.

Of course the more RAM and faster the processor the more heat output, and faster the battery will empty.

Still looking...

How about a HP Pavilion? Had mine 3 years now & still working well! Great speakers if you spend lots of time listening etc. Also lots of slots for flash keys, DVD drive, slot for SD card etc.

AMD Turion64 processor (no idea if that's what you're looking for but has served me well!

Get lots of nice comments about it's size still even now! Bought from John Lewis as they do a price match and only stock the models that they think are most reliable (a key selling point for me as I use it for work).

Have a look on their website, hope this helps!

toshiba L630 12U what about this one?

While I'd generally give a Toshiba a "tick" and can see this claims 4h 50m for battery life, I think it would be worth checking other sources (as it is either PC World or the Toshiba name pushing this up to the 500 pound mark, and I feel with 3 GB of RAM it could be cheaper, or rather, than you ought to be getting 4 GB of RAM for that much cash).

Have a quick look at this Lenovo Edge (IBM) with 4 GB RAM and while the processor is a tiny bit slower, it means a battery life of up to 6 hours. has Windows 7 Professional installed. Oh yes, and it costs 420 quid inc VAT.