Help me please laptop recommendations, speakers, music etc

[pollycazalet]

Please can someone give me some advice?

I need to get a new laptop. No idea where to start researching. I want to be able to play dvds and watch tv on it, plus the kids need access for homework, general computer use etc. I was thinking of spending around £350.

I also want to be able to connect the laptop to wireless speakers so we can either play spotify or cds - can anyone recommend good speakers and whether you can set speakers to work in different rooms at different time? eg if we're in the kitchen the living room speakers not playing too?

Finally if we have wireless speakers can you connect an ipod

I feel hopelessly outdated and out of touch with all of this.

Take a look at this thread and this one

You'll see there are many price bands, but for a new laptop 300 is probably round the minimum cost.

I've no personal experience with wireless speakers - but would assume the music source (unless you are using Bluetooth) is always going to be the PC if that's what you were planning to use (with Bluetooth, you may have options such as using a mobile phone).

I tend to use a mobile with a 3.5mm headphone socket and plug that into speakers set up in the room I'm in (then again, I usually listen to podcasts, internet radio [BBC and others], and music tracks I have stored on a large capacity microSD memory card).

If you're buying a new laptop for use by all the family, then I'd concentrate on spending the cash on that, and later on add wireless speakers (in the meantime, a 20 quid set for a computer could be used. Also, if you get a laptop with say 500 GB hard drive, would be no problem 'ripping' (making MP3 audio files) from all your CDs (as a backup, and then store CDs away under the stairs!) and copy the tracks you most enjoy to anything you like...

In my case I have some (non Apple) MP3 players which just plug in as USB storage and can have hundreds of tracks copied onto them, then used when out walking, at the gym, or via an amp and speakers (I have an Onkyo set up in the lounge, Aiwa micro system with remote control in one bedroom and there's an older system with a turntable (!) and speakers in another room).

bargain speakers (9.99 inc delivery) for your iPod, perhaps ?

Sorry, couldn't resist!