laptop recommendations

[enormouse]

Looking for tech advice.

My last laptop was bought for me by my dbro and it was completely wrong for my needs. Way too big, too powerful. Essentially, a gamers laptop that was too heavy to transport for studying. I don't want to seem ungrateful as my dbro spent a lot of time choosing it but I think he just chose a laptop he'd want for himself.

I'm now looking to replace it as it is almost dead. I'd really appreciate advice as I don't want to wander around pc world feeling totally lost

• I would need it for studying (part time this year, full time next year), so I'd want it to last and be fairly up to date.
• decent memory (4-6GB) and hard drive (500 GB) but I would also be getting a portable hard drive as well.

-preferably running Windows 8.

• entry level processor. I don't need anything ridiculously fast.
• light, 15.6" or smaller (my old one was 17" or bigger with some sort of super battery).
• £200 - £350. I think this puts me in the refurbished laptops price bracket as opposed to brand new.

I'm not very familiar with brands so I don't know if one brand is better than another.

Thanks if you've got to the end of this.

You can get a brand new Dell for under £350, it's a good brand and has great support too (their support used to be terrible but they have really sorted it out now).

This inspiron is £329:

www.dell.com/uk/p/inspiron-15-3537/pd?oc=cn35317&model_id=inspiron-15-3537

I've just bought an Acer Aspire with an i5 processor, 4Gb RAM, 750Gb hard drive for £379 plus a few ££ for fitting and so on. I'm sure there are slightly cheaper models, eg with an i3 processor and/or a smaller hard drive. We've had several Acer laptops and find them reliable and well built.

My dp is very keen on acers and has a gamer type laptop from them. How long have your acers lasted just? Dps track record isn't great but he is clumsy and runs them into the ground.

I like that one elly. I was thinking of a dell or a hp. My old monster is a customised dell and has really lasted, though I think it's feeling it's age now.

enormouse, well one of them has been going for about 4 years. DD got one just before she moved abroad, 2 years ago. It has just packed up: she was doing some serious number-crunching on it (stats packages) which I think fried it. Luckily she had also taken her old one as a spare. It's also an Acer, 6 years old and has been brought back into service as a stopgap and it's working fine.