Can anyone advise on buying a laptop PC?

[Hathor]

I need to buy a laptop PC for work out of office. Don't know where to start - and have never used one either. Anyone with any advice? What to look for/avoid. Will need Office and internet. Also needs to be good value as it is out of my own pocket.

Dell do good laptops & have good prices.

My DH chose ours and he generally knows his stuff. Its an acer aspire 5670...no idea why he chose it tbh, buts its been great for us so far. We paid for ours, not sure how much but we are not rich, so I expect it was good value.

We have a friend who works for Dell who said 'don't buy one' !!!

Oh,why not cat?

look on GATGET SHOW website

GADGET

Thanks. I know nothing at all about them. Is there a difference between laptops and notebooks, or is it just a different name? Does anyone use them for their main work or is the keyboardd too fiddly?

I am on Laptop nearly all day 7 days a week

mumsnetting etc

Mine is a TOSHIBA cos DH got it cheap through work

Would you recommend it RTKanga?

I've got a Dell Inspiron and it's fab. I bought it from Dell from their website when they had one of their deals on. My old laptop, which DH bought off eBay, was a Tosh. Lasted for some time then the hard drive failed and I lost everything.

Have a look here:

Dell Inspiron

Looks like a good deal. Dell's notebook range starts at £329 at the moment.

Yes sort of but the fan needs to be replaced cos it whirrs loudly

But it is on for 14 ++++ hours per day

Thanks for the info. I'll look at these suggestions.

Sorry to go against the grain but I have a Dell inspiron (spent about £1K on it) and it has been a real hassle. The keyboard broke just after a year and it took over a month - and many hours holding on the phone - to get it sorted (bad customer service as it is a very quick repair). Since it was replaced two months ago it has broken again.
So I can't recommend Dell, I think the aftercare is awful and while the prices seem good on first viewing, as soon as you add any extras to your purchase they shoot up.
I wish I had bought another make with better aftercare and also prob a desk top so I could hide the keyboard from 2 year old DS.... (enough said!)

our friend said that their prices were cheap because they are made cheaply - makes sense though. I guess it depends what you need and also a bit of luck - afterall, even something expensive cn break.

The last laptop we had was an IBM which was fab, abd good support, but expensive (dh's work paid)

DH says, whatever you get, pay the extra money for the 3 year warranty.

I think our acer is a notebook - it gets quite hot and they say this is because its not a laptop. but we use it on our laps all the time.

I've got an Apple iBook - it rocks. It runs Office, has built in Wifi, Bluetooth and has never had a virus (they don't write many for Macs), built in DVD writer, built in Webcam, speakers and microphone. Lots of free software too. Looks the dogs cajonés as well.

Against the grain completely, sorry.
M

OOoohh get u Mrshev

I'm a designer! It's part of the uniform along with polo necks and bad shoes...

Noooo not the velcro type of shoe!?!

Sony Viao's are the bees knees...

Not me, thank gawd - I'm wearing Nikes. But a lot of designer friends I know wear dodgy brown pointy shoes.

Women designers dress better though, BTW.

What exactly do u design??

I'm head of animation for a leading kids tv channel. I design and animate 3D stuff, mainly .

Cool

We got DD1 a fairly basic laptop from Dell for uni, cost about £400, and it was incredibly slow on the internet - then it got nicked and following advice on here we got a refurbished IBM T40 notepad from here for £300+ and it's fab, really quick and much smaller and lighter.

The place also sells on ebay and they are cheaper on there, but the descriptions of those imply dodgy screens etc, the website ones appear to be sound.