Recommend Me a Laptop.

[Petrushka]

Forumites may well recall that I have had endless trouble over the past year or so with a poor performing laptop. I currently have an Acer Aspire 7520 bought in 2007 but it has very low memory, is creakingly slow, gives severe problems with the BPO Digital Concert Hall and to cap it all the letters/numbers have worn off the keys.

I had a nice win on the horses last Saturday (25/1 and 10/1 winners) and am looking to purchase a new laptop. I use it principally for this forum, e-mail, the odd bit of correspondence, the BPO Digital Concert Hall, radio national and international, i-player and shopping. I want to try downloading music to CD. I want sufficient memory and while the Acer has a big 17 inch screen I'll settle for less. My budget is around £400 max.

Now over to you. Recommend me a laptop!

[johnb]

It probably wouldn't be within your budget but if I bought another laptop it would definitely be a Lenovo Thinkpad (Lenovo bought IBM's PC business some years ago). You won't find them in PCWorld though!

Failing that I would buy a Toshiba business laptop.

[Flay]

I bought my daughter an Asus a few months ago - she's very happy with it. Try this one:

http://www.asuslaptop.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=K72F-TY210V

[Auferstehen2]

Hello Petrushka,

One good turn deserves another (thanks for your pointer on Elgar 1)

I couldn’t agree more with johnB regarding the Lenovo – I think they’re stunning laptops, especially so after that division was bought from IBM (although I’m no expert), and must confess also to having bad experiences regarding Acer computers. The Lenovo will certainly be well outside your budget, but Flay’s recommendation for an Asus is a good one, as I do tend to hear good things about this budget make.

Good luck!

Mario

[Flosshilde]

I can't recommend any particular brand or model - I don't know enough about the technicalities. But I would give a couple of warnings. One - check the position of the control pad (that stand in for the mouse). I bought a new laptop last year that is widescreen, & the pad is off-centre towards the left. Because the natural position of my hands when I'm using it is in the centre it means that I'm constantly touching the up/down scroll area on the right of the pad, & I'm sure that having to keep my hands towards the left is causing some pain in my right wrist.

The other warning is check the operating system - I bought mine in a John Lewis sale, & realised later that it had Vista installed. Vista has been generally considered a disaster. Go for HP (pre-Vista) or whatever replaced Vista.

[hackneyvi]

Do you need a laptop? I've very much regretted buying my Toshiba laptop when I could have bought a much more portable iPad for the same money.

[barber olly]

You'll probably not thank me for recommending another Acer, but maybe things have moved on since 2007. My gateway laptop with Vista died recently and was recommended an Acer Aspire 5742, which has appered to be light years ahead of my old laptop both in speed and facilities. Windows 7 and a better processor, and anti-virus protection which does no take ages to apply, being examples.

[Pianorak]

Another vote for IBM Thinkpad (although haven't got the Lenovo) which has one of the best keyboards IMO.

[johnb]

The other warning is check the operating system - I bought mine in a John Lewis sale, & realised later that it had Vista installed. Vista has been generally considered a disaster. Go for HP (pre-Vista) or whatever replaced Vista.

Definitely avoid Vista like the plague!

The new PC I bought a couple of months ago has Windows 7 and I have been pleasantly surprised by it. Some of the things are in different places but anyone familiar with XP should find the transition very easy.

One of the near criminal aspects of the Vista era was that ordinary retail buyers were forced onto Vista whereas the more knowledgeable business buyers, who mostly resisted the move to Vista, had the choice of Vista or XP as operating systems. Of course, ordinary people could have bought a business PC or business Laptop running XP - but most just took what was being pushed at them, i.e. Vista. (Buy the way - Lenovo business PCs are also very good and well priced, though they wouldn't please the gaming addicts, etc.)

[Mahlerei]

You could always go for a Mac (assuming your win was a substantial one). i can't stand laptops generally, as I don't like the touch pad. I much prefer desktops (I have a PC and an iMac) but if portability is key I'd consider an iPad.

[ian russell]

I'd consider an iPad

Be aware that an iPad isn't comparable to a PC, or Mac, in capability and performance.

It's a great little gadget if you're mainly interested in browsing and reading, especially in an armchair rather than at a desk, though some browsing is hindered by the lack of effective flash capability which is about 25% of all web video content.

[ian russell]

I want to try downloading music to CD. I want sufficient memory and while the Acer has a big 17 inch screen I'll settle for less.

Why download to CD? Did you mean from CD? Yes, I do that a lot.

I got a 17 inch screen last time - big mistake. too big for portability, too big for laps. If I was considering a new laptop, I'd go for something smaller - probably looking at the smallest unit which housed a DVD/CD player/recorder - the smallest ones now omit this.

My 17 inch is a Sony. It's the second Sony I've owned, both as good as gold, no problems. A bit expensive though. The missus and both daughters have recently had Dells from Amazon. Around the £400 mark. They seem pleased with them.

If you have a digital flat screen TV, see if it has an HDMI port. If it has, consider having an HDMI port on your laptop. Interconnecting cable is about £20. It works well for BBC iplayer and suchlike.

If you don't like touchpads much, simply plug in any USB mouse. Best of both worlds then.

[MrGongGong]

In my experience I would avoid the Lenovo , we have a Lenovo laptop and their own defrag and wireless software is hideous and totally unnecessary anyway
same with Dell , so many schools I have worked in have these and I've had endless sound problems with them

I would go for the "cheapest Saab most expensive Lada principle" (I mean saabs of the past of course) and buy a cheap machine from a company that makes high quality machines
my Sony laptop that's now dead after 8 years was brilliant and well made, there are good deals to be had with "last years" colours etc

Vista is hideous so I would avoid that

I now use a macbook (with dual boot) which is obviously relatively expensive but reliable , the build quality and battery life of laptops is sometimes hard to asses as is the amount of noise the cooling fan makes....... our lenovo is like a hoover (as were the old mac laptops) so totally useless for me to use for sound recording etc

[french frank]

I doubt Vista is pre-installed on any PCs now, is it?

Assuming you want to go for a PC (I have a PC laptop, and a Mac desktop which I find the 'best' [sic] of both worlds), I have a Compaq Presario which when I bought it about 3-4 years ago cost about £600. You can now get one of the newer models well within your £400 budget, with Windows 7 (of which I have no experience). It had a far superior spec to my previous desktop (a Packard Bell, so still HP).

I had one problem only (the CD drive 'disappeared - solved easily over the telephone under the guarantee) and it's fine.

The main thing about laptops is that most important is not what make or model you buy - but the individual machine. With a long enough guarantee period to deal with any teething troubles and provided the hard drive and memory are big enough for what you need you should be pretty safe buying a new machine from a reputable maker at the price you want to pay.

Re Mr GG's point: battery life may be something you want to look at. Or it may not ...

[johnb]

MrGongGong,

Interesting what you write about Lenovo laptops. Is your Lenovo one of their ThinkPad range (i.e. the continuation of the IBM Thinkpads) or from their other ranges?

I bought my (IBM) Thinkpad R51 just as IBM announced the sale of its PC business to Lenovo. It is very quiet indeed and has worked perfectly for the last 6 years. Before that I had a couple of business grade Toshiba laptops, not the ones found in PCWorld but much preferred the Thinkpad. (I have no personal experience of their current Thinkpad range though it seems to be well regarded.)