Recommend me a laptop

[nels_tgt_er]

The laptop I bought almost 3 years ago to the day (almost), is just about finished, all sorts of blue screen issues, incapable of burning disks, hard disk playing up, feels pretty fried.

So, on a budget of say £300-£400 what do people recommend.

Clearly my main use for it is purely mb'ing, it sits on my dining room table, would not consider going back to a desktop.

Help appreciated. Even if its just a "I currently use a XXX laptop and its great"

[fogmonster]

hi ive got a medion, which a lot of people say are crap, but mines been great, when the mains lead stopped working
they sent me a replacement promptly, if you look on there site
you can usually get a bargain if your happy to buy refurbished, best of luck.

[anglo123]

I got a Toshiba Satelite thing , nels, about 5 yrs ago for about £380. You`ll get about 4gb model now for the same price

[nels_tgt_er]

Thanks for replies so far, my sis has a Toshiba Satellite about same age Anglo, never a problem, front runner so far.

[munk]

I got my mum a Dell Inspiron which is OK and has never had any problems over 3yrs or so, but I fixed a neighbour's Toshiba Satellite not long ago and was quite impressed with how solid the build quality was, I would probably go for one if I was in the market for a laptop. The insides are much of a muchness if you're just comparing like for like, I'm no expert (I would happily take a laptop apart but don't ask me to put it back together again in any hurry hehe) but I imagine the main thing with laptops is probably the physical build quality, if you get a laptop that's well built/put together and is very usable then you're onto a winner - from what I'd seen of that Toshiba that ticks all the build quality boxes, this laptop I fixed had obviously been through the wars and apart from the hard drive it was in pretty good shape and felt really responsive (hard drives are a doddle to change, it's stuff like broken keyboards, bad connections and faulty screens that are a nightmare).

[DoctorGonzo]

Always worth keeping an eye on HotUKDeals - Computers - Deals, Codes & Promotional Offers, £300 can buy decent performance these days.

[TheJoker]

Power to pound ratio you can't beat Dell, if you aren't afraid to haggle over the phone, play operators of against each other you will easily get 25%+ off.

They can be hit and miss, some people swear blind to their customer service, others hate them. Would go for the business models, a lot more sturdier than the personal ones.

[nels_tgt_er]

At this stage its worth saying the laptop thats just about dead is a Dell Inspiron 1525.

I genuinely think the drives / ports on it are all knackered. Its sat on the dining room table for 3 years and been worked pretty hard on Betfair almost every day.

[passthedutchy]

I have a few mates who work in IT and whenever this question comes up their stock answer is buy whichever Toshiba model fits into your price bracket. they might not have all the thrills and dangley bits that some of a simillar price do, but, like Munk says above, their build quality and the parts they use are top quality (unlike the cheap crap Dell use).

I have a Toshiba Satelite - paid around £350 18 months ago.

When i need another - It will be a Toshiba.

(Having said that have a quick look at Lenovo. Again, great build quality.

[wobbler]

At this stage its worth saying the laptop thats just about dead is a Dell Inspiron 1525.

I genuinely think the drives / ports on it are all knackered. Its sat on the dining room table for 3 years and been worked pretty hard on Betfair almost every day.

Might I just add to this that I have an Advent 5311 that used to be running on Vista and it has been pretty much battered, I have had it for about 3 years and it's on pretty much all the time. About a year ago it was just about to give up the ghost so what I did was a full clean reinstall of Windows 7 (my mate had a hooky disc ) and he also had an old USB powered "fan tray" that I started putting it on. I am pretty sure that saved the lappy and it is running fine to this day.

You can't buy the 5311 new any more (although clowns are still trying to sell them on eBay for silly prices) but I would swear by the laptop fan tray mate, and they are dirt cheap too. Try a full reistall and that on your old dog mate, you may be surprised.