Cheap Laptops

DrEvil

Any1 know where u can buy cheap laptops, preferably new. Just looking for a good deal. I was told Dell r usually the best for new ones. any help would b great

byrnenj

I've been looking at buying a laptop myself now. It seems to me that Acer are quite cheap for a decent system. Dabs.co.uk, elara.ie, and jaguarcompsys.ie all have them. Some are cheaper 4 diff systems

buddy

Try www.pcn.ie also.

Jorinn

Yeah, seems Acer are taking quite a bit of laptop market share from dell according to some reports. Also was on one of those sites that seraches store sites today, even after shipping from the US I was saving 900 euro or so on a acer tablet pc. Check out some us sites as well I suggest.

Eurorunner

even after shipping from the US I was saving 900 euro or so on a acer tablet pc. Check out some us sites as well I suggest.

How does this work as regards inport duties? Does stuff get through without duties being applied on this end?

Bannor

It depends on the carrier used - if it gets stopped by customs you'll have to pay VAT. UPS and DHL both report to customs.

WezzyB

So Do FedEx....
but not always.....

Jam

I refer you to the Revenue Commission's FAQ on Customs & Excise, Section 6.
I think it basically says that if the stuff is under 350e and marked as a gift they can't charge you excise on it. But can I get a second opinion on that?
It has worked for me when ordering gear from amazon.com, but then, I've never ordered more than 200e worth of stuff at once.
-Jam

Jorinn

You get them to write "sample" on the box. Or list the value as €12.

Smithers

anything over 100 i get shipped from outside Europe i get them to list it as a gift and worth $50 ,

Fedex have started charging me for stuff for $50 inport though ,
Only think is if its lost in transit , u can only claim back $50!


Other then gift you can write Sample as below , or Returned for repair , or Faulty goods , or test product ,

beegee1234

Can I just ask one question. Will they ever charge you any VAT if you ship some parcels within Europe?

ChiGung

Yeah you normally get charged VAT at the rate of the country it is posted from unless stated otherwise. They are normally up front about this sort of thing.

Smithers

from my experience u dont pay Vat for goods recieved inside europe ,

ie Komplett

beegee1234

What I was thinking about is sending this brand new 21" Monitor I got from france last week back to Ireland. They wouldn't charge me any VAT would they?

Eurorunner

Thanks for the info lads...another one of lifes great mysteries solved by the boards:D

^whitey^

You could hold on untill aldi and lidl do their laptops ... thats what i'm gonna do as long as I haven't spent my money by then.

conZ

www.ajp.co.uk , not exactly cheap, but you get a much better bang for your buck.

blorg

beegee1234,

You won't be charged VAT if you are just sending something from France to Ireland - there aren't any customs barriers within the EU (plus possibly the other EEA countries - Norway, Iceland and Lichtenstein).

If you are buying something from another EU country, you are charged the VAT rate in the country of sale, e.g. from UK 17.5%, Germany 16%, France 19%... In this regard you are treated exactly as a national of that country and there are no extra duties to pay on import to Ireland.

The exception is if you are a VAT registered company - in such a case if you provide your VAT number to the foreign company you should not be charged any VAT.

beegee1234

Thanks a lot blorg, that's two great mysteries solved here

deevey

Back to the future, in Angier St are doing HP 2.4 gig P4, with 64 meg ati's (m9's im guessing cant be sure though) for 1,350 euro.

Seems cheaper than most other places i'v been looking at (after the formentioned Inport duty n all that, not to mention postage, insurance, and then if somthing goes wrong!) could be worth looking into ?

Laters

cubix

How long ago was this Deevey that you saw the Hp Laptops in Back-from-the-future?.I had a quick look on their site but no sign
Thks

dj_deevey

I was onto the guy bout 2 weeks ago and he told me over the phone, give em a call i guess

car

i am thinking of buying a laptop, my bf told ne to stay well away from anything over 3ghzs and anything with a dvd rewriter as they are new on the market and have not been developed properly and may cause problems such as using up too much battery power and over heating problems.

IS he right?

As i want to prove a point !

If i was considering buying one, what spec should i be looking for.

tribble

Most people use a laptop near a power socket anyway.
The only reason they have laptops is to ensure they have the same documents and application versions no matter whether the work at home/work/college.

Sure a 3Ghz processor will hit the battery pretty hard.
But the DVD+/- RW is basically the same as a CD-RW in terms of power consumption. The only possible issue is the standard you chose + or - (or possibly DVD-RAM but that's pretty much dead as far as conusmers are concerned).
+ is almost certainly the one to go for as Dell, Phillips and Sony support it.

tribble

deevey

Say WHAT !!!! if you can get somthing over 3ghz go for it .... there is a reason that they are expensive though because they are fast and new. It depends if you need that kind of speed, is it mainly just office tasks - high end graphics, browsing watching a few DVD's ?

If its just basic office stuff and watching the odd DVD then you'll probably save yourself 500+ euro on a 2+ ghz laptop that will do the job just fine. you may even pick up a S/H one in the For sale section reasonable enough if your lucky

I certainly wouldnt say that they havent been developed properly yet, 3 gig desktops and laptops have been around quite a while at this stage and DVD writers are not that common in laptops anyhow yet (apart from apple). Cd writers maybe and they are a VERY safe bet, they are alot more common then they used to be in laptops. still quite pricey as an addon though, but recommended.

Did your BF mean that DVD burners havent become standardised yet by any chance? as above with the + - formats ?

Laters

Steve

sceptre

Originally posted by car
i am thinking of buying a laptop, my bf told ne to stay well away from anything over 3ghzs and anything with a dvd rewriter as they are new on the market and have not been developed properly and may cause problems such as using up too much battery power and over heating problems.

IS he right?

As i want to prove a point !

He is and he isn't. A 3Ghz chip will use more power than a lesser-powered chip. For a DVD writer it won't make any difference. I hope he didn't actually use the term "not been developed properly." If he did, find someone else to go computer shopping with. No idea where he got the "overheating problems" line from either. Some machines overheat, more recent chips are hotter than older slower chips and require more cooling. This is why they use more power.

I'll tell you this much though: if you can't argue the toss on whether a 3ghz procesor uses more power than a p-166 and you've no need of the extra power, stay away from anything anywhere near a 3Ghz chip as you'll be wasting your money. You won't need anywhere near that amount of processing power. Get something light above all. And would you even have any use for a DVD writer?

If i was considering buying one, what spec should i be looking for.

No-one will be able to answer that question in a way that'll be of any use to you until you mention what kind of uses you want it for. Are you a heavy games player? Media developer? Or do you just type the odd letter in Word? Come back and tell us. When you do I'll still advise you above all to get one that's as light as possible.

dj_deevey

One thing you didnt mention is how mobile you need it to be either ???

Do you intend bringing it round with you or just want a smaller desktop solution with the occasional trip outdoors

dj_deevey

BTW apologies i keep forgetting which Username to sign in with LOL

car

i mainly want it for college work but i know that if you want to up grade a laptop you have to change the entire mother bord, plus laptops are so expensive that buy the time i have a loan paid back i dont want it to be too out of date.

i wouldnt really need a dvd burner on the laptop as there's one on the pc at home (+ and - dvd rewriter) but it would be nice to say i have a
Mobile Intel® Pentium® 4 Processor 3.06GHz with 512Kb cache and 533MHz FSB with 60gb hard drive ect....

but i'd know that the amount of work that i would use it for that there's no way i would need a 60gb hard drive or 3.06ghz processor that a 1.8 or 2.5ghz would do me but if you know me when i put my mind to getting something i only want the best as i work dam hard to pay the item off.


the main reason i placed a post was that i wanted to prove my bf wrong about a 3.6GHz laptop using up to much power and causing over heating.

Gerry

Sceptre is dead right. You have no need of 3.06ghz. What does college work involve? Unless its 3d rendering, you have no need for this. Microsoft Office performs perfectly on a 1ghz machine. In fact I'm typing this on a 500mhz machine..
Buying a 3ghz machine won't lead to the machine overheating, but if you put it on your lap, you will overheat. It does use a lot of power, and this all comes out as heat. You'll also have to listen to a whining fan. You will have wasted an enormous chunk of cash. If you work so hard, spend the cash on something that will be of use to you. I really doubt you need a dvd burner either, but thats up to you I suppose.
An ideal laptop for you would be a p3-m or low speed pentium m. The p3's are cheap, and the pentium-m ( centrino ) offers extremely long battery life.
Btw, I've been using a 450mhz p3 laptop as my only pc for the last 3 months, and I've had no problems. It browses the web, plays games and divx + dvd.

tribble

Agreed, although you might want something with a little more grunt than Gerrys laptop:p

A centrino would be nice alright, ~1.5GHz, 256MB RAM, DVD/cd-rw, 40 GB HD

ooah, suits you sir

tribble