Decent Laptop on a Budget

pokerface_me

I'm looking for a Laptop for the other half folks for the Christmas. I'm not a computer expert by any strecth of the imagination neither is herself.

4 musts though

Must run farmville on Facebook smoothly, she's addicted and frezze's quite alot on my old machine.

Must be able to insert chips from phone and cameras to upload photo's.

Must be wireless.

Must not have Vista, i have it and wrecks my head, very slow.

After that i open to all ideas, Budget is roughly 500quid give or take a few euro's. All ideas really appreciated and hope to purchase soon enough. Nearly bought one in Power city last night but felt i'd get it all wrong and end up with something similar to my own, where farmville just doesn't work at all.

Thanks a million

ronano

for your requirements i'd think even 500 is a bit much :P does the size of the laptop matter? I'm using a samsung nc10 which would do all of things you want but it is 10 inch screen so quite small. They are retailing online at elara.ie for 381 euro but i think the price is falling. I was in newcastle airport few days ago and they were being sold for 250 euro,if you do decide to get nc10 make sure its the longer 6 cell rather than 3 cell battery.

I'd wait for feedback from others before deciding what to get good luck though

Gadgetman496

Something like this maybe?


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green123

pokerface_me wrote: »

Must be able to insert chips from phone and cameras to upload photo's.

Must be wireless.

a card reader is what you are looking for, some laptops have them , some dont. but dont let this be a deal breaker because you can buy card readers that plug into any usb slot on your computer for between 5 and 10 euro on mymemory and other sites.

all new laptops are wireless ( well 99.9 % anyway )

the nc10 posted above and all them small netbooks dont have dvd drives if this matters to you.

overall its hard to beat a cheap dell, also check dabs and elara. laptops direct are a bit more risky but are very cheap.
pc world are not as expensive as they used to be either.
and power city would be ok too.

make sure the processor dual core or core 2duo and the laptop has at least 2GB of ram.

you should be able to get it for a bit less than 500




.

random.stranger

If it is a netbook your looking for, the nc10 is good.

Also worth looking at is the asus eee 1005 ha, going for e309 in komplett.ie at the moment (if you pick it up). here's the link

edit: i think this is the model with the 10hour rated battery

maninaskirt

The PCworld advert that loads up on this page has nice little dell for €469...there are others cheaper http://www.pcworld.ie/#....if you down to PCworld and have a look around. PCworld are nowhere near as bad as they used to be.

Capt'n Midnight

if the card isn't SD you would most likely need a reader anyway

Micro-SD USB readers can be bought in the €2 shops (as can SD readers)

Catalyst

Dont think N270/N280 netbooks will be fast enough to run flash like farmville, cafe world .... smoothly

Maybe on a light browser like opera/chrome but will be pushing it ...

eamon234

maninaskirt wrote: »

The PCworld advert that loads up on this page has nice little dell for €469...there are others cheaper http://www.pcworld.ie/#....if you down to PCworld and have a look around. PCworld are nowhere near as bad as they used to be.

If you're buying a Dell buy it from Dell - you can pick up an Inspiron 15 with Dual Core Celeron processor (will do fine for what you need) 4gb Ram and Windows 7 for €399 delivered.

mud

I bought a new Compaq (HP) notebook in Soundstore last week for €469. Windows 7, card reader, decent.

dazzday

I would 100% reccomend going for a netbook. Bought my girlfriend a Acer Aspire One back in September and she was over the moon with it. It was a suprise but she had similar needs to your other half

1. Farmville MUST work!
2. Wants it for storage of photos etc
3. Will want it to browse for shoes etc online!
4. Wants something thats easy to use and userfriendly (in no linux etc!)

Aspire one did all of the above and more (i got it with XP, tweaked it up a small bit, cleaned it up and installed all neccessary features she'd want).
Recently upgraded it to Win 7 and it runs even better.
Such a great little machine... 8 hours battery life small and very light and as she said "the cutest thing shes ever seen!"...in fact I was tempted to keep it for myself!

CombatCow

Catalyst wrote: »

Dont think N270/N280 netbooks will be fast enough to run flash like farmville, cafe world .... smoothly

Maybe on a light browser like opera/chrome but will be pushing it ...

Yeah farmville and especailly cafeworld are very very heavy on the browser anyway, not well optimized. I have a Samsung NC20, bigger screen and great battery life, comes with xp home and 1gb ram upgradeable and has a decent graphics card. *Oh and a 3-in-1 (SD, SDHC, MMC) card reasder


http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Samsung_NC20_Nano_U2250_1.3_GHz_-_12.1_Inch__TFT_NP-NC20-KA05UK/version.asp?PID=1323

http://www.samsung.com/uk/consumer/pc-peripherals/notebook-computers/n-series/NP-NC20-KA01UK/index.idx?pagetype=prd_detail&tab=features


CC