Laptop for College

blue-army

Hi,

looking to buy a decent laptop for college.

Will be used mainly for Word Processing/Excel, Internet, iTunes and the odd game of Football Manager.

Would like something with a decent sized hard drive and that will last for a few years!

Would also like to be able to connect it to the TV via hdmi for watching movies etc.

Budget - €600-€700ish.

Anyone recommend anything?

Crow92

I have the hp Pavilion dv6

It has an
AMD Phenom II N620 Dual Core Processor 2.80ghz.
4GB Ram.
ATI mobility radeon 5470 I think it's 512mb dedicated memory with the option of upwards of 1GH from the processor.
280GB hard drive

Has Hdmi slot, card reader and 3 2.0 usb ports

Cost 650 when I bought it christmas gone in pcworld, probably went down in price or they have a newer model for the same price. Or just it cheaper online.

The battery usually lasts for 2+hrs and it seems to be a fairly sturdy machine. If the fan is a bit smothered it gets extremely hot


also has a nifty little finger reader so no need for a password to log just a swipe

montane

Crow92 wrote: »

I have the hp Pavilion dv6

It has an
AMD Phenom II N620 Dual Core Processor 2.80ghz.
4GB Ram.
ATI mobility radeon 5470 I think it's 512mb dedicated memory with the option of upwards of 1GH from the processor.
280GB hard drive

Has Hdmi slot, card reader and 3 2.0 usb ports

Cost 650 when I bought it christmas gone in pcworld, probably went down in price or they have a newer model for the same price. Or just it cheaper online.

The battery usually lasts for 2+hrs and it seems to be a fairly sturdy machine. If the fan is a bit smothered it gets extremely hot


also has a nifty little finger reader so no need for a password to log just a swipe

What a great precise recommendation.

Can I just ask, are you ever worried some psycho will cut your finger off just so he can log onto your laptop?

MarkR

montane wrote: »

What a great precise recommendation.

Can I just ask, are you ever worried some psycho will cut your finger off just so he can log onto your laptop?

I don't think someone would steal a laptop, make their escape, realize it has a fingerprint reader, and plot to find and dismember the previous owner.

Besides, you wouldn't download a finger, would you?

OMG Its EoinD

blue-army wrote: »

Hi,

looking to buy a decent laptop for college.

Will be used mainly for Word Processing/Excel, Internet, iTunes and the odd game of Football Manager.

Would like something with a decent sized hard drive and that will last for a few years!

Would also like to be able to connect it to the TV via hdmi for watching movies etc.

Budget - €600-€700ish.

Anyone recommend anything?

Any laptop these days will do this.

blue-army wrote: »

Hi,

looking to buy a decent laptop for college.

Will be used mainly for Word Processing/Excel, Internet, iTunes and the odd game of Football Manager.

Would like something with a decent sized hard drive and that will last for a few years!
Would also like to be able to connect it to the TV via hdmi for watching movies etc.

Budget - €600-€700ish.

Anyone recommend anything?

http://www.dell.com/ie/p/xps-l502x/pd?c=ie&cs=iedhs1&l=en&s=dhs&~ck=mn

This is a REALLY nice laptop for what you need.

Core i3
3GB RAM
320GB 7,200RPM HDD
nVidia 1GB GT525 GPU
HDMI Port.
€679

but for €629 you get 2GB RAM and a 250GB hard drive.

OMG Its EoinD

Just so you know , the model I listed is 629 , but I would hugely recommend the one for 679.

It has a nice GPU and CPU and a nice bit of RAM and a decent sized HDD with a fast rotation speed ( 7200RPM )

For the money the dell XPS is a really nice machine.

Liam O

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Lenovo_G570_1076389.html

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Lenovo_G570_1076390.html

different variants of the same laptop at different prices. Will be more than powerful enough for any use you will probably have and will be very future proof with the latest i5 processors.

Sitec

Friend bought this.....

http://www.pcworld.ie/Product/ACER-Aspire-5750-156andquot-Laptop-Black/305077/301

6gb ram.

Core i5.

Intel HD Graphics 3000.

HDMI

500GB Hard drive.

He's very happy with it.

certifiable

Liam O wrote: »

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Lenovo_G570_1076389.html

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Lenovo_G570_1076390.html

different variants of the same laptop at different prices. Will be more than powerful enough for any use you will probably have and will be very future proof with the latest i5 processors.

Have to say I like that second one's spec vs price; been reading reviews, seems very good.
Anyone know about lenovo, generally are they a good manufacturer.
I've vague memories of reading something about sound not been great on their laptops, or maybe that's just case with all laptops?

Edit: Plus, what's the reputation of saveonlaptops.co.uk. Good website, delivery times etc good?

Liam O

certifiable wrote: »

Have to say I like that second one's spec vs price; been reading reviews, seems very good.
Anyone know about lenovo, generally are they a good manufacturer.
I've vague memories of reading something about sound not been great on their laptops, or maybe that's just case with all laptops?

Edit: Plus, what's the reputation of saveonlaptops.co.uk. Good website, delivery times etc good?

Lenovo are basically IBM laptops and generally have a reputation for being very well built.

The laptop I'm using (Samsung Q430) now is from saveonlaptops and while Paypal doesn't really work on their site as the address doesn't go through, paying by CC is fine. Delivery is a few days by courier. You have to ring them up to confirm your address but it only takes like 2 minutes.

Overall it was a good experience and good to see they do good security checks. Get good discounts on things like bags and free antivirus too so can't complain really

pappyodaniel

I found this on another thread

Lots of ram, lots of memory plus the usual bits and bobs expected.

Works out at around €400, great price innit, I'd nearly get one myself but I'm an ACER man.

fAzI

pappyodaniel wrote: »

I found this on another thread

Lots of ram, lots of memory plus the usual bits and bobs expected.

Works out at around €400, great price innit, I'd nearly get one myself but I'm an ACER man.

how saveonlaptops sending laptops to iRELAND?

I want buy from them one laptop but when I come to checkout there is no option for Ireland

Anyone can help? Please:)

blue-army

fAzI wrote: »

how saveonlaptops sending laptops to iRELAND?

I want buy from them one laptop but when I come to checkout there is no option for Ireland

Anyone can help? Please:)

Just pay for the delivery to Ireland and put EIRE in the postcode. (still chose UK)

Worked for me last week and the laptop arrived within 2 days.

fAzI

blue-army wrote: »

Just pay for the delivery to Ireland and put EIRE in the postcode. (still chose UK)

Worked for me last week and the laptop arrived within 2 days.

ok thanks you so much. wilk do like u say

perfectisthe

certifiable wrote: »

Have to say I like that second one's spec vs price; been reading reviews, seems very good.
Anyone know about lenovo, generally are they a good manufacturer.
I've vague memories of reading something about sound not been great on their laptops, or maybe that's just case with all laptops?

Edit: Plus, what's the reputation of saveonlaptops.co.uk. Good website, delivery times etc good?

Lenovo Thinkpads are among the finest laptops going. I have a T60 and a T61. The T61 in particular is fantastic, picked it up second hand in perfect condition for 240, which was a total bargain seeing as they were retailing for well over a grand new.

They're not exactly gaming laptops but they're incredibly well built, probably the sturdiest laptop I've come across. The sound is one of the only weaknesses actually, If you want to listen to music or watch a movie you'd be advised to run it through speakers.

nearyj

I needed a laptop with similar needs to you. It came down to the Asus Aspire 5742 (Core i3, 4GB RAM, 500GB, HDMI, €487) and the Samsung RV-511 (Core i3, 4GB, 320GB, HDMI, €500).

The spec was similar but the fact that the shop selling the Asus wouldn't let me turn it on to try the keyboard, etc was the deal-breaker.

I went to the laptop shop on the top floor of St. Stephens Gn SC and played around with the Samsung. I was happy with the keyboard, spec, battery life (3hrs) and one month later I'm still happy. I went from a Dell Inspiron 6400 1GB RAM so everything is lightening quick. I can have itunes, Adobe audition, an external hard-drive plugged in, Firefox with several tabs,and Utorrent all open at the same time with no problems at all. The 3 USB slots are handy and I've found the joys of a HDMI port as I've had issues playing AVI videos from my external hard-drive attached to my TV.

The only problem I've noticed is that my last laptop had dedicated media buttons at the front such as play, stop and volume controls. I think all laptops should have these, especially the volume.

I'm not a massive PC gamer and the above laptops would have average graphics card. However, for football manager its more then enough.

Hope this helps.