Advice on getting a laptop

Vincent

My parents are gettin my sister a laptop for her 21st birthday, so what kinda laptop can i get for about £1000 give or take?. My aunt could get one in america, how much cheaper are they over there? anybody got any links to american websites? and are there any differences in U.S. laptops? like different modem-phone connections?

gandalf

Check what can get in US. The only main difference would be the keyboard (The US layout is slightly different). Also make sure you get a global warranty that will be serviced in Ireland if you do decide to purchase from the US.

THe minimum Laptop you can get these days for around £1100+VAT would be a Celeron 700 or 866. Check somewhere like Compustore to see if they have any offers !!

Gandalf.

rymus

you wouldnt get much for a grand over here I'd say. That said, I could be wrong. you might find some small retailer doing some deal but the majority of prices for anyway decent machines would be up around the 1500-2000 mark. Cos lets face it, if ure going to get a computer, you might as well get a good one.

I dunno about america, could be cheaper. the dollar to punt exchange rate isint great at the moment tho. I think the only difference in US laptops would be the power connector (2 pin as opposed to our 3 pin). I think the phone connections are the same but dont quote me on that

mite head over to haaamerica myself and load up on cheap hardware but I think I'll wait till the exchange rate goes back to around $1.40 to the punt

Illkillya

This summer, part of my job in USA was to buy laptops for contractors at work.. and eventually we just ended up getting a load of refurbished Dell Inspirions 700mhz with 10gb hard drive. This is a good way to go, but even refurbished they were $800 each.

Some of the laptops were insanely priced.. even a scummy old celeron 300 or something would be over $700.
I would advise going to the Dell website and putting your own Inspirion together like I did.. if you want to save cash, replace DVD player with 24x CD rom. You don't need a PCMCIA network card since they have network cards built in. This way you can get a good gfx card if you want or whatever. The only problem is you'll end up paying £1700 minimum for a good one. My one is really good: 900mhz, 15 inch ULTRA-blah blah screen, 20gb hard drive, 32mb geforce2, 256mb ram 1dimm etc and it ended up costing $2200 before tax which would be about £1900? the 256mb ram with 1dimm was on special offer, so that didn't cost extra, but I upgraded from 700mhz, 14inch SUPER-blahblah screen, 10gb hard drive, and normal gfx card, so you can see where I added the extra price.. but i also downgraded some things to moderate the price, like the DVD.

Regarding US laptops - theres no problem with power supply since they all come with adapters that can take 230v. Most of them (like mine) have a different shaped power chord which means you'll have to rewire the plug or else get an adapter to use the plug (thats not much hassle).. but some of them have a figure of 8 lead, like my brothers one and that means you'll have no problem using it at all.

The main difference in the keyboard is that \ is in the wrong place, but its not really a problem at all, and you get used to it quick enough

modem is the same

TacT

e-mail info@iplanit.tv, you can get nice enough refurbished laptops for around £400 what's with this J111 business when talking punts!! hey, where's my euro sign on my keyboard :eek:

Vincent

It doesn't have to be the fastest one around, like my sister will only be using it for word, using the net and listening to mp3's. But it's a 21st birthday present and it has to be new. How much for P3-700mhz, 128mb ram, cdrom, 56kmodem? doesnt' matter what gfx card. And i've isdn at home what would i need to use 64k with the laptop through my pc? no point buyin both a 56k and isdn TA card for it.

Kegser

As far as laptops under the £1000 mark go, you can pick one up fairly easily. I can't remember the exact specifications for a £999 lappie I saw the other day but I think it was around the 700Mhz mark, 64MB RAM(cheaply upgraded), 10GB HDD etc.

As far as getting ISDN on your laptop it entirely depends what way you want to go about it. If you just want your laptop to be able to connect without the help of any other machines you can get yourself a USB ISDN TA fairly easily for around £50-60.... another option would be networking it up to your home PC and just letting it access through that... but you'd need NICs etc. A PCMCIA ISDN TA would be quite pricey, as you'd need something like a Psion Gold Card and an ISDN kit for it, retailing around the £200 mark.

Vincent

ok my dad went ahead and ordered it, here's the spec

Intel Celeron 750mhz
10gb HD
96mb Ram
12.1" TFT screen
Win98
56kmodem
Ms works
Carry Case
Some software bundle

For £1049, that an ok price?

elexes

well this is what i got
1 gig p3
256 ram
30 gig hd
2 batteries
screen size is ...... how big is this thing .... think its 15" not 100%
em what else do i have on it
win me
all for 1.6k inc delivery

Illkillya

Originally posted by Vincent
ok my dad went ahead and ordered it, here's the spec

Intel Celeron 750mhz
10gb HD
96mb Ram
12.1" TFT screen
Win98
56kmodem
Ms works
Carry Case
Some software bundle

For £1049, that an ok price?

depends on the laptop... is it a Dell or what? It won't be much good to you for games, so you'll still have to lug yar comp to UL. Not much ram, small screen - if you're not using it for games it should be just the thing you need. Price is not too bad if that includes tax