Looking for advice on buying a new laptop

[Rebel Ninja]

Hi there. I was just looking for suggestions for a new laptop. I am looking to spend between £300-£400 . Mostly going to use it for the internet and doing coursework. Of course I am ideally looking for laptops from a UK source. I have had a quick look around PC World, Dell and Amazon.

[Jockel]

Don't buy from HP, Asrock and Acer.
If you can afford it, go for a Lenovo Thinkpad.
Asus is mid to low tier, MSi is mid tier and Thinkpads are top tier.

*That's all just based on my observations during the time i worked at a laptop (& repair) store.

Just make sure you avoid HP at all cost. We had to repair like two HPs with a broken mainboard PER DAY.
They all died a few weeks after warranty ran out.

And you probably shouldn't buy notebooks from amazon, because amazon takes a crazy high fee for selling stuff there.
In most cases you can find the notebook in question for a cheaper price on the companies webpage (most amazon sellers have hints in their name, just google around).

[neorichieb1971]

I'm in the same boat but i'm prepared to pay £700.

There was a Vaio with a white mac like keyboard. I have N class router so i'd have to have N class laptop.

[Jockel]

Sony Vaios also break pretty easily and are relatively pricey.
One good thing about them though, they always have a really high resolution.
However that won't be so good once you have to replace a broken display.

Once again, better go with Lenovo Thinkpads ^_~
And no worries, most modern notebooks support n-draft.

[ZOM]

+1 to Lenovo - sturdy quality stuff right there (and they look decent).

[UnscathedFlyingObject]

There are some Lenovo T series laptops at my work. They are well built but are boring looking. If you care about looks, you would probably want to get one of the other Lenovo models, though I can't attest to the built quality of those. I personally don't care about looks that much. In my opinion, the three most important things to consider when buying a notebook are built quality, functionality, and weight.

Edit: To be honest, I like the somewhat rugged, matte, square-ish design of the Thinkpads. It makes HPs look and feel like toys (I've used several different HP models at work.)

BTW, avoid shiny laptops at all cost. They look nice until you start using them. Then, you'll have a dust and fingerprint magnet and the screen is hard to see because they reflect too much light. There's a reason most business laptops are not shiny. It's not practical.

[t0yrobo]

Lenovo again, but only the thinkpad series. I haven't much anything good about their other stuff. I've heard good things about Toshiba also.

[Pixel_Outlaw]

Not really any advice for a model but if you would ever consider using your laptop as a game console consider looking for one that has TV connectability. Laptops are great little portable arcades if you have TV connectability. Just load it up with ROMs and off you go playing them on the big screen. You can have some great multiplayer secessions if you add a 4 port usb hub and a few controllers.

[Ed Oscuro]

Asus has been okay to me; the 2007 G2S-B2 laptop I got from them is experiencing some intermittent green screen which I'm going to get warranty service done on if I can find time for it (this is the last month of coverage). Not a lot of bloatware; the bundled-in applications are quirky but pretty useful. Power4Gear is pretty useful, for example. I think there are some replacements for it, but not many. Very handy for letting the fans idle. Shame about the GeForce 8600M GT and (what is probably failing) the connection between the video and the LCD panel though.

I am going to hold off on getting another laptop until I can get something like a Core i5. I was interested in Core i7 laptops but the RAM prices there are REALLY prohibitive, and the Core i5's wider range of speeds for single-core mode seems like a better fit for a laptop (that would doubtlessly be running MAME often).

[linko9]

I'd have to agree that a thinkpad sounds perfect for you. They're very sturdy, and don't run into many problems. Unfortunately, laptops can be very hit or miss; you can't really judge whether it will be well built based on the brand alone. For example, people love to complain about Dells, and for good reason, but I've had my Latitude D830 for 2 and a half years now, and have only ever had one problem (broken backlight) that was quickly fixed, and was covered under the most basic warranty. However, I've never run into anyone who's had major problems with a Thinkpad. They are of very good build quality, and while they're certainly not powerhouses, this means that they run very quietly, and the fan rarely has to kick in too much.

[ED-057]

my $.02

1) Get something with a rigid chassis if you want it to last. I've seen a couple of the light-weight plastic ones that got to the point where the system would freeze if you pick it up the wrong way because the PCB is allowed to flex.

2) Very hot-running parts are best avoided. Get something more efficient and enjoy longer battery life and not having to worry about melting something. Although maybe it isn't as much of an issue now, for CPUs at least, since it is possible to manually set the voltage and clock multiplier, so a normal CPU can be just about as efficient as a low-voltage version.

3) If you ever get the urge to run a 3D game, consider that Intel graphics is not good. Although they have gradually improved the rendering speed, AFAIK the triangle setup rate has yet to surpass a GeForce 2.

[Ed Oscuro]

For the Core 2 Duo generation, the Lenovo Thinkpad W700ds was pretty much my "dream machine," partly because of the useless extra screen and the more-powerful (but not gaming-centric) GPU. Of course, it's already less powerful than the competition and is already just about forgotten.

It also may have had a more standard keyboard than the Asus G2S-B2 which puts priority to the WASD keys, which I never use (an invention for right-handed mouse users; unfortunately the cramping for them using arrow keys would be somewhat less than for me using the arrow keys, and I like the separation of keys into groups around the arrow keys better anyways. Of course the consideration of that larger demographic trumps my wishes). I really hated being stiffed out of using two of the arrow key diagonals along with Control. Of course, a good standard keyboard will hit this limit eventually (for my Saitek Eclipse, itself another gaming-spec keyboard but without a wonky design, the arrow keys start losing priority when ctrl + alt are both being pressed - it forces me to start thinking smarter than MAME designers when I select a controller).

[system11]

Another vote for the Thinkpads. Not very fashionable, but they last a long time and you can get on-site warranty that covers system+OS if you want.

[ZOM]

Looks like I'm the only one in here liking the look of the plain ole black Lenovos.

[system11]

Looks like I'm the only one in here liking the look of the plain ole black Lenovos.

Well, fashionable and what I like are two different things - personally I like the look.