so, reading up

seems like refurbished can be a real good idea, depending on the retailer and warranty

tempting!

I was actually going to recommend an acer laptop. I've had one for the last year or so, has served me well. Very well.

I wouldn't buy refurbished though. Do you really need 17" ? I was quite happy with 15", and you should be able to get similar specs as that one new for the same price.

well, this one is 15" and it drives me insane :(

Well this is a good laptop, if you are happy with it being refurbished I say go for it.

well, I'm just thinking

providing the price is right, the majority of us wouldn't think twice about buying second hand

computer parts on ebay, cars, appliances and whatever, so why does there seem to be a stigma when it comes to buying something refurbished? :P surely that's a lot better than something that's just used.

and as far as I can tell, all refurbished items are professionally (lol) wiped clean, all damages repaird, repacked and more often than not - updated. and coming from a respected (haha) high street retailer with a manufactures warranty makes it all the more legit for a good product...

but like, refurbished.... just a fucking stigma to it really that screams noooooooo

maybe i'm just being a snob :D

Like you've said, I think that refurbished laptops are put in pretty good condition before they're sold, and I have thought about buying it before. However, laptops are extremely difficult to repair and if there are issues you need to take it back. If it's over warrenty, you're screwed. Which is why I would be careful with laptops.

I buy second hand cars because, well, it's cheap and most of the time you have the same amount of problems with a new car that you do with a second hand car. That said, I've been in few accidents which have been caused by driving a shitty car.

I wouldn't buy any computer parts second hand, first hand is cheap enough, and a saving of 10% or 20% ain't worth the trouble that could be caused by it.

another one for acer, had very good experiences with acer.

had an acer for many years and it was pretty good I'd say, but when I went to the shops to buy a new laptop recently the new acers seemed to be of way lesser quality (manufacturing) than before. went for a lenovo 3000 n500 (specs: 2x2.16ghz dualcore, 2gig ram, 320gig hdd, the edition with geforce9300), runs q3 at several hundred fps and plays hd just fine, too. granted, lenovo is not the cheapest brand there is (mine was €500 without os) but this one is so way better manufactured than anything I got my hands on in the stores, I don't regret it one bit.
depending on whether you want to move it around lots and what resolution you actually want, it might be a good idea to get a 15.4" instead of 17" (they're fucking heavy) and get a 2nd monitor for it. getting higher resolution on a laptop gets really fucking expensive and often ends at something like 1680x1050 anyway. you can get a huge 2nd display with like 1900x1200 that offers more than twice (!) the workspace compared to the common 1280x800 resolution, for something like €200-300. and that's just gonna rape for demos/work/movies, I'm about to get one myself.

doesn't hurt to go to shops and have a closer look to the ones you want to buy, like where sockets are, whether everything has a gay glare look, display opens easily (maybe even one-handed) but still holds its position when shaking (train etc), keyboard doesn't move as a whole when you press down a key in the middle, and so on. also fuck amd and ati.

macbook x-d

Have you considered a netbook? I'm using an HP Mini, and it might not have a lot of power, but it's very portable. I'm not quite sure if it can handle Q3 with any sort of high FPS, but it runs SC/diablo 2/movies perfectly. Most netbooks have a crappy keyboard, but the HP Mini has a better keyboard than any laptop I have ever owned/used.

I bought this many months ago, so newer netbooks are sporting even more power/features -

1024x600 display (very shiny)
1.6ghz intel atom processor
1gb ram
16gb SSD hard drive
2 USB ports
internal wifi and 1 hidden ethernet port
webcam in display
Windows XP

will buy a netbook only after nvidia ion comes into the market

Netbooks already have pretty poor battery life, so I wouldn't expect them to get any better in the GPU department for a long time. On battery, just browsing the web, I can get about 2-3 hours on this one.

get a 13" laptop and buy an external monitor.. dragging 17" laptops around is totally gay.

I am carrying around 17" myself, and I ain't complaining. Neither is anyone else. *cough*

haha that's bs :) I have a 13" sweet baby and love taking it to school/airports. With 17" I wouldn't even bother.

Schools.... rofl.

haha.. swoosh! :D

Hah, yeah. That made the joke work. ^^

If you can get a same spec Dell for that price get one. In my personal experience Dell > Acer. If you ever have the need or want to upgrade the RAM or CPU or retrieve the hard disk it's relatively easy to do on a Dell in comparison to everyone else.

Asus do nice laptops as well.

I don't know much about computers but I'd say stay away from fujitsu-siemens.
A little warning :)

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/store/pcw_pa...w_all=true

There is a blu ray one at the top.

CPU

Preferably Intel Core 2 DUO. I would not obsess too much between the model numbers, they're all around 1.7-1.9 GHz for that money.

They will run quake 3 at 125hz (I meant FPS!), though you'll probably need a few config tweaks to guarantee framerate.

Look for HDMI ports, if they come witih E-sata out that would be nice too so you can link desktop hard drive, but there ways around that.

Only thing I would warn of, the newer the laptop, the less likely it is that the hardware will work with XP.

So that means if you want to install XP, you might find that the hardware like wireless card will ONLY work with vista OS.

But they all come with 3-4 gig of ram, so no real worries and a lot of XP software will work on Vista.

So you should get somethign that works for 400-450 ish, not much point in spending more for quake 3 and movies.

That one with the Blu Ray is tempting, but i already have two decent laptops and am perfectly happy to watch 700mb rips.

Really, no point in going round and round in circles, just buy one and they'll work for what you want. For that money there won't be much in them. Refurb is fine, but sometimes they give really shitty discounts, or in some cases, no discounts, which always pisses me off when I talk to the local "compta expert".

the screen will be limited to 60hz, possibly do 75hz at some res'

soz i meant FPS.

Yeah laptops are tft's are mostly limited to that range.

I thought you didn't pirate?

He actually buys the cinema projection reels directly from the film's distributor before he will even watch the DVD. Though they do give him a discount when he tells them Guile's sonic boom was his idea.

best guile ever.

I think you typically get your moneys worth, unless you get lucky.

basically get core 2 duo, dedicated gfx(maybe abit more expensive tho), 4gb ram and a decent sized hdd...

Brand wise, id go dell/acer/hp(maybe)

17 inches is too big, not really a laptop anymore. Ebay yourself a Sony Vaio, 12 or 13 incher. They are fast, sexy, and the batery lasts like 5 hours.

we get it, you're in an economically favourable position such that you have the means to purchase a new laptop. but srsly, making this thread.

god forbid someone research and consult with those who have experience and more knowledge

idiot.

which univ are u going to?

none.

;-D

:-D

What for a 400 quid budget laptop?

Wow, times that hard?

thanks for the help people

carrying weight around isn't an issue, I've always carried a lot of shit around with me, you all need to bench press 500lb like that nigger vorpal

anyway, I'm leaning away from the refurbished idea now, it's over kill for what I need and reviews of that model are very hit and miss, it was just screaming bad idea.

I think i've narrowed it down to these two, or something along the same price range and spec

http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_pag...oid=-34014

http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_pag...egory_oid=

battery life isn't too impressive for either of them but then it seems battery life isn't impressive at all unless you're going for real small screens which I'm not going to do and even then they can suck

buying a monitor idea is a little silly no? it makes sense if you're replacing a desktop PC but then anyone buying a laptop to replace a desktop PC needs shooting (unless you're being mobile as well)

now to shop around for similar models at the best prices, going to be cheaper than I thought, well this is practically free as the university will ever so gladly reimburse me £300 if I provide proof of purchase!

Go with the last one.

The CPU is not quite as good as the Intel IMO, but it does mention Nvidia 8200 graphics, unlike the top one which says nothing.

And it has HDMI out which as I said originally is a good thing.

I would say for 400 you can't go far wrong with that and will do what you want.

Lastly, take a look on the tesco website (cos I know you just want to go and buy it imn person) they have some decent stuff there.

fook, i forget I get 10% off there as well

good idea jamerioson

wtf, why aren't they telling the resolution at any point
had to go to google it: http://www.laptop-pc.org.uk/acer-laptop-pcs/a...43-laptop/

1366 x 768, pretty bad, I have 1680x1050 on my m1530, and I'd not use a computer with anything less

Who cares?

You don't need more than 1280x1024 on a laptop.

It will still play high def movies 720p and does not have the 3d performance to run anything wothwhile anywhere near that resolution.

Plus surfing the web on anything higher than 1280x1024 is just horrible on anything less than 22 inches.

"Who cares?"
can you read? I do?

"You don't need more than 1280x1024 on a laptop."
No, I do. And he doesn't even have 1024 but 7!6!8!?

"It will still play high def movies 720p and does not have the 3d performance to run anything wothwhile anywhere near that resolution."
SO fucking what? You can play movies on a 480x320 ancient b&w TV and enjoy them. Have you heard of the Desktop? What if I want to have to windows side by side and still check up on 3 other status windows of something?

"Plus surfing the web on anything higher than 1280x1024 is just horrible on anything less than 22 inches."
What? Have you heard of multi-tasking? Never had two windows open at the same time or wanted enough space left so you click a shortcut without moving windows aside? Lastly, what the FUCK doe INCHES have to do with anything? What, if the screen doesn't have nail sized pixels, you can't figure out that you can move it up closer?
Holy shit, you're one hell of layered absurdity cake.

its a laptop, most people are just not going to do that and let me introduce you to a little command called Alt+Tab.

Even with 1280x1024, you can fit a surprising amount of stuff on screen. When most people are using a laptop its to check a few websites, their email, its not meant or even expected to be a multi task workhorse.

I use 1280x1024 as my desktop rez, on a 19 inch tft monitor, I often have two 3d programs open, photoshop, msn, 2 web pages, dreamweaver, ftp client and I manage fine.

I think you're just projecting a preference as a neccessity.

Things looks tiny with a high rez, webpages looks crap, I think you'll find the majority of people just don't care and I think that is backed up with solid stats as if they showed 1280x1024 you would see I'm right and if you looked at laptop stats you see I am even "righter!" http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_display.asp

Again, can you read?

"I have 1680x1050 on my m1530, and I'd not use a computer with anything less"

Do you see "I" in there or not?

Are you dumb?!?! I think he should buy that computer becuz it's black and I like black, therefore the world likes black laptops. I don't give advices based on what most people use, my little special quirk should be everyone's quirk, FAGOT.

"I think you're just projecting a preference as a neccessity."

I choose not to read that.

"You don't need more than 1280x1024 on a laptop."

Who on earth would buy a laptop with a 4:3 display in this day and age?

carrying weight around isn't an issue, I've always carried a lot of shit around with me

fatty

Fecal incontinence is a serious problem and should not be made fun of!

IBM T61 or X41

lenovo you mean :/

y lenovo lenovoer?

n500 > this

so i went for the acer

only because tesco had that model in stock and I get a discount there, and it was for 360 and the uni give me monies, so all is well

I can get 3.5 hours out of it as well if I'm just word processing / web browsing which is nice, doesn't feel flimsy at all, nice sturdy keys. Would say a quality build compared to what else was in the store, and even though aesthetics don't bother me usually, it does look good.

the screen is sharp and real vibrant, pretty decent viewing angles as well, plus the numpad which is a huge bonus for me, for the money can't complain at all

the only downside I guess is the resolution and graphics, but you get what you pay for and I not be making use of good graphics either way so for me that's not a loss. I guess Vista is a downside, but what's more annoying is the lack of discs they send. You have to make your own back-up image of the factory default, which I promptly did and got rid of Vista after having found all of the XP drivers.

all in all, a good useful purchase at a bargain price

powpowopw

how much without discount?

360, or 370 cant remember which it was now

cba to get the receipt!

I know people who work there and get 10% off, so that knocked off 36/37 squidlets!

so it was about 335

ok thx

what model did you buy? 5735Z-343?

yeah that's the one, 343GM or something

I was just messing with Quake, to my surprise it runs fine (playing cfg, a full detail cfg manages 70-80fps) but one thing that shocked me is the response time, I notice no input lag

it boasts a 8ms response time but that's usually marketing bullshit, but I have to say, it really does seem comparable to my CRT response wise, lacks the smoothness being 60hz (which makes quake pretty argh) but aside that it's hawt