To buy or not to buy?
 

Hi all. I'm in the market for a spanking new laptop for work. Should I buy now or are things likely to get much cheaper after xmas? Bearing in mind that shops seem to be dropping prices already........
Comments? Thoughts? :)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Last year I bought (from the states over tinternet) a 1 gb mp3 player as It was not available in the UK, I think I paid £125 for it.

Directly after xmas Dixons had their sale and had the same one for sale for £49.

I'm never buying any electrical goods pre xmas again.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

If you buy a laptop make sure u get one with a free vista upgrade. In January you might be able to pick up a laptop for a bargain so I would wait.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

I'd wait till the January sales if I was you.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Yep, deffo wait mate, what is the laptop gonna be for, work, rest or play ? What sort of spec you looking at, and what sort of money do you want to spend ??? We can keep an eye open for ya :tu:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

wait and buy a centrino duo in the sales :)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Thanks for your input everyone.....I will wait till January (seems completely unanimous) :D

It's for Mandy btw......I'd prefer a Vaio if poss.......small, light yet powerful and preferably under a grand but prepared to go over if the right machine comes up.....

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

http://shop.sonystyle-europe.com/Son...show&id=fall06*

this will do ya with a couple of 100 off in the sales ;) second one down :)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Certainly will, you could have that and swap her for yours :D

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Is 512 meg ram enough? :scratch:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

If your buying a laptop for roughly a grand, I would definitly make sure it has 1GB RAM.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Best idea is to go down Tottenham Court Road with cash/debit card in Jan. There are about 30 computer shops there, and you can haggle the price well down.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

i think it reads 2 x 512 meg of ram = 1 gig if I remember my maths ;)

zingle isnt a noob you know shheesh

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Have faith in da man :D use the force :p:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

ermmmm why would a back cracker need a laptop ;)

A: Maximise time with patience baa boomm

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Im buying the missus a laptop in the newyear too and all she will use if for is downloading music, surfing the net, watching DVDs , and using it with my daughter say on the CBBC website. We are looking to spend as little as possible but would like good screen quality.
What do you guys recommend.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Tough one, from what I'm starting to learn about laptops, the monies in the screen, unfortunately, still, someone here will have a link, all depends on how little you want to spend, and at what cost to performance.

I suppose you could start with a barebones laptop, with a good screen and add to it over time :shrug:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Wait till January, its the kipper season for PC's / Laptops :)

Geeza!

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

:blush: :dunce: :D

---------- Post added at 14:51 ---------- Previous post was at 14:49 ----------

Good idea but can I be ars*d to schlep up to town..... :D

---------- Post added at 14:52 ---------- Previous post was at 14:51 ----------

Luckily, Mandy wants a small lappy so the screen will be small.......everything else should be pretty good spec though......

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Nah mate, not the size but the quality, here's some info, first in google list :D

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Well, you'll same a couple of hundred quid pretty easily I think. Maybe more. Major competition there and you can play shopkeepers off each other...

And there is a Sony store there, but they won't give you any haggling room... That's for the independents.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

We have 2 HP Laptops at home and they have excellent picture quality. They both have little remote controls as well that store in the pcmcia slot. Both have harmon k speakers and are 17" models.

ps That's Hewlett Packard not Packard Bell, We also have a PB mini laptop and the build quality is not great.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

My Dell Latitude D810 is very good quality.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Far too much info but interesting reading :tu: :)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

So.....whats the difference between 'core duo' and core 2 duo'? :dunce:

---------- Post added at 15:27 ---------- Previous post was at 15:23 ----------

........and is 'media center' any good?

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

From what I'm aware, Core Duo is the same as Core 2 duo and yes media center is pretty good.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Dabs has core duo separate to core 2 duo.......? Then again, pc world doesn't :confused:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Core 2 duo is different from core duo. They are newer, faster and the designed to replace the core.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Ahhhhh........

take a look at this from here
:disturbd: :confused:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Ahh right I see, sorry Ramrod I told you wrong.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Poxy PC World... Although i'd wait until Zing comes along, but I am 99% (but been wrong before)

The T5600 is definitely a Core2 Duo processor though.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

No worries, PC world don't seem to differentiate either :D

---------- Post added at 15:48 ---------- Previous post was at 15:47 ----------

I don't care where I buy from as long as it's a good price.......:D

Might even mooch over to Sony in Bluewater later:disturbd:

---------- Post added at 15:49 ---------- Previous post was at 15:48 ----------

This looks nice but I'm not sure I can justify the price......:erm:

---------- Post added at 15:58 ---------- Previous post was at 15:49 ----------

Better price here ......

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Since when do PC World know anything about PCs? :angel:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Worryingly, Sony in Bluewater are selling their lappys for the same prices as online.......as far as I could tell :disturbd:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

http://shop.sonystyle-europe.com/Son...show&id=fall06

the one I originally pointed to is on discount. I dont like media centre but still

http://shop.sonystyle-europe.com/Son...shop=SST_GB_EN
click laptop pcs on the left then click bx series these look nice

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Any idea about it's advantages/disadvantages? Bearing in mind the lappy will be used mainly for office/word/browsing....

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

its xp home . If you want to use it for business you can just turn it off anyway. Its resource hungry when it is running but see other point about turning it off ;)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

What do people think of this and this auction? They look very tempting but also too good to be true since those lappys sell for about £1600 in Sony shops......:disturbd:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

wouldnt give you a kick in the head for either ;)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

you pay an awful lot for the Sony branding. Personally I'd prefer to spend that on a better specified lappy from an alternate not so high profile manufacturer.

In terms of range, and build quality for lappys Dell gets my vote, but there are plenty of other suppliers too.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Thing is, the equivalent 11.1" ish screensize lappy from ASUS (and I can't find any other manufacturers that do that screen size) costs a shedload more.......makes the Sony look reasonable......and Dell don't go that small......
@Zing...I know that the spec isn't that great but she really likes the size and battery life so it would appear we are looking for an 11.1" screen lappy......:disturbd:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

what a waste ;) she intends to use said machine away from a plug socket for that long then I take it? away from the world as it were for its main use? as buying a lightweight underspecced machine that runs for ages is only any use if your stuck in a field imo ;)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

I know, I know.......she hates 'puters and wants one that she can easily carry about (featherweight) and doesn't have to worry about forgetting the lead......so 7 hrs battery life and 1.25kg looks good to her.......I can see her point :disturbd:

Also, something that small will be very quiet.....another plus in her book....

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

buy her a pda or better still nip into smiths and buy her a few pads and a bic ;)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

She has cast covetous looks at my Axim x51v but I don't think she would get on with it's slightly fiddly nature. Apart from that, she needs a built in dvd/cd drive so that she can view x-rays at work (many are now digitised).

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

the surely she needs a bigger screen to see the inevitable cracks ;)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

lol oops:
On a serious note, what did you think of those e-bay sellers? I know it's hard to tell, but any gut instincts? :dunce:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

no way am I answering that ;)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

well the first one says it has ended & the second is an USA specification, which, personally, I wouldn't want. :)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Rammy, ever thought about doing a self build from a 'barebones' starter ???? you could save a packet as you well know.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

You can self build a lappy? :erm:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

I used to be able to get barebones lappys, not seen them for a while though.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Yep, just google barebons laptop, here's one link of a guy building

And a link toward s the bottom about buying one, of course this is just one example.

HTH

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Theres a small screen phillps laptop in Dixons at a reasonable price?

http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/stor...ory_oid=-27409

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

I'd jump at that but it's using media center.......but it's great otherwise..........

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

What's wrong with media centre? Tis only xp with a skin. You can turn back to a normal xp interface.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Hmmmmm........this ain't bad.......good spec......

---------- Post added at 12:52 ---------- Previous post was at 12:51 ----------

mmmmm......Zingle did say that as well.....perhaps I shouldn't dismiss it so quickly......

---------- Post added at 12:56 ---------- Previous post was at 12:52 ----------

Just read the Phillips lappy review here and it's looking good :tu:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Ahh found the one I ment to post. This is the one with with a 11.1 screen.

http://www.dixons.co.uk/martprd/stor...ory_oid=-28739

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

WTF is a core solo cpu and only 1.2 gig :( think I like the first link better :tu: but it's not mine so I'll keep shtum :D

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

It's smaller though.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Thats a couple of hundred more than the 12" one and it's got an inferior processor! Dropping the screen size really racks up the cost! :erm:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

I think Its to do with the fact the smaller screen is the same resolution , hence it's a more expensive item to manufacture.

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Just bought this :)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Very nice indeed! ;)

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Hope so, waiting for delivery now. It's for my wife, Mandy. Sadly I'm going to have to wait till next year before building a new PC for myself :mis:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Another one, wtf's wrong with what you have now :shrug: and will it be going cheap :D :angel: :dozey: :p:

Re: To buy or not to buy?
 

Looks good :)