Lap Top

[Technologist]

I work in the IT sector - occasionally we fix the employee's personal lap-tops.
I would not recommend HP to anyone, they seem to give the most trouble, I would recommend Dell and Acer, there is great deals at the moment in PC World, Aldi etc.

It's not safe to generalise by brand. Many laptops, especially budget ones are contracted out & badged by the brand-owner and it's possible for one range of HP machines to be top-notch and another to have QA problems.

I'd say that most well-known brands budget laptops are equal in quality or lack thereof.

One thing to look out for would be vendors who try to wriggle out of their Sale of Goods Act obligations by convincing you to take out 'insurance' or make you claim under warranty or send the computer to the manufacturer.

Choose a vendor who's known to resolve complaints quickly & at first hand.

 

[Complainer]

Have a look at the Vostro's in the small business section, for example, bearing in mind that the prices are ex-VAT. Anyone can buy them though.

The 'catch' here is that you may well be voiding your consumer rights by buying as a business, so tread carefully.

Does the OP need to buy new? There will be lots of businesses and families with hand-me-down machines available for next to nothing around Xmas. Talk to your family and friends and see what happens.

 

[Rois]

I can't see too many people giving away wireless laptops right now! I think you should be for a laptop with a minimum spec of 2GB RAM, Windows Vista, 160 GB Hard Drive, Wireless enabled. You should be able to pick one up for around €500 in any of the retailers. Reliable brands (in my opinion) would be Sony (but pricey), HP or Compaq (same company now), Toshiba, Dell, Asus and Acer. Also make sure he has anti-virus (either one of the free versions or something like Kaspersky or Norton 2009).

Declaration: I am affiliated to a PC vendor.

 

[Guest128]

Exclude the Microsoft pack (word, excel etc) and save yourself another circa €200 off the cost.....you can use alternate free software (if its for downloading music its unlikely he'll be doing many spread-sheets anyway)

 

[MaryBe]

Hi everybody. Many thanks for all your very informative and helpful replies. I have ordered a Laptop Acer 5920 from a company in the UK for GBP 349.97 = Euro 416.20. It has everything (and more) that my son could possibly want. Again many thanks, it's great to have a network of help on this forum.

 

[Sylvester3]

Exclude the Microsoft pack (word, excel etc) and save yourself another circa €200 off the cost.....you can use alternate free software (if its for downloading music its unlikely he'll be doing many spread-sheets anyway)

Just to add to this, I've used Sun Systems Open Office suite of free office software, and it is very good. It also appears to be compatible with Microsoft Office. I installed it for my aunt who wanted to work on her spreadsheets at home sometimes, and it worked with her copies of excel spreadheets.