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My old trusty Toshiba Satellite has finally given up the ghost so I'm looking for a reasonable budget (ish) laptop. Not needed to play games but I do watch HD video on it. Found this which looks alright for the money. Anyone know of any better options out there or suggestions on manufacturers that I should perhaps consider or avoid like the plague? As I'm not playing games presume that I don't really need one with a dedicated graphics card or do I? Be grateful of any help, cheers.
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Well impressed with the i7 Acer 5755, it's a very fast machine. Longest job I've had on it so far is deleting all the mountains of bloatware Acer seem to have loaded on it. It's £62 to extend the manufacturers warranty to 3 years so I'm going to go with that. But overall, I'm very pleased with it. Thanks again for all of the help guys.
Just got to pay for it now! :(
Just got to pay for it now! :(
DL wrote:
Of all the laptops I've been asked to 'repair' Acer have been the worst. One success out of five ... the other four? ... returned to Acer and refunded.
Apparently if you register a new machine with Acer you can increase the manufacturers warranty to 3 years for around £50. I was actually considering doing that, after reading that comment think I will go with that option.
My old Toshiba Satellite could have been repaired it just wasn't really economical to do it. Flogging off a few bits from it should get me around £40 which it looks like I'll be putting towards an extended Acer warranty!
Still reckon that machine was the best option for my money, if it dies I'll just send the thing back to them.
Of all the laptops I've been asked to 'repair' Acer have been the worst. One success out of five ... the other four? ... returned to Acer and refunded.
Apparently if you register a new machine with Acer you can increase the manufacturers warranty to 3 years for around £50. I was actually considering doing that, after reading that comment think I will go with that option.
My old Toshiba Satellite could have been repaired it just wasn't really economical to do it. Flogging off a few bits from it should get me around £40 which it looks like I'll be putting towards an extended Acer warranty!
Still reckon that machine was the best option for my money, if it dies I'll just send the thing back to them.
Of all the laptops I've been asked to 'repair' Acer have been the worst. One success out of five ... the other four? ... returned to Acer and refunded.
Dr. Garin wrote:
I almost suggested that Acer already but at that price I thought it a bit pointless. I think my only question would be, were the i7 machines you tested comparable to that Acer? CPU isnt always the defining factor in performance especially where laptops are concerned.
Anyway, I've never had too many complaints about the Acer laptops we've had here. Heat is sometimes a problem. And they are usually bulky and inelegant but they work. :)
I would say the couple of i7 machines that I tried were of similar spec (same processor but one had 6GB RAM the other 8GB, same OS) and I found the difference in performance quite noticeable from the lesser priced machines I had been considering. The £130 ish increase in my budget seems to be well worth it in this case. Will probably have to let the Mrs. get some new shoes or something now though! Bulky and inelegant but functional is fine BTW :)
Thanks again for all the kind help guys, really appreciated.
@Hmmm a couple of my friends have used this company and were very happy with them (as well as their eBay site). Their prices generally seem to be around the best in the UK at the moment. For example the machine I'm buying is £140 dearer on the likes of ebuyer.com
Build quality wise I did like the HP G6 you mentioned, in the end I just decided to go for something with a bit more power.
I almost suggested that Acer already but at that price I thought it a bit pointless. I think my only question would be, were the i7 machines you tested comparable to that Acer? CPU isnt always the defining factor in performance especially where laptops are concerned.
Anyway, I've never had too many complaints about the Acer laptops we've had here. Heat is sometimes a problem. And they are usually bulky and inelegant but they work. :)
I would say the couple of i7 machines that I tried were of similar spec (same processor but one had 6GB RAM the other 8GB, same OS) and I found the difference in performance quite noticeable from the lesser priced machines I had been considering. The £130 ish increase in my budget seems to be well worth it in this case. Will probably have to let the Mrs. get some new shoes or something now though! Bulky and inelegant but functional is fine BTW :)
Thanks again for all the kind help guys, really appreciated.
@Hmmm a couple of my friends have used this company and were very happy with them (as well as their eBay site). Their prices generally seem to be around the best in the UK at the moment. For example the machine I'm buying is £140 dearer on the likes of ebuyer.com
Build quality wise I did like the HP G6 you mentioned, in the end I just decided to go for something with a bit more power.
I almost suggested that Acer already but at that price I thought it a bit pointless. I think my only question would be, were the i7 machines you tested comparable to that Acer? CPU isnt always the defining factor in performance especially where laptops are concerned.
Anyway, I've never had too many complaints about the Acer laptops we've had here. Heat is sometimes a problem. And they are usually bulky and inelegant but they work. :)
Anyway, I've never had too many complaints about the Acer laptops we've had here. Heat is sometimes a problem. And they are usually bulky and inelegant but they work. :)
That certainly busts your original budget! :¬)
I'll let the others say if they think it's a good buy or not.
You've been linking to the same laptop website. Are they a company that you've used before and can recommend?
I've never heard of them - but I don't get out much!
I'll let the others say if they think it's a good buy or not.
You've been linking to the same laptop website. Are they a company that you've used before and can recommend?
I've never heard of them - but I don't get out much!
[s]Hmmm...[/s]
Seriously considering disobeying the boss and chucking in a few extra quid to get this
Had a play around on a few laptops today and was actually a little bit disappointed with i3 and some i5 machines. They opened MS Word files OK but when giving them any real work to do the i7 machines were noticeably snappier. This added with a dedicated GFX card and 6GB RAM seems a decent option for the money to me. What do you guys reckon? are Acer machines alright? or should I just buy one of cheaper machines and go down to the pub with the difference? :)
Had a play around on a few laptops today and was actually a little bit disappointed with i3 and some i5 machines. They opened MS Word files OK but when giving them any real work to do the i7 machines were noticeably snappier. This added with a dedicated GFX card and 6GB RAM seems a decent option for the money to me. What do you guys reckon? are Acer machines alright? or should I just buy one of cheaper machines and go down to the pub with the difference? :)
The HP G6 was one that I was actually considering Hmmm (i5 6GB RAM model) cheers for the heads up.
I think that model only comes in a choice of light black or extremely dark grey though ! ;)
I think that model only comes in a choice of light black or extremely dark grey though ! ;)
A little while back my daughter got this HP G6 laptop - via Argos.
HP and Argos weren't either of my first thoughts but it's proved to be a great machine and I've been very impressed.
I haven't compared it with your specs but it might be worth a look.
AND it comes in different colours! - whoops, sorry I thought I was talking to my daughter ;¬)
While typing this DELL have just phoned out-of-the-blue on my mobile.
"Hello it's DELL here. It's been 4 years since your bought from us."
>Hi, sorry if it's a sales call I'm not interested.
"No, it's not a sales call"
>OK, sorry.
"Just phoning to make sure everything is running ok.
>Yes, thanks.
"Any other questions?"
>No.
"Bye"
>Bye
HP and Argos weren't either of my first thoughts but it's proved to be a great machine and I've been very impressed.
I haven't compared it with your specs but it might be worth a look.
AND it comes in different colours! - whoops, sorry I thought I was talking to my daughter ;¬)
While typing this DELL have just phoned out-of-the-blue on my mobile.
"Hello it's DELL here. It's been 4 years since your bought from us."
>Hi, sorry if it's a sales call I'm not interested.
"No, it's not a sales call"
>OK, sorry.
"Just phoning to make sure everything is running ok.
>Yes, thanks.
"Any other questions?"
>No.
"Bye"
>Bye
[s]Hmmm...[/s]
Dr. Garin wrote:
[Its not even a contest in my opinion. You sacrifice CPU, RAM & HDD for a bottom end GFX card that doesnt perform much better than the intel one. If you really want a dedicated GFX card, they've got an Acer Aspire 5750G on there with a GT 540M for 430 pounds, much better trade off in my opinion. However, if you dont want to play games I cant see why you'd bother.
I did spot the Acer machine and hadn't ruled that (or any of the suggestions) out, this machine will definitely not be used for playing games but I as I mentioned I do watch a fair bit of HD video (usually streamed on the likes of Eurosport HD etc. which I think is only 1080i?) Perhaps a dedicated graphics card would be worth considering although an integrated card may well be able to handle this fine?
ProBooks are a budget range aimed at the business user, the flagship range is the EliteBook. I doubt you're going to find significant differences in quality at the price point you're looking at anyway.
Ah, new it was called a something book! Regarding quality differences I was actually quite surprised, I had to flatten and reinstall OS on a friends Samsung laptop a few months ago and it was horrible, a really cheap and nasty thing, looked like it would break if you looked at it too hard! I'm sure Samsung make decent models but this thing was horrific. I've used similar priced and spec machines which I've found to be considerably better put together than that one.
Thanks again for your help Garin, it is appreciated. My Mrs. has given me a £450 budget which I appreciate is not really a massive amount of money but I'm hoping to get something reasonable(ish) for that.
[Its not even a contest in my opinion. You sacrifice CPU, RAM & HDD for a bottom end GFX card that doesnt perform much better than the intel one. If you really want a dedicated GFX card, they've got an Acer Aspire 5750G on there with a GT 540M for 430 pounds, much better trade off in my opinion. However, if you dont want to play games I cant see why you'd bother.
I did spot the Acer machine and hadn't ruled that (or any of the suggestions) out, this machine will definitely not be used for playing games but I as I mentioned I do watch a fair bit of HD video (usually streamed on the likes of Eurosport HD etc. which I think is only 1080i?) Perhaps a dedicated graphics card would be worth considering although an integrated card may well be able to handle this fine?
ProBooks are a budget range aimed at the business user, the flagship range is the EliteBook. I doubt you're going to find significant differences in quality at the price point you're looking at anyway.
Ah, new it was called a something book! Regarding quality differences I was actually quite surprised, I had to flatten and reinstall OS on a friends Samsung laptop a few months ago and it was horrible, a really cheap and nasty thing, looked like it would break if you looked at it too hard! I'm sure Samsung make decent models but this thing was horrific. I've used similar priced and spec machines which I've found to be considerably better put together than that one.
Thanks again for your help Garin, it is appreciated. My Mrs. has given me a £450 budget which I appreciate is not really a massive amount of money but I'm hoping to get something reasonable(ish) for that.
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