please tell me which cheap laptop?

[kungfumaster]

I'm needing a really cheap laptop for college. I'm only needing it to write up my work and surf the internet for information. What is the best one to go for? There is a cheap £299 one in woolies, tesco and asda. are medions, gateways and acers any good? they all have windows vista basic except the acre which has the premium version, will it run ok on these systems? please help, i plan to buy one tomorrow. Also do these systems come with microsoft works or word, it doesn't say so on the system details but they are a little vague.

[wii_willy_winker]

If it doesnt say then i doubt they come with word or works or any such applications.

[gregtorius]

For a laptop... acer is alright.

Most systems come with Works on them. Microsoft Office ( Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. ) won't, unless you specifically ask for it added.


Depends what you want from it....
I'd look for these specs when going for a laptop

Cpu: >=1.80Ghz
Ram : 1024mb ( i'd settle for 512mb )
Battery: 8 hours ( but that's just me )
and a good video card.


Don't be fooled with "added extras" such as large harddrive, dvd rewriter, built-in card reader, etc. as all of these are dirt cheap by themselves.


If your only looking for something to do write ups and browsing, any low end laptop will do the job. And they're pretty cheap all round.



Have you looked at getting one 2nd hand?

[kungfumaster]

i see an acer in tesco its
Cpu: >=1.73Ghz
Ram : 1024mb
Battery: No idea, but i'm not so worried about using it on the go, more for the mobility. will the 1Gb be ok for vista premium, i heard some people saying you need 2.5 GB

and thanks for your help weewilly and gregtorius

[LandShark]

Originally Posted by kungfumaster

i see an acer in tesco its
Cpu: >=1.73Ghz
Ram : 1024mb
Battery: No idea, but i'm not so worried about using it on the go, more for the mobility. will the 1Gb be ok for vista premium, i heard some people saying you need 2.5 GB

and thanks for your help weewilly and gregtorius

That would be fine, yiou shouldn't need more than 1 gb unless you plan to run nulcular physics solving programs it shoul be more than enought most laptops still only ave 512 anywayz.

[kungfumaster]

nice one, cheers, just going out now to buy it

[oomska]

Wouldn't worry about running vista. I'm avoiding it like the plague until it, you know, works. Probably late this year/early next once SP1 is released. For what you are using it for it makes no sense to get it, it's big selling point (for me anyway) is DirectX10. XP makes more sense.

1gb of ram is the very least I would want. 512mb just isn't going to make it a wise investment, unless you are planning on replacing it in the next 2-3 years.

Also, don't fret about MS office. You can download from openoffice.org a full office suite that is MS compatible and most importantly free.

[Ed00wii]

I have Vista on my PC. It's alright you know! but laptops suck for gaming (I guess all you need is to work on it though)

[Nicko]

Acer make decent laptops

[Scotty32]

Originally Posted by gregtorius

Depends what you want from it....
I'd look for these specs when going for a laptop

Cpu: >=1.80Ghz
Ram : 1024mb ( i'd settle for 512mb )
Battery: 8 hours ( but that's just me )
and a good video card.


Don't be fooled with "added extras" such as large harddrive, dvd rewriter, built-in card reader, etc. as all of these are dirt cheap by themselves.

i would say 1.8gb cpu is crap for vista, unless its duel core

also i would say get the dvd rewriter and hard drive as for a laptop you dont want to be carrying around external hard drives and dvd rewriters.

for a desktop yeah i agree dont get the extras as you could get them cheaper but laptops are more "built in"


kunfumaster - i would recommend posting links as your just throwing out vague discriptions