Laptop for Mum

[lostkat]

It's my Mum's 60th this month and Dad wants to buy her a laptop. She has a desktop at the moment but wants to be able to sit in the comfort of the lounge and mess about with her ancestry program.

It needs a reasonable hard drive, as she scans lots of documents/photos onto it for her ancestry and I expect a 17" screen would be much more desirable than a 15" because she's old :p

My initial thoughts were one of the Dell Inspiron 17's, purely because I have had them for work and like them. I know nothing about these super cheap Tesco jobbies, but since I'll be tech support, I'm a bit worried about recommending her an unknown brand.

Any ideas? I've never bought a laptop before.

[Matblack]

Dell for sure, I wouldn't recomend anything else to a non IT orientated household, the support is the easiest if not nessesarily the best :)

MB

[divine]

Dell are a fairly solid bet, worth looking into the Small Business store stuff as well, not always the prettiest designs but usually get a bit more spec for your money. Depends which is more important. With it being a present, aesthetics may well be preferred.

[LeperousDust]

17" is pretty damn big, might be fairly unweidly to use for her sitting in the lounge etc...?

But other than that thought, you could check these:
Acer Refurb: http://www.acerdirect.co.uk/Grade_A1_Acer_Aspire_7520_Gemstone_Laptop_A1-LX.AMM0X.002/version.asp?refsource=adfroogle

OcUK have a cheap deal: http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-000-TX

This was 379 last week, now 399 https://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Samsung_R730_701854.html

Also obviously check the dell outlet, and ebay (people don't seem to trust this, but a lot of del outlet stuff ends up on ebay, i've bought two "brand new" outlet laptops from random ebay sellers).

[Mark]

Dell are a pretty good bet all around (good call on Outlet - it's well worth a look though obviously you have to accept what they - or the various outlet resellers - have). Toshiba are a good brand but don't know what their support is like. Acer fit into 'up and coming'.

The only thing I'd point out with 17in laptops is that they're a misnomer. 3kg+ of bulk on your lap will get old fast. However, buy a folding table and you're sorted.

[LeperousDust]

Agreed, as i said, i'd heartily recommend looking at 15 inchers... My mum started with a 15" and has actually worked down to 13" for portability (wtf i never thought i'd hear my mum at 59 saying that! ;D)

[divine]

Dude, can we keep the conversation to laptops please? None of us need to know about that...:confused:

[LeperousDust]

:( Need.... Brain.... Bleach....

[lostkat]

Thanks guys :) Good point about the 17" screen. She's got a 19" monitor at the moment set at something ridiculous like 800x600 so I assumed that a bigger screen would be better. I don't want her complaining it's too heavy though. Will give her a go of mine and see what she thinks.

[divine]

Generally pixel density doesn't vary much across sizes, if anything the bigger screens have a higher density which would be the opposite of what you want really.

[Burble]

You can't really go wrong with Dell I think. Try to stay away from the cheaper brands as I've found they're a real ball ache if something goes wrong or even if you just need a driver.

17" laptops can be quite heavy (my old 15.4" laptop was a bloody brick) so can be uncomfortable to use on your lap after a while.

A few months ago my parents bought an HP from Tesco for £400 or so - I'm really impressed with it, it feels well put together, has a nice keyboard and much to my surprise didn't come with loads of preloaded unwanted crap.

[LeperousDust]

Wow, think you'd be stupid not to get this :)
http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Product/id/910208

[lostkat]

Can I ask why? What's so good about it? Genuine question, I'm not trying to be funny with you. I've never heard of the brand so it's not something I'd even look at normally. There's a Dell Inspiron 15 with pretty much the same spec for £449 on the Dell website (4gb memory, 320gb hdd). Why go for this over that?

[Burble]

Lenovo (formally IBM) are a fantastic brand, probably the best quality laptops you can get. Well, that's true of the Corporate range of machines, I don't know what the lower end kit is like.

Personally I'd save the £100 and buy the Dell.

[Mark]

Thinkpads used to be 'the' thing to have back in the day in the corporate world. Not so much now but that's because other brands have caught up.

For a power user I'd rate that Lenovo as very good. For what you've stated it's needed for, overkill. I'd do what Burble suggested and save some money.

[LeperousDust]

Yeah i guess its way too powerful for your mum actually, but its a good laptop for someone asking a bit more. My mum has an SU2300 13" lenovo, and its superbly built, very very impressed with it :) Its battery life is netbook standard as well

[lostkat]

Right, parents are now back off holiday, Dad has read the Which? reviews (which are his bible) and wants to get her an Acer.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-155-AC

Any good? £650 on Amazon!

[Burble]

Personally I'd not a fan of Acer laptops, the build quality has left a lot to be desired in the ones that I've worked on.

[Mark]

I feel the same. Wasn't particularly impressed with what I've seen of Acer in shops.

I expected Asus to be similar but have been pleasantly surprised. I've also been pleasantly surprised by the SUxx00 series CPUs (there's one in that Acer too) - so much so that I've relegated my big beast of a laptop to the cupboard and will be selling it once I get time to wipe it.

I'll try to find my own Which 'bible' tomorrow evening and see what else they say. I only treat their reviews as guidance though as they don't always get it right.

[lostkat]

Well Apple came up tops, but I've told him that she will HATE an Apple. Besides, the one in the review was £800. He's pretty much snubbed Dell because they got poor reviews on the customer service side. Unfortunately, once he's read his Which bible, there's not much I can do to persuade him otherwise.

The only time he ignores it is when it comes to cars. He owns a Freelander! Ha! :)

[Mark]

Customer service is only relevant when it goes wrong. If it doesn't go wrong then it doesn't matter. Ha! :)

[TinkerBell]

My thoughts exactly. Would much prefer a better quality laptop over good customer service.

[lostkat]

Me too. I might persist with the Dell suggestion or just take him into PC world to look at the difference.

[Kitten]

I've got an HP laptop (had a pavillion before this) and I love it. It just works. I'll give you the name later when I'm home. My best mate bought one too after seeing ours and she's made up with it. It was around £350 I think but has a 15" screen (bigger for photo editing, I have the webbook for portability).

[lostkat]

Well, we took her into PC World tonight to see if there was anything she liked/disliked and she doesn't like the Acer keyboards (neither do I. Too flimsy) and she wants a pink laptop. Sigh!

[Burble]

Dell sell quite a lot of their consumer laptops in multiple colours.

If you go for Dell and ordering online then don't forget Quidco :)

[Kitten]

HP Compaq 615 mine is & that comes in pink :)

[lostkat]

Thanks Kitten. They're discontinued though. Bugger!

I really am stuck now. Every laptop is SLIGHTLY different so I don't know if I'm going forwards or backwards when leaping from model to model. The pink thing has made it really hard too. I think the most annoying thing is that Dad hasn't given me a budget to work with so I've no idea how much I have to spend.

Does she need a 500GB hard drive and 4GB of memory? I really don't know anymore!!

[Burble]

She's probably likely to need 4Gb of RAM more than she's going to need 500Gb of hard drive space.

If she's just doing 'normal' stuff then she won't notice any difference between similar machines.

[lostkat]

Yep she's not doing anything hardcore like gaming. Oh and it needs to have decent battery life. I've no idea how to tell whether the battery life will be any good without just believing the tags on the shelf in PC world to be honest! My laptop knowledge is pretty limited, so other than checking it's got a decent processor/chip/hdd I don't really know what I'm looking at.

[Mark]

Depends what you mean by 'decent'. Mine will do eight hours without too much bother, but that comes at its own price (smaller screen and no optical drive).

Assuming good design (not always guaranteed), the best battery life seems to come from the SU series processors (e.g. SU2300, SU4100, etc.) and LED-based screens (sometimes called WLED or similar combinations).

One good tip - Always view battery life numbers with scepticism. They're quoted under ideal conditions (nearly new battery, brightness set low, wi-fi off, etc.), so you will get less.

If in doubt, post a link. :)

[LeperousDust]

yeah grab an SU2300 lappy, battery life is second to none, and beats any atom/equivelent for real processing power. Very very cheap laptops as well :)

[lostkat]

OK, so which brands use those? Just had a very quick search and could only find ones with 10-11" screens

[LeperousDust]

Loads, the asus ul30 ive got uses it. You'll see it in all of them i cant give any other specific makes, but ive seen it getting round a LOT because its cheap as chips as well, its kinda like a celeron/atom but its actually half decent (wont win awards but good enough)... Coupled with a GMA 4500HD you'll run HD youtube easy as well :)

[Mark]

Snap! I think the recent UL30 deals may have been end-of-line stock though :(

And a 13.3in screen which might be too small for your needs.

[lostkat]

... And it's not pink :rolleyes: I think we're just going to get the Dell. It's easiest all round and will shut her up!