Laptop Recommendation - £300-500

[Desmo]

Mother dear is after her first laptop. She's only going to be using it for email, internet and maybe word/excel, etc so doesn't need anything too kick arse.

Any deals or offers on at the moment I should be looking at?

[leowyatt]

A friend of ours recently bought one of these (http://www.comet.co.uk/p/Laptops/buy-COMPAQ-CQ56-101SA-Laptop/676381) for their son. I set it up just before Christmas and it seemed quite good. Well built, decent specifications.

[Dymetrie]

TO be honest, I'd look at the 15" inspirons.

Brother just bought the top end one for his lass and it's lovely :)

[Desmo]

Yep, was checking out the Dell site earlier on. Got an older Inspiron myself so know they'll last. Might check out comet for the HP and Compaqs as well.

[Matblack]

http://www.boat-drinks.co.uk/showthread.php?t=14146&highlight=dell

I stick by this, Dell are ideal if you are specing for someone else and you are not charging for support. I've always pointed the Olds in the direction of Dell because I don't want to have to sort things out when they go wrong, I'd rather they had a decent company to call :)

MB

[Jingo]

Dell inspiron 15

[LeperousDust]

If its not too late, i got a Dell Studio XPS 13 for £550

13" P8600 (core duo, no "i" but i'm not that fussy now days) , 4Gb, 9500M, Bluetooth, Wireless N, Slot Loading, Backlit Keyboard, HDMI Displayport, VGA, Powered SATA, Pretty Standard HD screen, Decent Webcam, IR port, Card reader dual headphone output and 1 mic input (or 5.1 i think as well) , firewire expressport tec... Half leather top cover, 3 year (i believe the real deal on site or at least a year) warranty.

I feel like it was a superb bargain deal. Dell outlet via an ebay seller, if you trust that stuff, although mine went missing in the post and they had a rep from dell build a new exact model up and send it to me (super impressed by this although it did take a lot longer!). The laptop feels so superbly built i can't big it up much more. Quite simply it IS the cheap rival to a £1k+ macbook pro i think... All i need to do is add my sony erricson 3g/gps card to the spare slot i'm assuming this baby has (and it already has the built in aerials afaik) and i get GPS and mobile internet :)

Its taken a year but i finally have a laptop i'm HAPPY with! No more ****ty temporary netbooks tiding me over or old hand me down/thrown out laptops i've spruced up to make do. This was kinda my xmas pressie to me :)

[Desmo]

It it too late :p

Ordered an Inspiron yesterday :) Besides, that spec would be way over her needs and also over the top end of her budget. She was much happier spending £350 :)

[LeperousDust]

Yeah no worries, i understand just thought i'd pass on what i thought was a superb deal for anyone else as well. First time in ages i've been happy with my laptop (since the m1210 - when it actually worked... ;D).

[Kitten]

I've had the Compaq for over a year now & never had a problem with it so I don't know what their support is like. Love it though, for the price I Dont think it can be beaten. Hope she enjoys it J. :)

[Jhadur]

Has anyone seen/had a play with the new Dell Inspiron Duo yet? I was looking for a netbook and saw an ad for these and they look quite cool :)

Not sure how windows would cope with the touch screen but still looks like a great gadget. :)

[Mark]

One of these was a TSV on QVC yesterday (I spotted it while channel hopping). Didn't watch for long but it looks like an interesting concept. I'm not sure about the design though (it looks like it could be fragile and there's some bizarre design choices). For example, you'd have thought they'd put the webcam with the display, but not - it's in the frame. This means you can't use it while in tablet 'mode'.