New Laptop

[Oregano]

I may be getting a new laptop to assist with college work and to just have a portable computer, I don't want it to be able to play the best games or anything(that's what my PC's for and consoles of course) I just want an efficient system.

Anyway I have found this, it's easily affordable and does exactly what I want it to.

My question to the Playgrounders is, is this laptop worth it? (http://www.currys.co.uk/martprd/store/cur_page.jsp?BV_SessionID=@@@@1746777950.121458428 8@@@@&BV_EngineID=ccdiadeehhjdijkcflgceggdhhmdgml.0&category_oid=&sku=335068&page=Product&fm=null&sm=null&tm=null)

By the way, I'm not concerned about Vista as it works fine on my PC, this PC in fact.

[Obrysii]

With only 1gb of RAM, it's going to be slow. Vista, from my experience, usually idles around 800mb of RAM used. So ... upgrade the memory when you can.

Otherwise, no idea as to the quality - I don't recognize the brand.

If you're looking for an ultraportable, the MSI Wind (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MSI_Wind_PC) is being released soon. Laptop magazine reviewed (http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/msi-wind.aspx?page=1) it and gave it 4.5 out of 5.

[Oregano]

Thanks, I may look into that, it looks good just from a glance. I'm not too concerned about the speed.*

I hadn't heard of the MSI Wind before.

*I'll only be concerned if it takes like five minutes to open a word document or save one.

[Don Julio Anejo]

I'd stick to better known brands. Acer and HP are nice, reliable and cheap.

As for this specific model - IMO you can get a better laptop cheaper. Mine has very similar specs (Acer) but I bought it a year ago for a nor much higher price ($700 Canadian.. about 300-350 pounds) at a big electronics chain and got an almost free printer to boot. Also, I'm not sure if you have a DVD writer on there, if you do decide to buy it check just in case.

[Oregano]

I don't want a DVD writer, I've got two PCs for that and a seperate drive that I could plug into the laptop. I haven't seen any laptop's cheaper unless they're second hand or "refurbished" and I'm still deciding, there are some other ones I'm considering too but this is the cheapest so if will work I don't need to spend more.

That was one of my concerns actually, that it's a lesser known company so it may not be reliable. Thanks for the advice.

[purple gelatinous cube o' Doom]

I highly recommend against getting an off-brand name laptop. All my friends and roommates from college that had one gave them fits. It seemed like they were always breaking down, or had something wrong with it almost all the time. I think if you want one, you're just asking for trouble. Personally, I recommend an HP. It's what I currently have, and have been very happy with it.

[Gorbash Kazdar]

I'm not certain about prices in the UK compared to prices in the US for computers. It seems like they're about 30-40% more there for a comparable machine here. Is this accurate? How much below normal costs is this machine?

Assuming my call is correct... I'd say this would be about a $300-$400 computer here. And I would have to say, no, it's not a good deal. As Obrysii mentioned, 1GB of RAM is really not enough to run Vista properly, let alone much else. You really want at least 2GB of RAM if you're running Vista. The processor is very low powered as well - again, I know you say you don't want to game, but its so low you'll be limited to really basic programs. The fact that it's a brand that I've never even heard of is another point against - off brand laptops are usually very poorly made. In all honesty, this thing seems so low end that it's not worth it. If you go too cheap on computers, they just don't work properly. If I saw this for the $300-400 in the US, I'd walk right by it.

In all honesty, I'd say bump up to a low end of the brand names - HP is a really solid choice. It'll be more, but if you look you can probably find a deal that will bring it down to a reasonable price.

[factotum]

With only 1gb of RAM, it's going to be slow. Vista, from my experience, usually idles around 800mb of RAM used. So ... upgrade the memory when you can.


Vista SHOULD use every single byte of RAM you have when idle, because of the way it's designed--it preloads stuff it thinks you might use into the disk cache, rather than leaving 75% of your RAM doing nothing useful as XP would. Therefore you can't really judge how efficient Vista is at memory usage just by looking at how much RAM it's using! (Note that it can instantly dump the cached stuff if more RAM is needed by an application, before anyone wonders how it manages to run anything at all...).

[Gorbash Kazdar]

Vista SHOULD use every single byte of RAM you have when idle, because of the way it's designed--it preloads stuff it thinks you might use into the disk cache, rather than leaving 75% of your RAM doing nothing useful as XP would. Therefore you can't really judge how efficient Vista is at memory usage just by looking at how much RAM it's using! (Note that it can instantly dump the cached stuff if more RAM is needed by an application, before anyone wonders how it manages to run anything at all...).
Factotum is correct about that, but I still find 1GB of RAM to be a bit light for run much beyond Vista, a word processor, and a web browser. Even a large PDF might crawl a bit.

[Oregano]

Thanks everybody for the advice, I'm probably not going to get this laptop, mainly because it's a unknown brand and I've seen a much better Toshiba for £300 so I'm most likely going to get that.

Thanks for all the advice, I didn't know Vista did that either:smallconfused:, is that why there is always programs on the toolbar? I've ever had trouble when trying to play high spec games like Overlord.