Laptop buying advise please
 

Looking to get myself a new laptop the now. This one has to be sturdy as my averatec slowly deteriorated until the power no longer works (gets red hot at the connecter and get a bit of smoke and melting plastic, so I cant leave it on all day and all the paint has come off :o

Anyway have it down to either a dell or an IBM, what are everyone’s opinions of them? They both come with an extra 2 years warranty for £69, hopefully it covers maltreatment!


Have 2 in mind:
This
Dell Inspiron 5160 512MB Mem CD-RW / DVD 2.8 GHZ HT . 15 SXGA TFT Nvidia Video 40GB HDD Ref: 1221
Inspiron 5160, P4, 2.8GHz/533MHz/1M Cache
512MB DIMM (333MHZ) (2 X 256MB)
40GB IDE (5,400rpm) Hard Drive
CDRW / DVD COMBO Drive
64MB DDR nVidia(R) GeForce(TM) 5200 Go AGP 4x
56K Modem
10-100 Network

90 Day RTB warranty Standard Extendable to 2 years below

Report Description :- Cancelled Order Data Wiped
Cost New Sealed Is £511 + VAT !!


Price: £369.00£433.58 Including VAT

or this

IBM R40 Intel P4M-2.2GHz 256Mb Ram 40Gb HDD DVD 15"TFT XP Pro Inc Docker Unit A STEAL !! Ref: 1237
A Delivery Of Just 54 laptops 12/01/2006

IBM Factory Refurbished after Short Lease. ( Just 4 weeks On Site )
Awesome value for Money Laptop. Robust Quality Chassis and IBM Know How
Intel P4M-2.2GHz
256Mb Ram
40Gb HDD
CD DVD
15"TFT, 56Kb Modem10/100 Network
Windows XP Pro Loaded And Lic
Free Docking Unit Worh £92

Full 10 Mths IBM Parts & Labour Warranty 26/10/2006 . Free Carry Case
Add any extra's you require by ticking the boxs below
These Are Like NEW !!
Current Price £1119 INC VAT !!!!


Special Deal Price £369.00£433.58 Including VAT

Opinions please? :D

Cheers
Stu

Stu,

IMHO go for the Dell. I've bought them on behalf of company's I've worked for, for friends and family and have had no probs with them at all. Good, well built machines which seem to go on and on. They have a good after sales set-up. Using the laptops serial number you can go onto the Dell website and see what upgrades (part numbers, costs, etc) are available simply by putting the number in. They keep an online history of every machine they make which you can access, which is reassuring.

You may want to spend a few extra £ for an on-site warrenty, it beats the pants off a return to base warrenty. Nothing worse than having to send your machine back if, heaven forbid, something goes wrong with it. IBM have just sold their PC/Laptop business to a far eastern company. I'm not saying it will have an effect, but you could struggle a bit if they're going through business hand-over problems. You don't want to have to argue with someone that your machine is under warranty because your details got lost in the system. Dell's a well established company with well established processes and procedures which should act as peace of mind if you do experience any problems with your machine.

In terms of the spec - buy as much memory as you can afford - 512mb is good, more is better. It's worth getting it up front if you can afford it.
40gb hdd - see whether you can get an upgrade for this. Bear in mind that you'll use 25-50% of this disk space loading up your applications - albeit this is depends on what apps you'll be running. This could leave with with 20gb for your personal data. Nowadays iPods are capable of storing 60gb of music/video/photos, and you'll be amazed how quickly you use this up. I've solved this problem by buying a small (in physical size) 80gb external disk drive which plugs into a USB port. This way I can carry/move all my multimedia stuff without being tied to a particular hard drive in a PC or laptop. These are about £80-£100.

I'm sure they'll be others out there who have experienced horror stories with Dells and think IBMs are better. The above is just based on my experience.

Hopefully this helps - send me a U2U if you've got any other questions and I'll see if I can answer them.

Jiminy

[Edited on 17-1-2006 by Jiminy]

IBM !

Dell are pish in my opinion.... we stopped selling them due to the amount of returns.

/ian

Evening Weeian - didn't think I'd prompt a reply to that opinion so quickly :D, but am not surprised - everyone has their good and bad when it comes to PC manufacturers. Our business experience was often tempered by the account team and their willingness to step in to keep our business. Personally I've not experienced probs like you describe but have heard similar from others - maybe I've been lucky. Compaq (now HP) seemed to be one of the most robust laptops I've used, but have not been able to recommend them to family/friend due to their price tag. Laters mate. Jiminy

Thanks for your replies.

I am going to cannibalize my old laptop anyway and stick the 512Mb of ram into whatever new one I get. I’m not too worried about storage size as the old 60GB drive out of my averatec is going into a caddy.

Basically bit ****ed off with my laptop breaking about 3 months after the warranty ran out, so want something cheep that wont break easily and if it does i can just send it in and it will come back fixed. :D

Stu

sorry jiminy take it in jest, just my experience, you've obviously had better experiences with dell & ive had better experiences with ibm, both are good but i prefer ibm, dell use alot of cheap components.

peace.. /ian

I had nothing but grief trying to spend £500 with Dell. To55ers!!

I ended up buying a Acer TravelMate and have had no problems at all. Excellent spec, very reliable and good value.
I've since bought two more Acer machines (desktops) and they have been exactly the same.

i second that nelly, Acer = grat laptop !

if u can afford it EMPI spend an extra 200 quid and get an acer, even better try comet clearance, my inlaw got a high spec acer for £350 from them a few month ago

/ian

Ian

No need for apologies mate - all taken in the spirit it was posted - no worries.

Laters

Jiminy

Thanks for that Ian, there are some really good deals there :) Do you know if that’s +vat or not? Also is there any warranty with them, as that’s kind of what I’m needing, cant afford to keep buying a new one all the time, not at least until I finish uni..... hopefully ;)


Cheers
Stu