Best laptop for under £400

Im looking to get a laptop for about £400 or less. Any recommendations from anyone out there? The Inspiron 1525 (with dual core, 120gb memory and 1024MB) from Dell at £360 looks pretty good spec.

yup, inspiron's a good bet. Good hardware, quite standard, so well supported and non-flakey. Also, I think Dell will sell you one with XP on it.

I have a 1300, which the model you're looking at replaced at the bottom end, it's MUCH lower spec, but I'm really happy with it.

Construction is really solid, but a wee bit agricultural, just don't let Imac owners see it.

Oh and get the big battery, or buy an after market one, you'll need it.

But, just don't count on aftersales support... :p

Nick King wrote: But, just don't count on aftersales support... :p

true,but will u need it?

EDIT: I tore the dvdrom out of mine by dropping it, and it couldn't care less as long as I wedged the door shut.

After 13 months, the only other issue is that the cooling system has inhaled too much dust, and needs cleaned. Gotta open it soon, as prolonged 100% cpu use (ie booting windows) makes it shit itself. without hammering it, it runs for weeks (I use it as a giant remote control, as well as a media player for work)

I've worked with alot of Dells and have to say I really hate that brand. For the price there are more solidly built with better performance elsewhere.

Currently I bought a Fujitsu. Have to say it came with more memory, CPU etc. for the price... the computer is solid, looks pretty too, and the support is amazing. I called once, don't remember why, but I got a tech with no wait period and get this.... he was American, talking from America, and actually knew what he was talking about! Great support... actually I didn't think computer support like that even existed!

the only issue I have is that I needed to get the bigger battery, as the one that came with the computer only ran the computer for 80 minutes

Doctor? wrote:

Nick King wrote: But, just don't count on aftersales support... :p

true,but will u need it?

A mate of mine does - he's got a Dell, and after a week of trying to convince their lousy tech support that he had a hardware problem (BSOD in Vista which pointed to a faulty CPU), we eventually zapped everything, reinstalled (just Windows, nothing else), same BSOD...

It eventually came up with a POST error message - this time they couldn't just blame it on a software issue...

like the Dell Vostro 1400 with Xp, 2 GB RAM, 250 GB HD, 2.2 Chip, no malware, no productivity suite included. No camera It is like 900-950 bucks. All it may have on it is Acrobat. Put on all my favorite apps

I will normally remove tons of crapware and I like Open Office. Put on my chat clients, Firefox, ITunes etc and a security suite and I am good.

Xp is mature and it seems most businesses will skip Vista. I like business machines cause they seem a better build than a consumer rig. a 14" one is like 5.5 lbs. Most 15.4" laptops of the world and anything over 6.5 lbs. are a bit heavy to me. I cam n get a 14" Dell and port it out VGA to a larger monitor.

How does that sound??

NO Regret wrote: Im looking to get a laptop for about £400 or less. Any recommendations from anyone out there? The Inspiron 1525 (with dual core, 120gb memory and 1024MB) from Dell at £360 looks pretty good spec.

I think the inspiron 1525 is your choice for a rally good price. Last week I bought a 1525 too (with dual core, 160gb hard drive and 2GB memory) for us $ 980. I’m using DELL laptops since 2000, and is the best brand for me.

Thanks for the comments guys. Im still none the wiser by that split opinion.

I guess its like anything; mobiles, cities, bands....we all got our own take on things.

Though it looks as if I have last years model, this one is very close to what I have... highly suggest it.... plus Fujitsu has alot of cool add ons that Dell doesn't have (like a spill resistant keyboard that feels real nice, fingerprint logon, shock resistant harddrive, etc.)...

http://store.shopfujitsu.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=A3210

If anything, go with AMD Turion rather than the Intel.... same performance, but Intel adds price just cause of the name.

EdelBrock wrote: Though it looks as if I have last years model, this one is very close to what I have... highly suggest it.... plus Fujitsu has alot of cool add ons that Dell doesn't have (like a spill resistant keyboard that feels real nice, fingerprint logon, shock resistant harddrive, etc.)...

http://store.shopfujitsu.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=A3210

If anything, go with AMD Turion rather than the Intel.... same performance, but Intel adds price just cause of the name.

Yeah I have AMD on my desktop pc and its good. Thanks for the link. That Fujitsu looks really smart and like you say, lots of nice features. I need firewire to link up my camcorder and notice toshiba, compac and that dont have them.

I think the A3210 model is only available in US but I found a similar one PI2515 (£395) so might be like for like. Not sure.

The one I bought was the A3130. It seems that its not offered anymore and by looking at what all the other computers offer, maybe they were selling it too low to be able to make a profit?

This one was cool as it had added features that might be on the neat side, but not sure if I'll ever use them...

• a full remote control that has tons of buttons on it
• bluetooth
• a touch and write pad

Plus with all the performance features of higher priced laptops (and can handle some game play). The only drawback was that it is a little heavy... but I got it for $950 after rebate... the performance features on like model laptops were priced around $1300-1500... so the weight doesn't really bother me.

I'm not sure how that other one is that you noted, but this laptop definately has more bang for the buck than other laptops... (plus kick ass customer service)...