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Mike

Giga Poster
My first post in a while...

My current laptop seems to have almost had it.
It's a Compaq Presario CQ60, 2 1/2 years old. It already went in for repair once about half a year ago as it was falling apart (literally... the keys were falling off, the shell sourrounding the screen had completely cracked and it couldn't be closed properly without the laptop almost snapping), and now the fan has decided to stop working, the bolts are coming/falling out from the case, the headphone jack doesn't work, a USB socket isn't working, and it still has Windows Vista.

So, I feel like the time has come to purchase a new laptop, but instead of buying the first thing the man with excessive acne and whom says "if you know what I've saying" every few words from PC World tells me to buy, I've decided to do a bit more research of my own, and see what my options are before I buy.

My top choices so far are a Dell or an Asus, both with Intel i7 processors, and both below £500 (which is pretty much as high as I'm willing to go, especially with insurance...etc... needing to be bought)...
Asus
Dell

Otherwise, there seems to be a myriad of Intel i5s/AMD-equivalents between £400 and £500, all with varying amounts of jargon.

I need a laptop that will last a good amount of time (3 years+), is portable, fast, and can handle pretty basic games and functions.

Am I on the right track with the Asus/Dell, or should I be looking elsewhere?
 
I've got that Dell, albeit like, the older version?

It's really good. And it's the first laptop that has lasted me more than a year, so take that for what it's worth...
 
Get a Mac I have had one problem in 4 years and it got fixed for free, to this day I have no idea why Joey has had so many problems no one else I know has lol.

On a serious note what are you going to use it for.

If you are not playing games then you do not need the i7. If you are playing games get the 17, yes it has less RAM but the i7 makes up for it.

As for makes I would avoid HP they just break all the time and are not well made.
 
marc said:
As for makes I would avoid HP they just break all the time and are not well made.
Click to expand...

When I ventured into PC World the other day, the bloke tried to sell me an HP laptop which my sister bought, and has completely broken in a year. Despite me telling him that every feature he was talking about either didn't work, or was broken, he still went on with his sales pitch. :p

Another option which I quite like, and seems to be rated highly be review websites, is this new Samsung, which is also around £500, has a better hard drive and higher RAM, but has an AMD processor which I'm not sure how it compares to an i7/i5.
 
AMD are fine they are up there with the i range.

As I said depends what you are using it for.

In 5 years Mark is on his 3rd hp laptop.

Get a Dell or something like that, get one made by people that do computers and not a bit of everything.
 
My HP laptop set on fire after about 10 months.

I replaced it with that Samsung (earlier model though), which also died after less than a year.

I have the WORST luck with laptops, but, this Dell is still going REALLY strong. Fully recommended.
 
Yeah, I agree with Ben, I bought a desktop (Packard Bell) 9 months ago and i highly recommend it, however if it's particularly a laptop you want then get Dell, I had one for 5 Years and it suffered no end of abuse, and my mum has it now AND it's still going strong!
 
I'd never recommend that anyone buy a Dell laptop. Whilst the laptops I've seen are reasonably solidly built, their consumer tech support is utterly dire. If your Dell laptop develops problems, expect headaches. I'd avoid them like the plague.

My laptop preference is for Toshiba these days.
 
But Toshiba have like REALLY bad reviews for reliability.

I know Dell arn't perfect, but they consistently come out top alongside Acer and Apple in customer satisfaction ratings.
 
Hmm, so HP and Samsung seem to be out the window, leaving me with my two original choices.

Any word on the Asus from anybody?
 
That Dell offer is now gone, so unless something else pops up in the next day or so, I think I'm going for the Asus...
 
^^Yeah, I was going to say something similar. Until just a few days ago when the screen packed in, I'd still been using an old Compaq that I bought about 6 or 7 years ago and had been using heavily.

I think it's just luck of the draw to be honest, regardless of manufacturer. You'll find good and bad reviews about basically all of them.
 
Lenovo Thinkpads are excellent for durability/build quality and all-round features, so I've been told. The problem is like many have been saying, it completely depends on how much you have and what you want to do with them. Avoid Acer, as they have a tendency to fall apart.

Check out here for some really great deals on laptops and general PC stuff like storage media or software stuff. Excellent site for other things, too!

Also, make sure you never go for a gaming/very powerful laptop - they will only ever last a year at max, if they've not destroyed themselves/melted before then.
 
Just don't go with Acer, my brother got a computer off them and it completly broke within a year.

Dell's nearly always good and rarely break down.
 
Go buy any laptop, let it break and realise that desktops are better and if you ever need a laptop then go cheap.

[/elitism]
 
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