New laptop for an Internet novice

October 12, 2006 5:37 AM

UK Mefites.. I have around £500 to spend on a laptop, to help my GF become internet capable. Nothing fancy required, as it'll be pretty much internet & e-mail only. Wireless is one requirement, decent sized screen another. Any recommendations, or any that I should avoid at all costs.
posted by the_epicurean to computers & internet (12 comments total)

For those requirements, there's not really any way you can go wrong, unless you want, say, a particular screen resolution too. But even if you end up with 1024 x 768 it'll be fine for those tasks.

If you feel happier buying from a store, head down to PC World. They have deals under £500 on notebooks now. If you're happy buying online, head over to eBuyer and get something like this Toshiba Satellite Pro notebook It's £389 including VAT, has wireless LAN, has a 15" screen, comes with Windows XP, etc.

The only thing you might want to add (or search for) is more memory. 256MB will work fine, but 512 or 1 gig would be far better.
posted by wackybrit at 6:10 AM on October 12, 2006

UKDeals is a decent place to start looking--this Dell is almost certainly more computer than she needs but is a pretty good value for what you're getting. eBuyer is another place to check.

As for getting her online, if she doesn't have an ISP yet, she might want to look into Now. I think they're only just deploying, but they've got a £14 a month broadband via wireless card that could be cheaper than getting DSL and a landline if she's in their service area.
posted by reflexed at 6:11 AM on October 12, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

(BTW, I don't work for PC World or eBuyer, but have used eBuyer almost every month for the last four years without any problems. PC World, I am not so keen on, but they can do the job.)
posted by wackybrit at 6:11 AM on October 12, 2006

I always used to price out things and then go down to Tottenham Court Road (I see that you're in London) to haggle a deal at one of the many electronic shops. I don't live in the UK any more so I haven't been there for a while, but I guess that there are still such places there...
posted by ob at 6:17 AM on October 12, 2006

I got a 500 quid PC world laptop (their own brand - Advent). I use it for mail and web stuff at home, so it comes out a few times a day. I've never taken it out of the house.

I wouldn't recommend it. The catch is already broken on the lid. The wireless is USB, and flakey. I couldn't get the USB working under linux (probably not a problem for you, but a deal-breaker for me). The battery lasts about an hour.

My old job came with a samsung which was ace - Q25 - but I'm fairly sure that's out of your price range. I'd rather a secondhand one of them or a thinkpad than a new PC world job.
posted by handee at 6:54 AM on October 12, 2006

Another vote for Advent (PC world own brand) being crap. Several faults developed in my boyfriend's Advent in the year following purchase and it's now just taking up space.

I know a few people who have Dells and there's no doubt you get quite a lot of computer for your money these days. None of the people I know have complained about their laptops. I had the joyous experience of setting one up ready for use by my mother-in-law, though, and that involved deleting a whole load of crap (whatever bloated anti-virus it had pre-installed, for example) and replacing it with good stuff (AVG). On the whole, though, she's got a pretty good useable machine for £350 and a couple of hours donkey-work done by me.
posted by altolinguistic at 7:29 AM on October 12, 2006

That's something to avoid.. non-internal Wifi. Always make sure it's a built in part.
posted by wackybrit at 7:37 AM on October 12, 2006

I'd recommend Dell. Comparing the specs with high street stores, Dell always seems to come in cheaper and I've been happy with all the computers I've bought from them. Sign up for the Dell UK newsletter and you'll get email alerts to sales, special offers, etc.
posted by gfrobe at 7:42 AM on October 12, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Thanks for the help guys, I've decided to go with Dell, and as a good mate works there, I can get an extra 10% off, so I'll be able to get a wireless router and photo printer for £498.
posted by the_epicurean at 8:52 AM on October 12, 2006

Oops, didn't mean to make mine favourite. Honest guv, I'm not that vain!
posted by the_epicurean at 8:54 AM on October 12, 2006

I hope you come back to this thread and find this post because if you do get a Dell then you really should run The PC De-crapifier on it which will remove the 101 trial programs that come pre-installed.
posted by mr_silver at 9:34 AM on October 12, 2006 [1 favorite has favorites]

Holy war yadda yadda. How about an iBook G4? They are going cheap since the invention on the MacBook.
posted by roofus at 3:10 PM on October 13, 2006