I've been given the authorisation at work to bring a laptop into the office to use while working nights and weekend shifts.

What I need is this

x Dual Core (prefably 1.6 or higher with at least 2mb cache)

x 1gb or more, I need the option to upgrade to 4gb

x OS, not fussed, I will be installing my own software anyway

x 160 gb HDD is fine

x 15" screen is fine

x min of 2 USB ports

I will be using the laptop for using as a desktop pc at home/running vag com/watching DVD's etc etc (normal home and travel use). For training I will be running VMWare Server and hope to be able to run 3 servers virtually, hence the need for the RAM and the Dual Core with a min of 2mb cache.

I will also be using an external HDD so the VM's wont be to much for the internal laptop hdd.

budget upto £400, maybe a touch more if it's a brill deal.

Does anyone know a good place to buy such a laptop??

I'm just off to check out Dell and Dell Outlet and Dabs

Have a look on the Tesco Direct web-site they had some reduced that looked good, may have been a little above your budget but they had different specced ones at each price bracket.

Ebuyer. Lots of deals.

There was a similar thread not long ago, the machines mentioned should still be available.

this is not bad laptop with Core2Duo in PC World:

Advent 5302 Laptops - Cheap Advent Laptops.. Buy the Advent 5302 laptop at PC World.

Ebuyer. Lots of deals.

There was a similar thread not long ago, the machines mentioned should still be available.

was eBuyer ASUS 2GB RAM 200GB HD Vista Home Premium 2yr warranty £399

Bought one for daughter

now with 250GB HD

Cheap Laptop Deals on HP, Acer, Toshiba, Sony, Samsung at Ebuyer

1st item

this is not bad laptop with Core2Duo in PC World:

Advent 5302 Laptops - Cheap Advent Laptops.. Buy the Advent 5302 laptop at PC World.

I wouldn't, I've had one of these for a year - Advent 7203 Laptop Review in Laptops at Review Centre and I'm not wildly impressed. Luckily I don't demand much from my computers so price and features matter more than performance.

Compared to my Dell desktop (P4 HT 3 Ghz/512mb RAM) the laptop (DualCore2 1.73Ghz/1Gb RAM ) is dog slow which I've always blamed on it running Vista than XP.

I've not watched a DVD on battery alone but I doubt it would last through the film, the internal speakers are very poor and I very much doubt it would survive a lot of travelling - which will be tested this summer :(

JMTPW

Vista needs 2Gb minimum. Get another gig in and it'll speed up a lot.

I think that I am right in saying that Windows Vista has a bug and will not be able to use more than about 3gb of memory even if 4 is installed and even that doesnt show correctly.

I know its out of your budget but I have just bought a HP TX2130, you can get them for around 600.

It is a 12.1" touchscreen that swivels and turns into a tablet. Has a mini remote control so is great for watching DVD's etc

Steve

Vista needs 2Gb minimum. Get another gig in and it'll speed up a lot.

Aye, I'll be sorting that out soon and at 512mb the Dell deserves an upgrade too!

DMXDIMENSION.co.uk

HTH!

Spotted this one on Play earlier, while looking for someone else. Seems to fit the bill well for you:

Play.com (UK) : Acer Aspire 5920 / Core 2 Duo T7300 2.0GHz / 2GB / 120GB / 15.4" / DVD-SM / Vista Home Premium / Laptop / Notebook : Computing - Free Delivery

Steve

cheers guys.

I'll be having a good look round tonight and drawing up a shortlist.

If you wanted a Vaio, I can get you a VGN-NR32M/S for around £415 inc vat which comes with

Intel T2370 (1.73 GHz and 533 MHz FSB)

Windows Vista Home Premium with SP1

200 GB (Serial ATA 5400rpm) hard disk drive

2 GB DDR2-533 SDRAM (2 x 1024 MB)

15.4" WXGA (1280 x 800) X-black LCD

Mobile Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator X3100

DVD±RW/±R DL/RAM drive

Wireless LAN IEEE 802.11b/g

4 Hi-Speed USB 2.0 ports

2.9kg

Then there's the business stuff with Vista Business, fingerprint security stuff and all that for similar price, but spec is slightly lower.