Hi,

 

I'm looking for a sub £400 laptop for my son to take with him when he starts university next month.

I saw this and put it forward to attract the expert advice from this forum on other laptops we should be considering to fit the bill of a cheap but adequate tool for university use.
 

Dell Inspiron 15 3521

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/dell-inspiron-15-3521-15-6-laptop-21427853-pdt.html

 

Spec

Intel pentium 2117U
Windows 8
4gb memory
1TB hard drive
6 hour battery
4 USB ports

 

Or an alternative

 

Lenovo G580 15.6"

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/lenovo-g580-15-6-laptop-blue-17056543-pdt.html

Thanks for any help on this

Hi, Both of these would be fine.  I like the Lenova better because it has more RAM and the processor is slightly faster as well.  No details about how long the battery lasts, but like MPG in the car you can take the quoted figures with a pinch of salt.

Hi, Both of these would be fine.  I like the Lenova better because it has more RAM and the processor is slightly faster as well.  No details about how long the battery lasts, but like MPG in the car you can take the quoted figures with a pinch of salt.

Thanks for this insight. Another option thats been put to me is the Toshiba C50 15.6 Inch 1TB 4GB Laptop from Argos.

 

http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/1092952.htm?cmpid=COJUN&catalogId=10001&_%24ja=tsid%3A11674|prd%3A1546795&storeId=10151&referredURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.argos.co.uk%2Fstatic%2FProduct%2FpartNumber%2F1092952.htm&referrer=COJUN#pdpFullProductInformation

Edited 26 August, 201312 yr by mark antony

Yes that is better, the i3 processor is a newer processor than the dual core pentium.  It has less RAM than the Lenova, but Windows 8 is ok in 4GB.  Truth is any of them will allow internet access, and use of MS office.  Remember that once your son has his student email account he can buy MS Office as a download from Microsoft for a very small amount of money.

Have you tried the dell outlet?

Try hp's online store too. They often have some really good deals

If the money was less tight I would recommend an Apple laptop.  Many students use these and your son may feel second best with a budget Windows machine.

If the money was less tight I would recommend an Apple laptop. Many students use these and your son may feel second best with a budget Windows machine.

Doesn't stop them queuing out the door to buy macbook, iPhone, ipod and apple TV during freshers week.

Wish I had £3k to spunk on tech

Doesn't stop them queuing out the door to buy macbook, iPhone, ipod and apple TV during freshers week.

Wish I had £3k to spunk on tech

So do I.

As someone who works for a University I would not recommend an Apple laptop! Yes they are nice machines and trendy, but the university will almost exclusively be a windows environment, with windows software! There is no benefit to owning a Mac in fact, i would see it as a bit of a hindrance.

 

Avoid anything that mentions pentium, they are old cheap processors!

Contiuing to look around on this, I came across this i3 Acer Aspire V3-571 for the same price. My daughter has got the i5 Acer Aspire from last year at £329; but I see that it's now £379.

 

i3

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_V3-571_1469845.html

 

i5

http://www.saveonlaptops.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_E1-57_1296588.html?utm_medium=google_shopping&utm_source=google&utm_campaign=google_shopping&gclid=CIm53sy2m7kCFXLLtAodnFkAJg

Will be interested to see the outcome of this as Im going back to uni next year

As someone who works for a University I would not recommend an Apple laptop! Yes they are nice machines and trendy, but the university will almost exclusively be a windows environment, with windows software! There is no benefit to owning a Mac in fact, i would see it as a bit of a hindrance.

 

Avoid anything that mentions pentium, they are old cheap processors!

+1, SWMBO's a lecturer at a Uni down here, the whole environment is geared towards Windows machines and there's very little support from iSolutions (The Uni IT Crowd), if any, for Apple machines. Those who run some 'nix variant are totally overlooked, though they usually know more than the iSolutions people anyway.

Dell outlet is well worth a look.

 

Keep an eye on Quidco etc for Dell they often have deals and offers on delivery etc.

 

In all honesty there isn't much out there now that isn't very powerful. i3 and i5 intel stuff is very good but if you are getting it for a good price don't ignore the AMD kit.

 

Toshiba's are well made.

 

Business laptops makes more sense imho less shine and better quality. It's very hard to get a 4:3 screen these days but they are so much better for actual work.

 

Budget for a keyboard and desk if he'll do  alot of work. Laptop keyboards are crippling after a bit.

 

I agree with the Windows preference. Much easier to get fixed if it breaks.

Edited 26 August, 201312 yr by Aspman

"Dell outlet is well worth a look."

 

Good advice and I've had a look, but the problem is that as someone with no knowledge of what's good in the laptop world, it's hard to know which one of the dell outlet offers are better than the others.

I bought my daughter the Dell in March and it is brilliant, highly recommended.

I bought my daughter the Dell in March and it is brilliant, highly recommended.

Dell make good enough machines (my desktop is one) but how good a laptop is all depends on the specs, and for £400 you are limited.  As for Apple, yes Universities are geared towards Windows, but that is not a problem.  If you have MS Office on your Mac it can both read and write files compatible with Windows Office, nad what other interaction do you need?  If there is an Acer with an i5 for less than £400, go for it, this processor is much more capable than those in the first couple of machines mentioned.  The RAM and Hard Drive are not to difficult to upgrade if needed, but the processor is not, so go for as good a one as you can get for your money.

"Dell outlet is well worth a look."

 

Good advice and I've had a look, but the problem is that as someone with no knowledge of what's good in the laptop world, it's hard to know which one of the dell outlet offers are better than the others.

 

Looks for i3 or i5 both are very good.

Look for 4Gb ram or more

Look for dedicated graphics (doesn't steal from the main memory) prob 1-2Gb now.

Looks for the biggest hard disk for the money.

Everything else is much-a-muchness.

 

17" screen might be worth considering if he'll be at a desk most of time.

 

I got an i5 with 4Gb ram, 1Gb graphics and 640Gb hd for £460 ish delivered.

It's a very good machine and was as new. It still has the plastic covers fitted.

 

I've an i3 in the desktop and it's plenty powerful enough too.

 

I've heard the 'scratch and dent' stuff is generally in pretty good nick too, just very small scratches.

 

Advantages with the Outlet are, bit cheaper, same warranty and faster delivery than the new stuff.

 

They update at 3pm and 3am I'm told and you do need to get in quick to buy the best stuff.

Edited 27 August, 201312 yr by Aspman

If he might want a cross between portability and a decent screen size then I can recomend this machine:

 

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/toshiba-satellite-u840w-10j-14-4-cinematic-ultrabook-silver-black-17056575-pdt.html

 

With the £100 cashback it makes it £399 which for an Ultrabook is the cheapest currys do. Plus you also get a £50 voucher to spend in store that he could use for a case, mouse etc.

 

Specs are:

 

Intel Core i5

6GB RAM

500GB HDD + 32GB SSD (14 seconds to boot up from cold!)

14.4" widescreen

Illuminated keyboard

Up to 9 Hour Battery life (could be handy for uni work)

 

I'm very pleased with it and with the ultrawide screen it works very well having two documents side by side.

 

Phil

If he might want a cross between portability and a decent screen size then I can recomend this machine:

 

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/toshiba-satellite-u840w-10j-14-4-cinematic-ultrabook-silver-black-17056575-pdt.html

 

With the £100 cashback it makes it £399 which for an Ultrabook is the cheapest currys do. Plus you also get a £50 voucher to spend in store that he could use for a case, mouse etc.

 

Specs are:

 

Intel Core i5

6GB RAM

500GB HDD + 32GB SSD (14 seconds to boot up from cold!)

14.4" widescreen

Illuminated keyboard

Up to 9 Hour Battery life (could be handy for uni work)

 

I'm very pleased with it and with the ultrawide screen it works very well having two documents side by side.

 

Phil

Yes that looks nice.  My own laptop is a Samsung Series 9 ultrabook, will full SDD storage.  Boots very quickly and uses far less battery than a mechanical HDD.

^ not to diss the suggestion but narrow widescreens are rubbish to work on if you use documents. Great for films and games but not for Office. Remember pages are tall and narrow.

 

You might want to consider a used non-widescreen monitor if you can't get a decent laptop for working on.

 

4:3 for work, 16:9 for play.

 

The laternaive would be a tablet style where you can rotate the screen to suit. Hard to get in budget though. We've some of the Dell win8 tablets at work. they're really good but a but small for a main computer.

If he wants a laptop for games, films etc. then normal laptops are fine.  If he wants to take notes on it, get him a tablet PC.  I'm on my second now and the one I had two years ago, a Fujitsu Siemens T5010, was the best machine I had had up to that point because I could write on it faster than I could type.  I downloaded the lecture handouts onto the PC and wrote (drew, labelled etc) directly on them while in the lectures.

 

No costly printing, no piles of paper or folders, and the notes are searchable (it recognises your handwriting) just like a normal text document would be.  Even more importantly, you can have your entire set of notes on the machine, so in subsequent years you have all your previous stuff to hand - very useful.  Also, you can potentially have the internet at your fingertips while taking notes if you want to add stuff to your notes.  When lecturers direct you to a certain journal paper or article, you can download it there and then and link to it from your notes.

 

These machines aren't cheap new but there are some real bargains to be had second hand.

 

And of course they're still laptops with a keyboard, so they do all the other stuff like films, games etc.

Edited 27 August, 201312 yr by Yearofthegoat

^ not to diss the suggestion but narrow widescreens are rubbish to work on if you use documents. Great for films and games but not for Office. Remember pages are tall and narrow.

 

You might want to consider a used non-widescreen monitor if you can't get a decent laptop for working on.

 

4:3 for work, 16:9 for play.

 

The laternaive would be a tablet style where you can rotate the screen to suit. Hard to get in budget though. We've some of the Dell win8 tablets at work. they're really good but a but small for a main computer.

 

Yeah fair point to be fair.

 

Plus I have just noticed it's actually out of stock completely now. Must be popular.

 

Phil

Yeah fair point to be fair.

 

Plus I have just noticed it's actually out of stock completely now. Must be popular.

 

Phil

 

 It's a good price for the spec.

We support Apple on a best effort basis if an Academic insists on using one, but most will struggle. Even accessing our shared storage is a challenge because we gear everything towards our supported OS which is Windows 7 64bit.

 

I would really recommend a keyboard and external mouse if he will be doing any real amount of work on it, DSE regulations and all that. An external monitor might be nice if the budget stretches. I wouldn't worry too much though, where I work we have well over 1000 lab computers for students to use, most are open 24 hours a day. The advantage is there are less distractions and generally they will have all of the software you need ready installed.

Widescreen can be OK with win7/8 as you can have 2 docs side by side.