Just been dropped a bombshell and I'll need to hand my works laptop back in on Tuesday for a desktop. Problem is I've got 4 weeks to go to finish my dissertation and the laptop was obviously very very useful!!

I'm going to bite the bullet and go and get one over the next couple of days but have no idea what's good and what's not. I have about

You could do a lot worse than one of these Dell's for £328

http://www.dmxdimension.com/blogcategory/dell_uk_inspiron_1300.html

Intel® Celeron® M 370 (1.50 GHz, 1MB L2 Cache, 400 MHz FSB)

Windows® XP Home Edition

256MB 533MHz DDR2 SDRAM (1x256).....Memory upgrade? Click here.

40GB (5.400rpm) Hard Drive

14.1" WXGA (1280x800) LCD Panel

8X DVD+/-RW with Software

Internal 56K v.92 Capable Fax Modem

Dell™ Wireless 1370 802.11b/g Mini PCI Card

4 Cell 29Whr Primary Battery

Microsoft® Works 7.0

It's no good for games , but for office use and general surfing you can't go wrong.

Oh , and you might want to add another 256mb memory (not from Dell , but ebuyer as it's cheaper) , or go for the £399 one with 512mb and a bigger screen and hard drive

Dell have some tempting offers these days.

Edit - Beat me Alex!!!

Depends what spec of laptop you are used to. Personally speaking I'd look for at least 512Mb RAM first and CPU type second. For word processing and stuff like that even a basic Celeron will be absolutely fine as long as it has that much RAM.

I do like Compaq and HP lappy's though, very good kit

Just been dropped a bombshell and I'll need to hand my works laptop back in on Tuesday for a desktop. Problem is I've got 4 weeks to go to finish my dissertation and the laptop was obviously very very useful!!

I'm going to bite the bullet and go and get one over the next couple of days but have no idea what's good and what's not. I have about

Thanks for the replies guys. Looks like some decent ones on the dell website and for £400 a bit of bargain!!

@Fluffmeister, cheers for the offer. I'm going to try and buy one over the next couple of days I think. If I get stuck though I'll give you a shout