Going to need a laptop for work.....anyone got any recommendations.

Upto

Dell Latitude D620

Core Duo processors , 14.1" widescreen display and all the other goodies you require.

£649+VAT for the basic sustem with a dual 1.66ghz , 1gb ram , 60gb hard drive and CDRW/DVD-ROM drive.

You can then upgrade the processor , grpahics card , hard drive , optical drive , screen etc etc etc to spend more of your budget if you like.

3yr warranty as standard.

Dell Latitude 620 if you can config it into your budget or 420 if you don't mind the DVD drive being in a seperate box as a trade off for portability.

Macbook has bootcamp so you can run XP on it anyway, and yeah you can get office for mac, but not sure if that is for intel mac or just the propper old macs

Adrian, should you want a Vaio, let me know, may be able to help with pricing

edit:

as an example, a VGNSZ2M for just under a grand.

• Intel® Centrino® Duo mobile technology with Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2300 (1.66 GHz and 667 MHz FSB) and Intel® Pro/Wireless 802.11a/b/g
  
• Genuine Microsoft® Windows® XP Home Edition with Service Pack 2 (English version)
  
• 80 GB (Serial ATA, 5400 rpm) hard disk drive
  
• Memory: 1 GB DDR2-533 SDRAM (1 x 1024 MB), maximum 2 GB DDR2-533 SDRAM
  
• 13.3" WXGA (1280 x 800) X-black LCD
  
• NVIDIA® GeForce™ Go 7400 with TurboCache™ supporting 128 MB
  
• Double layer DVD±RW drive (ultra light)
  
• G-Sensor HDD Shock Protection
  
• 1.85kg
  
• QWERTY keyboard

edit2: and it comes in magnesium chassis :P

Adrian, should you want a Vaio, let me know, may be able to help with pricing

Funny you should mention this....

I think a macbook is an excellent choice. With regards to MS office file compatibility you can always pick up a copy of Open Office 2 (free). It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of office but is very usable.

the following model will come in just over your budget but is well worth it

13.3-inch widescreen display

1280 x 800 resolution

2.0GHz Intel Core Duo1

1 gig memory (2 x 512MB SODIMMs)

100GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive 2

SuperDrive (DVD

If you want a great toy.

http://www.oqo.com/hardware/basics/

I think a macbook is an excellent choice. With regards to MS office file compatibility you can always pick up a copy of Open Office 2 (free). It doesn't have all the bells and whistles of office but is very usable.

the following model will come in just over your budget but is well worth it

13.3-inch widescreen display

1280 x 800 resolution

2.0GHz Intel Core Duo1

1 gig memory (2 x 512MB SODIMMs)

100GB 5400-rpm Serial ATA hard drive 2

SuperDrive (DVD

Been looking at Vaios myself recently, for different reasons. I want as small a laptop as possible with big HD and lots of ram. DVD and floppy external, as I want small so I can take it easily onto an aircraft as hand luggage. My 7 year old libretto is a little slow for modern computing.

We get the IBM Thinkpad R52's at work. Dont lok very flash but do the job.

Going to need a laptop for work.....anyone got any recommendations.

Upto

Adrian, should you want a Vaio, let me know, may be able to help with pricing

Can you?

How much help?

PM me if want to keep it off the Forum.

done a bit of reading and you can get MS Office on using Bootcamp

You can get MS Office mac native directly from Apple. It's generally considered to be more stable and easier to use than the Windows version, although I haven't used it so I'll reserve judgement.

Hmmm. MacBook would be a good option - just be aware that you can't right-click using the touchpad so you'll need to invest in a decent Bluetooth Mouse (eg Logitech V270).

Other than that I can't recommend IBM T-series ThinkPads highly enough. Not as funky as the Mac, but hewn from something very solid with excellent keyboards and decent performance.

Heh, another macbook myth. You can, in fact, right click with the touchpad. You just put two fingers on it instead of one and click, and it's a right-click. Also handy is the 2D scrolling - put two fingers on the touchpad and moving them about, and you get vertical and horizontal scrolling like the trackball on the mighty mouse.

Dell Latitude 620 if you can config it into your budget or 420 if you don't mind the DVD drive being in a seperate box as a trade off for portability.

Macbook has bootcamp so you can run XP on it anyway' date=' and yeah you can get office for mac, but not sure if that is for intel mac or just the propper old macs[/quote']

the 420 is a very nice machine... got one infront of me now... but only has a Core duo 1.2ghz so ill stick to my 620

How do Sony justify charging so much more than the competition?

How do Sony justify charging so much more than the competition?

People are prepared to pay more for a premium brand name , and some of the VAIOs are lovely looking bits of kit.

The more mainstream models aren't actually all that expensive though.

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/103783

or

http://www.ebuyer.com/UK/product/110793

for example

People are prepared to pay more for a premium brand name , and some of the VAIOs are lovely looking bits of kit.

And historically they were well built. Unfortunately that's not still the case and we have stopped buying from them in the past couple of months because of a batch of 6 laptops only one hasn't been back more than once :eek:

Anyone got experience of Rock laptops http://www.rockdirect.com/? They look very well specced for the money?

Heh, another macbook myth. You can, in fact, right click with the touchpad. You just put two fingers on it instead of one and click, and it's a right-click. Also handy is the 2D scrolling - put two fingers on the touchpad and moving them about, and you get vertical and horizontal scrolling like the trackball on the mighty mouse.

Yes in OSX - I seem to remember this feature was added in a recent OSX update as my March 2006 MacBook Pro didn't have this out of the box. Doesn't work in Windows XP via BootCamp to my knowledge.

How do Sony justify charging so much more than the competition?

All those extra batteries, isnt it???

Avoid anything from Toshiba, advice I wish I'd seen 2 years ago. I bought an equium and its slower than a week in paris!

Coincidence that the the first bit of their name is "tosh"???

:eek: :eek: :eek: Dell!!! Just buy a fire proof bag to put it in! LOL

:eek: :eek: :eek: Dell!!! Just buy a fire proof bag to put it in! LOL

Nothing wrong with Dell machines.

The Sony batteries they were using a while back have a small percentage of faulty ones , but thats not an issue now and the same could be said about Mac laptops

Nothing wrong with Dell machines.

The Sony batteries they were using a while back have a small percentage of faulty ones ' date=' but thats not an issue now and the same could be said about Mac laptops[/quote']

Sorry but I belived the news that Apple recalled 1.8 million due to risk and Dell recalled 1.4 million. Quantas have also banned their use.

I have a Toshiba Tecra M2 and I love it.