I am hunting for a notebook (my first one) circa £350-£400 it's mainly for doing my MCSE and CCNA stuff whilst I am away from home so it will not be mega work hungry. I saw an offer in the paper last week for a Dell notebook for £329 but I can't find the ecode anywhere :( Can anyone help me find a suitable system???

FPMSL Helpful as ever roy :P

I am hunting for a notebook (my first one) circa £350-£400 it's mainly for doing my MCSE and CCNA stuff whilst I am away from home so it will not be mega work hungry. I saw an offer in the paper last week for a Dell notebook for £329 but I can't find the ecode anywhere :( Can anyone help me find a suitable system???

DMXDIMENSION.CO.UK

I know that some people frown at Dell but I've been using one of their cheap notebooks for five years now (daily at office + at home) and never have had any trouble with it.

I checked dell.co.uk and their cheapest Inspiron starts at £339. That's very basic (1 GB RAM and 80 GB HD) ut depending on your needs you could upgrade and see the total.

What's a bit annoying with Dell is that they suddenly have those special offers of 2 GB RAM at no extra cost,or free shipping, or upgraded HD... so you'll never know if it's a good idea to wait for a couple of weeks.

And their support is carp, but I don't see this as an exception. And with your MCSE/CCNA knowledge, why should you need support:D

I have seen this little monkey and I like Amazon.co.uk: HP Pavillion G6061EA Laptop Notebook, AMD Athlon 64 X2 TK57, 2048 MB RAM, 120 GB Hard Disk, 15.4" Screen, Super Multi DVD Writer (+/-R +/-RW), NVIDIA GeForce 7000M, WiFi, Vista Home Premium: Electronics & Photo

This looks suitable for a Monkey

And the useful flow of information continues I believe they call this karma

One of those toys r us solid state ones seems to be the choice of your type

Karma is a wonderful thing:)

Nah the solid state one would be quite groovy for playing But for what I need, old skool moving cogs and wheels and some valves are needed

Computer Supplies from Novatech

I'm still using a laptop I bought from them 6 years ago for £600

I'd suggest avoiding the bargain basment models.

The cut down chips (Celerons and Semprons) won't cope well with Vista. Also 2Gb is really a minimum to run Vista.

I'm selling mine if you interested.

HP laptop nx6325 AMD Turion TL-60 2Gb RAM on eBay, also, Laptops, Computing (end time 23-Feb-08 20:10:16 GMT)

I don't want to but have a honeymoon to pay for in April.

If want new keep an eye out on Ebuyer for the HP and Toshiba business laptops. They will often have cash back offers. I've been pleased with my HP and I'll get another one in the future. The business laptops are a bit better made but have weaker games ability. They have better keyboards and processors and connectivity instead.

Well I just got this Play.com (UK) : Hewlett Packard (HP) DV6710EA / AMD Turion 64 x 2 TL-60 / 2GB / 250GB / 15.4" / DVD-SM / Vista Home Premium / Laptop / Notebook : PC - Free Delivery

Works at at roughly £460 with quidco I thought sod it

Looks good that does.

I have an Acer Aspire 7520 laptop bought for £399 and is now £349

Only comes with 1GB RAM and 80GB HD but does the job well enough for me which is DVD watching, surfing and some light games like Homeworld and Starcraft. 17" Screen too.

What about an Asus eee pc. They're small and compact and cheap Asus EEE PC 4G - In Stock at Some PC Worlds - Collect @ Store Only - HotUKDeals Forum

Apparently they're going to release one with a bigger screen. Only disadvantage is it has Linux but I think windows can be installed if you want.

Well I just got this Play.com (UK) : Hewlett Packard (HP) DV6710EA / AMD Turion 64 x 2 TL-60 / 2GB / 250GB / 15.4" / DVD-SM / Vista Home Premium / Laptop / Notebook : PC - Free Delivery

Works at at roughly £460 with quidco I thought sod it

Err I have this It's v rapido!! I am totally happy with it. The speakers are damn good too, overall two thumbs fresh :thumbup:

If you manage to get the right machine from Dell, they can be ok... ...but the customer service is so terrible it could take you 3 years and £250 worth of phone calls to get to that stage!!!!

ebuyer.com have got some well priced acer laptops at the moment - well worth a look.

Davey

CCL have some deals on

CCL E-Shot Template

Vostro™ 1700 NB(N0217002)

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5470 (1.60 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2-cache), Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English

£ 424.00

1

£ 424.00

Item

Description

Base

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5470 (1.60 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2-cache)

Memory

1024MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x512]

Keyboard

Internal Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)

Video Card

256MB nVidia® GeForce® 8600M GT

Hard Drive

160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive

Microsoft Operating System

Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium - English

Modem

56.6k V.92 Capable Internal Modem & Adapter - UK

Optical Devices

Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including Software

Wireless Networking

Intel® Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-Card - Europe

Shipping Documents

English Documentation with English/Irish Power Cord

Gedis Bundle Reference

N0217002

Microsoft Application Software

Microsoft® Works 8.0 - English

Standard Warranty

1Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day

Enhanced Service Packs

1Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day Included - No Upgrade Selected

CompleteCare

Declined CompleteCare

Protect your new PC

No Security/Anti-Virus Protection - English

Power Supply

90W AC Adapter

Bluetooth

No Bluetooth Upgrade

Order Information

Vostro Laptop Order - UK

Primary Battery

Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)

Carrying Cases

No Carry Case

Dell System Media Kit

Resource CD - contains Diagnostics and Drivers

Colour Choice

Matte Jet Black without Camera

Online Promotion Option for GEDIS Configs

Dell Internet Order.

LCD

17.0" Widescreen WXGA+ (1440x900) TFT Display

Price:

£ 402.80

Delivery Charge:

£ 0.00

VAT:

£ 70.49

Total Price:

£ 473.29

Ordered the above today from Dell....... Pretty good value for the spec!

I am happy with my HP £460 (with quidco ) 1.9GHz dual core turion, 2GB ram, 250GB HDD, 15.5 truebritey thingy widescreen, decent altec lansing speakers, inbuilt web cam (not going to do a Lesley Grantham ) Geforce 7150M Graphics. And it feels very solid too.