New Laptop/notebook help required!!

[ImMrChip]

Help required!
Close to buying a Laptop as a back up to my PC, would appreciate a little advice.

I suppose the main reason for buying a Laptop/notebook would be the convenience of using it to play Poker in any room in the house (fed up being isolated in a small dull study!) have a great conservatory which I am seldom in!

I am currently looking at a Dell Inspiron 6400 which I think would meet my needs, which are modest.  It looks like good value to me.

Before I click the "buy" button has anyone got any thoughts, re suitability, addons etc.

Any comments re the best wireless connection would also be appreciated.

Oh any advice on internet connection when using it abroad when on holiday would be great.


The following is the spec on the Dell Inspiropn 6400 I am considering:

InspironTM 6400
Larger hard drive for storing more    
£449
Includes VAT & Shipping

Product Details

Processor
 Intel® Pentium® Dual-Core T2080 Processor (1.73GHz,533MHz,1MB L2 cache)   
Operating system
 
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium - English
   
Memory
 1024MB 533MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x512]   

Monitor
 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display   

Harddrive
 120GB (5400rpm) SATA Hard Drive   
Optical Drive
 
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive including software   
Graphic Card
 
Intel® Media Accelerator 950 Graphics Up to 256MB shared graphics memory   

[jizzemm]

Not that I know much about laptops but usually use dabs as they have a good way of breaking down what you want and then leaving u with the options and prices af what is there..

http://www.dabs.com/productlist.aspx?&NavigationKey=11105&NavigationKey=4294959538&NavigationKey=46160000&NavigationKey=49290000&NavigationKey=42880000&NavigationKey=408450000&NavigationKey=49340000&NavigationKey=49320000&NavigationKey=407140000&CategorySelectedId=11105&PageMode=1

Got that, but ur better probably doing your own search, but the price u have seems good..
Good luck..

[happybhoy]

If you can, get XP instead of Vista. Vista is horrible bloated spyware

[lucky_scrote]

Spend another 20 minutes shopping around, i bet you can find a laptop with a better processor (intel core 2 duo). It will be worth it, trust me



Nevermind i used google:

£414-http://www.google.co.uk/product_url?q=http://www.vartate.com/purchase/product.cfm%3FManufacturer%3DAcer%26Partno%3DLX.TH90X.001&fr=ABwfaj-26_ptURWuEV9-JG3A96RvuHeawAAAAAAAAAAA&gl=uk&hl=en

£423- http://www.microdirect.co.uk/ProductInfo.aspx?ProductID=19554

[lucky_scrote]

Although most people dont know a whole lot about computers, processors are usually the most important thing, and you getting an "intel core 2 duo" instead of an "intel core duo" is a pretty big difference. If you are prepared to pay £450 for a laptop you should be getting better than what you posted above (Dell dont make cheap laptops, i learned this a couple years ago)

[TheWhisper]

I saw the advert for this on TV the other day, looks interesting http://www.pcworld.co.uk/martprd/editorial/freelaptop

Also, with Dell give them a call rather than just buying it, they can reduce the prices a bit.

[matt674]

If you want a cheap notebook then drop me a line - can do you a good deal on one

[matt674]

forgot to mention - they come in lots of different colours..............

[OatFedGoat]

As others have said, try to get XP instead of Vista. If you can not avoid Vista then it is worth considering upping the ram to 2meg instead of the standard 1meg.
You will notice the difference.

[RichEO]

I'd go with vista not XP, gotta upgrade sometime and as the laptop is designed to come with vista you shouldn't have the hardware / driver issues that cause most people the problems. Maybe look for 2GB RAM, it's pretty standard on desktops these days but not essential.

[TheWhisper]

I would stick with XP, why fix what ain't broke.

[happybhoy]

I'd go with vista not XP, gotta upgrade sometime and as the laptop is designed to come with vista you shouldn't have the hardware / driver issues that cause most people the problems. Maybe look for 2GB RAM, it's pretty standard on desktops these days but not essential.

Not sure of the exact number but it's some in the range of 30 out of 70 Vista components 'phone home' some of them daily
Problems with copying, moving and deleting files because DRM is checking every byte to make sure you have a licensed copy, if it detects (possibly falsely) that something is not right it will purposefully degrade performance
It's sold on a $1=£1 basis for no good reason except we're total mugs.
And a litany of other little bugs and privacy, incompatibility and security issues. Add on to that an operating system shouldn't need a top of the range machine to run it cos at the end of the day its just a damn operating system.
Sure it's got a gee-whiz-neato window selector but it's still a steaming pile of crap.

The only reason anyone should need a top of the range pc is to either play games or run NASA from the OP it look like what's needed is a laptop that can play some poker, surf the net, send emails and possibly a few other things that aren't going to be to taxing on the machine, why pay top dollar just on Microsofts say-so.




IMHO. 

[RichEO]

Problems with copying, moving and deleting files because DRM is checking every byte to make sure you have a licensed copy, if it detects (possibly falsely) that something is not right it will purposefully degrade performance
It's sold on a $1=£1 basis for no good reason except we're total mugs.
And a litany of other little bugs and privacy, incompatibility and security issues. Add on to that an operating system shouldn't need a top of the range machine to run it cos at the end of the day its just a damn operating system.
Sure it's got a gee-whiz-neato window selector but it's still a steaming pile of crap.

The only reason anyone should need a top of the range pc is to either play games or run NASA from the OP it look like what's needed is a laptop that can play some poker, surf the net, send emails and possibly a few other things that aren't going to be to taxing on the machine, why pay top dollar just on Microsofts say-so.

I turned DRM off in the first 10 minutres of having vista.

$1 = £1.... more reason to get it bundled with your PC then?

Incompatibility, mostly harware issues (the serious ones anyway), not likely with a new PC (still possible of course).

Bugs. All seems sorted for me. It has an incredibly good feature which identifies (most of the time) whatever caused a crash or mishap and shows you how to resolve it.

Now the rest of it doesn't hold any weight at all... Yes you shouldn't necessarily need a top end PC just for your OS. Well, you don't, it OPTIONAL. If you are getting a new PC anyway that is more than capable of running it then you can't say there is no point getting that OS becuase your PC shouldn't need to be that good  >:? Regards to what computing power it needed for just poker, you should be critisising the PC choice not the OS choise if anything.

PS, I am mainly doing all this so that you (ImMrChip) aren't turned off to Vista automatically by everyone saying 'go for XP'. Vista isn't that bad (some might even say it's good if they wouldn't be thought an idiot ) and chances are you are only going to have to buy a seperate copy and reinstall your OS at some stage in the future.

[kinboshi]

I'd say RAM is important, but it's something you can always add on after you've purchased (but maybe at a higher cost?).

Anyone who's using 1GB of RAM, upgrade to 2GB and you'll be amazed at the difference, particularly if you run a number of different progams at once (especially graphics packages or pokertracker!).

[CelticGeezeer]

I have been using vista for some time now with no problems. Rich could you let me know how to turn of the drm.