Can I buy a laptop for my wife on a budget of around £300-£400?

Question

Don't worry, not a wanted ad! I am looking for a laptop with decent battery life, 256mb ram, XP (although not essential), USB port and the ability to connect wirelessly to Tiscali Broadband. Am I in cloud cuckoo or is this a possibility? What models should I be looking at? Its for my wifes midwifery course so it only needs to be able handle Internet, email and word processing. Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Answer 1

Yes they are that low in price now. PC world/curry/dixons (all same company) will do one for £350 to £400, normally an HP or Advent. Secondly Dell will do one at about the same price. I suggest PC World because you can take your wife into the store and you can see how heavy it is etc to see if she likes it and they sometimes have different choices at the same price range and best of all- if it breaks you can walk it back into their shop, Dell are notorious for poor customer services (buy it from the website though because its normally discounted).

Laptops rarely come with wireless connectivity in-built for that price so you will need to buy a wireless card that fits into the slot on the side of the laptop. They are about £20-£25.

I just checked both sites and PC World are doing an Advent for £350 (on line price only) and Dell are doing their cheapest for £399 but it is better with 512 RAM and slightly better processor (negligible). Keep your eye on the papers because Dell often feature deals. Last Jan they were doing a special on their basic laptop for £299. Dell also do a battery upgrade for a price- Be careful with their upgrades because they are often overpriced- keep to your budget in this instance. For example their external floppy drive is £35 when they can be bought elsewhere for £10 (as if you need one anyway).

feel free to email me if you want any further advise.

Answer 2

Current situation: Windows Vista coming out at end of '06, Pentium's next model around the same time, DDR3 a few months after, 512 Graphics Cards and 4096 RAM are out, and many software upgrades means 256 RAM will soon be not unlike 16 RAM, or in other words, USELESS. Do what I am doing now, save up some money, and wait for next year's new rush of upgrade, hoping that Microsoft will finaly be able to say asta la "Vista," 98.

Yes, you can buy a laptop, but it will become outdated fast.

Answer 3

you can buy a cheap laptop in most stores, try comet, currys, dell, pc world. all computers come with a minimum of 256mb ram, all new laptops will come with xp as standard. most laptops have intel centrino or celeron M which give you wireless built in. if not you can buy a wireless card for around £20. You need a wireless router for wireless internet. i recommend you buy MS Office too, (£200 - £400 new) but buy a copy disc on eBay for a tenner, i did that, works just the same!

hope you find what you want.

any more info, email me

Y! ID: john_e_2k6


i no loads lol

Answer 4

I think this is the cheapest one sugested to you yet and it has everything that you requested, and its from a respected online supplier, and a lot less hit or miss than ebay.

£336.63 inc VAT

Fujitsu Siemens V2030 Celeron M 256MB 40GB Combo XPHome

It has wireless lan, so you broadband shouldn't be a problem, only draw back is the battery time.

But to be honest this shouldn't be an issue, unless she is going to be using it on the train. In practice most people use their laptops plugged into the mains.

Answer 5

HP NC6400 Intel Core Duo T5600 - 1.83 GHz Processor, 2 GB Ram, 80 GB Harddrive, DVD-RW (Burner) Drive, Windows XP Professional, WiFi, 56K Modem & Hi-Speed Ethernet, 14.1 inch Display $349 I think that this one is the perfect laptop, though it's a refurbished laptop but still it's a really good laptop.

Answer 6

Well, in that price range you aren't going to find a powerhouse, there is this one, http://www.dabs.com/ProductView.aspx?Quicklinx=41WJ&CategorySelectedId=11012&PageMode=1&NavigationKey=11012&InMerch=1 for GBP 389 including VAT. That being said, it only has 256MB of memory, I would at least get 512MB of memory for it. I don't know if it has an available slot or not. So you may be able to get another 256MB module or you may have to get a 512MB module and replace the 256MB, it doesn't say how the board is populated.

Answer 7

Try www.novatech.co.uk I believe there is a wireless laptop on there for about £350. They are reliable and my fiances PC which came from Novatech is very reliable (after 3 years). They also have good customer service I believe.

Good luck to your wife on her midwifery course!

Answer 8

Yes, that'about 750 $ tops so you could get her any of the models found here:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Order=PRICE&Page=1&N=2000260032+4021&Submit=ENE&Nty=1&Subcategory=32

I don't recommend the Celerons. What I do recommend is:

Acer Aspire 1640 AS1642ZWLMi Intel Pentium M 735(1.7GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA 512MB 80GB DVD±R/RW Intel GMA950 NoteBook - 670$ ->decent configuration

AVERATEC 3700 3715-ED1 AMD Mobile Sempron 3000+ 12.1" XGA 512MB 60GB DVD/CD-RW Combo NoteBook - 730$ ->very small so she's sure to love it

Hope you like what you'll find

PS if you want a Celeron processor in spite of my warnind there is a nice toshiba:
TOSHIBA Satellite A105-S2001 Intel Celeron M 390(1.7GHz) 15.4" Wide XGA 512MB 60GB DVD/CD-RW Combo ATI Radeon Xpress 200M NoteBook - 699$

Answer 9

You can get a decent reconditioned one. Try Ebay but only use established dealers with good feedback who offer a proper warrenty (3 months or more).

Answer 10

I was looking for a cheap laptop for my wife around the same budget and found this one , slightly over £400 but i think for the money unbeatable http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Lenovo_C100_Notebook_TB032UK/version-1.asp