Laptop specifications

Polchraine, I've seen this happen in hundreds of businesses, where they were littered with assorted cheep PCworld purchases, I used to be run ragged often working sixteen hour shifts repairing and re building pc's. By comparison my new Dell world is a very sane one and I actually have time for a hobby.

Like said a sentence further that's a personal thing I rather look someone straight in the eye when I buy something expensive.
I only once bought something expensive over the net and that was from SRS since I would save €100, but if that was last I would probable get it here.
And your story is one I didn't hear about DELL what you said... I simply don't know... they just aren't my thing.

And those are extra serviceses you need to pay for btw...and also pay quite a lot for P&P.
Just click on a laptop, €499 and it ended up €665 in the end, for that price i can get a Laptop a model higher...
So yeah I don't know the service might be very good but so is it from the shop I go... so no it just isn't my thing.

Edit: did some research about Dell with the Consumer-union here in the Netherlands and you didn't get very happy about customer-service from Dell Netherlands... so I'm sorry that I stated that Dell had bad service. Well it is true but not in the UK it seems.

The biggest problem here was delivery.
-Not done in the by law required 30days
-Delivery in segments, you dont need to accept that.
-And that you need to pay the full price when ordering while by law that maxmimum you need to pay is 50%. so you can pay everything but you don't need to till after delivery.

This was from the HHC vs Dell in court... already 4 years ago. They may have change though but don't say it wasn't true link it's seemed they have change policy in December 2007

I also have quite a bit of IT experience and I agree with the above DELL have been around for years they have a good name and are built like fort knox!
(anyone ever tryed to get into one of there pc's to work on it!?)

Also as well as there own cover plan there laptops are quite easy to get repaired (or even do yaself as i have a few times)
Also they are easy to upgrade and use.

Oh not to mention they actually come with a legit copy of windows which counts for sumat these days!!

I also belive they have a UK based centre now as well? not sure about this but ime sure it would be easy to find out.

My personal recomendation would also be a DELL.

They are quite pricey but as has been said numerous times you get what you pay for. and with my experience of them that is quality.

I have had mixed experience with Dell laptops (great customer service, lousy hardware design) but if you are buying a new PC now I believe you need to pay very careful attention to which precise processor you are getting; all core2duos are not alike!

The new Windows 7 (in shops by the end of October) has been getting rave reviews. Apart from being significantly more resource efficient than Vista one of the features creating a big buzz is virtualisation support, which means that you can run several different operating system environments on the single machine.

Of immediate interest is that the high end versions will support a Win XP mode for backwards applications compatibility, but this really is a fairly exciting feature and developers will almost certainly find clever new ways of exploiting it as they get to grips with the technology.

However, in order for this to work you need a processor model offering virtualisation support, and there have already been reports of more aggressive discounting of models that don't provide this; trying to research processor model capabilities can be a bewildering choice of gobbledygook code numbers but if you are about to buy a new pc I believe it is well worth your time to get to grips with this. Check out http://blogs.zdnet.com/Bott/?p=946&page=2 for a list of compatible Intel cpus.

I have had a very bad experience with Dell, the customer service I received eas unbelivably bad, it tool months to sort out a brand new PC that I bought for a friend. The motherboard was broken when they first sent it to me, then the disc drive was faulty so I said that I wanted my money back. That took ages, thing with me is that bad customer service puts me off for life.

I went to John Lewis for my laptop and they are perfect. It comes with a 2 year warranty and if there is a problem then they get it back to you within 2 weeks. They also lend you a laptop free of charge whilst it's being repaired.

I have a Sony Vaio VGN-FW21E

Intel Core 2 Duo
4GB Ram
320GB HD
ATI Radeon H MB dedicated graphics
2.26 GHz processor
Full HD 1080
Blueray (play & record)

Yes I know it's an expensive laptop but it is one thing, and that is pure excellence. It's perfect for what I want to ise it for. I have Lightroom, CS3 Master Collection & CS4 Photoshop. It has a 16inch screen which is perfect for editing. I can use multiple programs at once, including CS3, tethered shooting and printing to my pro printer, the Olmec 1000.

I take this everywhere with me and have never had a problem. When I get bored I also play Grand Theft Auto IV, a game where some normal PC's struggle.

All in all, I am very, very please with this laptop and the store that I bought it from.

Only thing I can't stand is Vista as that is unreliable and I believe that Microsoft should upgrade all computers that run Vista with the new Windows 7! Vista is a truly awful OS!

Paul

The other problem with Dell is that you can't upgrade the PC or laptops yourself and you have to send it back to them. I find this a huge drawback as I always upgrade things myself.

Personally I wouldn't touch Dell with a bargepole. Yes customer service may be good if you haven't got a problem with your computer, but wait till there is something wroong with it...Lets hope no one else experiences the problems I had!

Paul

PC World?

You mean "Fleece Me World surely?

Regards,

Peter

No you don't. With the DELL PC I bought, I have been allowed to do things like change the hard drive and add cards without affecting the service agreement.

I also upgraded the hard drive and memory in my DELL laptop. I could just bung the originals back if there was any dispute about that.

The only big problem is that the PC motherboard is not standard, so changing the processor could be extra expensive if it requires a new motherboard. For this reason it's wise to get the best processor you can afford when you buy - if necessary at the expense of other items that you can easily upgrade yourself.

You get good value for money from DELL when ordering direct from their website, and the peace of mind that it was designed and built by a major professional company.

Yes, just flip the case open. Don't even need a screwdriver.

Iceblinker, from what I remember, and this wasn't recent, a couple of years ago, you couldn't do anything in regards to upgrading. It had to be sent off as I was told that it was all Dell specifications. If that has changed then I will take back my previous comment.

Paul

What you were told, Paul, doesn't apply to the contract that came with my DELL PC that I bought about 2.5 years ago. It says I can upgrade certain things, and even gives instructions how to.

Perhaps the terms & conditions change from time to time or product to product, or you were given incorrect information.

I use an Acer 5920 (about £400), which I upgraded to 4GB Ram and changed the Sata 1 HD to a 320GB Sata 2 drive which sped things up immensely. I'm sure that anything similar from a respectable brand would be just as good, i.e. Toshiba, Dell, HP etc.,

Still running Blista Home Premium as originally installed, I have XP Pro, but haven't had any problems with Blista so haven't bothered re-installing the OS, I'm waiting for Windows 7 instead and I will probably do it then.

I find the screen okay, it profiles reasonably well, but like all cheaper laptops it has a narrow viewing angle. For my "serious" home use I have a 1600 x 1200 20.1" HP SIPS screen and I also run an external 1TB Sata 2 drive via a PCI card adaptor to maintain the 300GB transfer rate for all my archived photos, I keep my current (approx last 6 months) and best images on the laptop drive, I also use a proper keyboard and mouse (wireless) and a USB tablet.

In addition to the usual Microsoft Office suite, I run the full Adobe CS2 suite as I do literature and web design as well as photography, I use Silkypix and Capture One v4 for my Raw conversion and I use IDimager as my main cataloguing system. I also do 2D & 3D CAD and PCB design work.

So far I've had no issues at all, but I do daily system backups and after any serious work sessions to another 320GB hard drive via Casper, so if the drive or my laptop dies, I can very quickly get back into operation with very little loss.

I also backup all my archived material on another set of external HD's (2 x 200GB Sata 1 units, which I will replace with another 1TB drive when I run out of space).

I'm fairly computer savvy so I don't worry overly much about it all.

You want to try opening my old DELL, requierd 2 screwdrivers (at the same time!) and quite a bit of strength, not to mention having to remove the front, all the switchs and led's to get to the screws to take off one side to... ah you get the idea!

ROFL

I have a very similar setup to Richard, I "dock" my laptop at home onto a notebook cooler Plug in my usb hub which spurs off to printers, external hdd, tablet etc & plug in my 22" monitor. Vista does a good job of extending the desktop across the 2 monitors so I have plenty of space to move things around. I open PS on the external monitor & use the laptop screen for other stuff (fantastic for following tutorials etc.) you can also open a 2nd realtime image window with PS, so you could be zoomed in doing some cloning/burning for example & on the other screen have the full image open to see the overall effect.

Plus of course I can easily pull the plug & take my laptop with me when I need it.

Been using a Toshiba Satelite Pro Dual Core Duo with 2 gig ram. However I fancied something smaller so recently bought an Advent net book atom processor upgraded the memory to 2 gig & it comes with a 160gig hard drive.

The best bit?? Well it comes with a sim card slot meaning I can put any sim card in it including PAYG & up comes internet.

Have installed Lightroom as that is all I use nowadays & it works brilliantly. 3 hours battery time out of the box, also has built in wifi, bluetooth & webcam for those times you need to chat to the other half on MSN.

£250 and then £20 for the 1 gig upgrade, works for me & it fits in my camera bag.... Bonus
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