Laptops

[frenulem - No.5417]

OK so I'm in need of some halp,
my girlfriend needs a laptop, around £300-£400 ($450-$600)
It's gonna be used for school work and normal teenage girl stuff, internet, DVDs, basic photo editing
needs to last a while, she intends to keep it running into collage, we're in Year 11 ATM
(senior high school from what i can gather on wikipedia)

so i have a question

What is it most important to look for?

I'm guessing Processor speed as it is the hardest to upgrade, and things like HDD size is least as all you gotta do is buy an external HDD

I can do the leg work, but if you find something and remember shove it up.

Thanks in advance
Fren 
Post Merge: August 19, 2010, 03:13:00 PMhttp://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/ei-systems-sorrento-03448091-pdt.html
Upgrade of RAM when needed?

[aZiZ1]

that processor will kill you. for that budget u can grab a really nice acer.

[lethalsquirl]

the most important thing is the gpu. (graphics card) it is far more important than ram, maybe even more than the cpu. the laptop companies never really advertise their graphic cards because they pretty much all suck. a laptop with a decent graphics card will make your computer faster, you can play more games, watch hd movies, and pretty much do anything. just keep an eye out for an nvidia or ati sticker on laptops, that usually means they are good. a really nice laptop for the price is the asus UL30A. its only $600 bucks and it has an awesome cpu and gpu. it can play some newer games too, like cod mw2.

[DarkShot]

the most important thing is the gpu. (graphics card) it is far more important than ram, maybe even more than the cpu. the laptop companies never really advertise their graphic cards because they pretty much all suck. a laptop with a decent graphics card will make your computer faster, you can play more games, watch hd movies, and pretty much do anything. just keep an eye out for an nvidia or ati sticker on laptops, that usually means they are good. a really nice laptop for the price is the asus UL30A. its only $600 bucks and it has an awesome cpu and gpu. it can play some newer games too, like cod mw2.

I lol'd

The GPU isn't the most important part.

It is however, a factor when it comes to playing HD media.

[jacobia jacob]

1.cpu
2.ram
3.gpu
4.battery life
5.lcd resolution and quality
6.hdd speed
7.size and weight
^what i look for in a laptop, in order.

of course this all depends on what you plan on doing with it. in her case i'd move battery life above ram and lcd quality above gpu.

[lewson]

Steer clear of any e systems laptop, they are terrible!
For the work she is doing any laptop will do, im in year 11 and none of the school work will need more than a low end laptop. www.hotukdeals.com is a website full of good deals on all kinds of stuff, you can come across cheap laptops. Dell have a outlet full of cheap laptops too. As for the graphics card in the laptop anything will do the intel ones are capable of simple tasks and are very low power. As for specs in the laptop most intel processors will be fine. You'll want 2gig of ram at least, harddrive space doesn't matter too much

[frenulem - No.5417]

So i got told i should look for more than a single core CPU and steer clear of celeron all together i found this http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/home/Laptops/inspiron-m5010/pd.aspx?refid=inspiron-m5010&s=dhs&cs=ukdhs1&ref=lthp the middle one lol

[dedafmonteur]

Ok, Well first off; maybe it's better that you find laptops and let us have a look at them instead of the other way around.

My opinion is, stay the away from dell! lol. If you EVER have a problem with the laptop you'll need to have a lot of patience. Personally i would go for HP. I know that a lot of people have problems with them, but that's in the US. Basically all the big pc brands in the US suck with their costumer service.

[frenulem - No.5417]

ok so my target to look for is
1.Best CPU possible, not celeron, dual-core or more
2.Ram, 2GB or more but is easy upgrade
3.Batt life, gotta last school day
4.Weight, easy to carry
5.GPU gotta play non-HD media easy-ish
6.HDD size, external can sort out that problem
7.Looks, she's really not that interested in them because she doesn't hang around starbucks with a mac working on her screen play

Look's reasonable? i Shall dig around and post on here if i find anything