Laptop Recommendations

[Arfie]

A mate is looking for a new laptop and has asked me to help source one for him. The trouble is I am more used to sourcing decent spec machines for the cheapest possible (ie under £500) and am not sure where is best to search for this type of machine .

He has £1,000 to play with for the purchase of the machine and will probably pay extra to get a decent warranty/service package.

The laptop will be for business use and for presentations, so it needs a smart appearance and could do with being fairly robust as it will be mobile.

He's adamant that he wants a Core 2 Duo processor (cos he's heard of them!) and as much RAM as possible (whle still being reasonable).

To be honest he doesn't need this spec of machine as it will mostly be running Microsoft Office stuf (Word, Excel & Powerpoint) and an ecommerce package which I don't yet have details of.

I've used my standard fallback to get a base comparison by visiting Dell and come up with this for about £1,000

Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 Processor (2.0GHz,667MHz,4MB L2 cache)
Genuine Windows® XP Professional - English
17" Wide Screen WXGA (1440x900) TFT Display
2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM [2x1024]
160GB (5400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
256MB ATI® Mobility™ Radeon® X1400 HyperMemory™ graphics card
Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW with Software
9 cell Lithium-Ion Battery (80 Whr)
Intel® Pro Wireless 3945 802.11a/b/g Mini-PCI Card (for Core 2 Duo Processors)
Dellâ„¢ Wireless 355 Bluetooth 2.0 Module (up to 3Mbps) with Enhanced Data Rate for XP
Integrated Sound Blaster® Audigy® ADVANCED HD™ Audio- Trial Version
McAfee® Security Centre™ 8.0 - 36 Month Protection - English
Microsoft® Works 8.0 - English

I've gone for XP Pro, but it might end up being Vista depending on what the e-commerce software is compatible with.

So, can anyone recommend either a better package or point me to a decent reputable supplier where I can try to beat this.

For the record, he doesn't want a Mac or Linux thanks

Arfie

 

[piratedninja]

check out Falcon NorthWest
they will custom build you a laptop according to your needs
and the laptops look beautiful

http/www.falcon-nw.com/

 

[Arfie]

I thought the ££££ might have given it away, but for the interests of clarity, it must be in the UK

Thanks anyway

So far I'm thinking he'll be as well off with a Sony Vaio from PC World. They are quite "pretty" machines, pretty reliable and if he buys from pissy world, if/when it goes wrong and he rings me up whining, I can send hiim back there

Arfie

 

[Bloo]

I would suggest to go for no less than a HDD 7200rpm with that spec
And with that battery and screen size, it's going to be mega heavy. If he wants to use it for business and travels a lot, he might want to drop the screen size and get the 6 cell battery.

 

[Arfie]

OK thanks, he went into PC World and bought a Vaio on the spot.

 

[Danno]

Look at the mobile packages from Gateway. They are pretty nice.

 

[SLC Flyfishing]

Doesn't want a Mac? I love my mac.

In all seriousness, they're not for everybody. Macs are only for people who want a computer that will run fast for more than 1 week!
I switched a few months back, I was anti mac till I heard they could run windows natively and bought one to run a chem app that was mac only. I've not installed windows on it yet, and now I have no plans to do so whatsoever, I'm thoroughly happy with OS X and won't be returning to windows till they get an OS that uses less system resources. This mac absolutely flies.

SLC

 

[Arfie]

Some people just can't read I guess

Arfie