pmitic Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 I would appreciate some advice on the specifications for a laptop I am about to buy. I need it for a Diary/Photo`s & wi-fi, but the conflicting advice I am getting from the retailers leave me in more than two minds. e.g mega bytes, memory etc. We are planning long term travel if that may make a difference with storage capacity. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davenewellhome Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 So what specs have you been quoted and at what prices? D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmitic Posted December 23, 2007 Author Share Posted December 23, 2007 its all a bit dawning,so that`s why I asked for the info from people in the know. As for spec they all differ, some say 1mb is ok and others say 2mb. just give me your considered opinion Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Randonneur Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 You need to get the highest spec that you can afford!!! No computer is futureproof. As soon as you take it from the shop its old hat. The main items you need are: At least 1 mb memory but 2 mb would be better. Minimum of 100 gb Hard Drive (a lot of laptops have 80 gb) for your photographs. At least 2 USB slots 15" screen is fine but depending on how much you are willing to pay you could get a 17". DVD re-writer/multidrive for you to copy your photographs onto and anything else you want to save. In-built Wi-Fi Windows Vista Home Premium (not Vista Basic) Some laptops now have SD card slots built in but if you already have a small card reader then thats fine. I bought my latest laptop in August, its a Toshiba Equium with the following spec and its perfect for everyday use and taking on our travels. Pentium T2080 2mb Memory 120 GB Harddisk drive 15" TFT screen DVD-super Multi Drive - 2 layer 56K Modem/Lan W-Lan Microsoft Vista Home Premium We paid £449 at PC World, although I am not a PC World fan, it was a very good deal. Try Dell online they do some very good deals on laptops. I have not bought any new software for the Vista system, all my old XP and Windows ME software works fine. My Grandson has an all-singin-all-dancin 17" Sony, very nice, but only does the same things as my Toshiba at third of the price. Hope you find what you are looking for. Sylvia Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
michele Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 I got this one for Xmas . Sony VAIO it has an Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GB hard drive 15.4inch screen SD card & sony memory stick slots which is real handy for transfering pictures and any application that uses SD cards. its a Sony VAIO Nr11s/s costing £599 from PC world. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hymer C 9. Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 pmitic - 2007-12-23 5:40 PM I would appreciate some advice on the specifications for a laptop I am about to buy. I need it for a Diary/Photo`s & wi-fi, but the conflicting advice I am getting from the retailers leave me in more than two minds. e.g mega bytes, memory etc. We are planning long term travel if that may make a difference with storage capacity. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Just wondering what dairy / photo programe you are planning to put in the lap top, have not got one yet a excellent one is from Splinterware which can be downloaded off the internet for free or a fee if you want a all singing danceing one. I have used the free one for 3 years and find it excellent. Carol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
parkmoy Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Decide what your budget is and get the highest spec you can for that money. Higher spec means it won't go out of date as soon. If you're not intending to play games don't worry too much about processor speed or graphic specs, any modern computer will be fine. Likewise any modern computer is more than capable of handling WiFi, either with it built in or by using a plug in unit in a USB socket. The majority will have the WiFi capability built in. Get the biggest size hard disk you can for your money. That way you will have plenty of storage space for your photos. What size screen you get is a personal preference but I find that 15" is a convenient size for the van and easy to store. Also get as much RAM memory as you can for your money. That helps make programs run more quickly. Don't forget to leave room in the budget for a good protective bag and software unless you can get all you need as part of the deal. You should be able to get Microsoft Works as part of the deal and that will take care of your word processing needs. In addition you might want a program for manipulating your photos but you can often pick these up free from computer magazine disks or online. There are wide variations in price for similar specs and sometimes you pay for the name eg Sony. It's well worth shopping around and looking online. For the record my laptop is an Acer and I'm very pleased with it but there are plenty of good makes around. £300 - £400 will get you all you need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Frank Spencer Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 It's pretty obvious that most of the people who have replied don't know much about computors. I wouldn't touch a new one without at least a 40Gigabyte hard drive and at least a Gigabyte of memory. If you want to travel using it on battery, get one with as small a screen as you can afford. As those 15" & 17" displays eat the battery power like you wouldn't believe. You want a DVD/ CD read/writer, built in WiFi & Bluetooth with C/F & or S/D slots for your picture downloads from camera. Plus all the usual things like USB/2 I/R Etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza454 Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 pmitic - 2007-12-23 5:40 PM I would appreciate some advice on the specifications for a laptop I am about to buy. I need it for a Diary/Photo`s & wi-fi, but the conflicting advice I am getting from the retailers leave me in more than two minds. e.g mega bytes, memory etc. We are planning long term travel if that may make a difference with storage capacity. With Microsoft Vista the absolute minimum RAM should be 1GB, preferably 2GB. The hard Drive depends on your requirements, but the minimum should be around 100GB. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
panagah Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Frank Spencer - 2007-12-23 9:35 PM It's pretty obvious that most of the people who have replied don't know much about computors. I wouldn't touch a new one without at least a 40Gigabyte hard drive and at least a Gigabyte of memory. If you want to travel using it on battery, get one with as small a screen as you can afford. As those 15" & 17" displays eat the battery power like you wouldn't believe. You want a DVD/ CD read/writer, built in WiFi & Bluetooth with C/F & or S/D slots for your picture downloads from camera. Plus all the usual things like USB/2 I/R Etc. Well that does seem a bit unfair on those that have replied frank. I dont think anyone has suggested a laptop with less than 40gb. If you intend on traveling then no doubt you will have a ciggie lighter so just buy a travel charger but make sure you get the right one for your laptop. If you get one, nowadays you would probably struggle to find one with less than 40 GB. However it's dead simple again. I have a 40gb laptop and I carry a protable 320 gb hard drive that simply slots in and is powered by my USB port, this is about £60 from ebuyer.com NOT EBAY!!!!. gb of ram be it 1 or 2 will depend on first what you want to do and second on what opperating system you get. Once again you are unlikely to get a laptop new that is not preloaded with Vista. Vista will deffiniately run better with 2gb of ram. If you want to play games then you will be better off with a dedicated graphics card as opposed to shared card. However I doubt that this would be of concern to you. If you just want it for storing snaps of your travels then it wont matter to much. If you wanna make movies on the go with windows movie maker then try and insure you get 2gb of ram minimum. Be aware regarding the size of your hard drive, if you intend on storing a lot of pictures and or videos, 40gb will get eaten in to very quickly. As I previously said try ebuyer.com. they do peripherals to complete computers and you can build your spec. good luck with it Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bazza454 Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Good recommendation from Paul.I've used EBuyer on numerous occasions and their service is excellent.http://www.ebuyer.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BrianR Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 I recently invested in an Acer Aspire in the 5630 series from Laptops Direct who are a good firm with which to deal. My requirements are much the same as yours and I have found this laptop is fine. Brian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 I use both AppleMacs and Windows and have a variety of desktops and laptops. The reason I use both is down to the software I wish to run. For someone who has fairly standard generic needs - usually the 'Office' suite of programs or photo editing software, Windows machines are generally cheaper compared to Macs, and the files are often more compatible with the PCs of other people. Macs tend to be used by those with more specialised needs or because a particular piece of software is not available for Windows. However, there also those who just prefer the whole look and feel of Macs (me included) who will always be prepared to pay the price premium they command. I'm typing this on a MacBook, which is a great laptop, but more expensive than a comparable Windows piece of kit. However, this year, I also took delivery of a 17" Dell laptop, with Vista for business installed. Even at around £1,000, it's a memory-hungry, slow, pig of a machine. I was also very unlucky with my software, which up till Vista, ran very well on my Windows XP hardware. With Vista, my current software all needs to be upgraded to work properly - a cost I can't justify. However, I acknowledge that a new user with no particular packages already being used, will easily be able to find Vista-compatible software. As has been commented, for Vista, 1 Gb memory is a minimum. For photos I would say at least 2 Gb. Shaun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clive Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Whoever is upgrading please think of me for your old one. I paid £50 for each of my last two Laptops so as to give you a clue. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Consider getting one with XP rather than Vista, XP is a proven system, whereas Vista is still being sorted out, even our techies at work won't touch it yet! Vista is VERY resource hungry, much more than XP, so will take up a lot of your RAM and processor capacity, yes it does more, but it sounds like it's more than you really need. We know a few people who have got Vista and they all hate it with a passion, some have even installed their old versions of XP.For photos you'll need good storage of 80gb min I would say. You want a processor of at least 1.8, you can get less that this but they can be a bit slow. If you can get a Pentium P4 they are very good but can be a bit more pricey than other slower processors, but unless you plan on using lots of applications at once, or playing lots of high speed games etc you shouldn't need to go mad. If you are playing games, look for PCI Express which is the interface that the graphics card uses to talk to the computer, it has a transfer rate that runs about 10 times quicker than the older type of graphics still in some laptops.Screen size - if you don't need widescreen then don't buy it as it does make them a bit big and unweildy, but you'll find that more and more laptops are now coming like this.You also want at least 1gb of memory, make sure it will has the slots to take more if/when you want to upgrade it in the future, don't get it now if you don't really need it as its getting cheaper all the time. As for the rest, built-in WiFi, plenty of USBs and a DVD RW as standard so that you can back-up your photos on to disc and therefore keep them safe, no point in having a big hard drive with lost of piccies on and then having it go wrong and loosing the lot, yes, rare I know, but it can happen. Failing that get an external drive to store them on, but that means extra bulk to carry about. If you can get a dual layer DVD you can twice and much on each DVD so storage of discs is helped, but the discs themselves are more expensive, although you can still use a normal DVD if you want to but then you have the option to use a dual layer one if necessary.One of the most important things though is battery life, there are lots out there that still only run for an hour, not much good really, so go for 3 hours minimum if you can. A friend of ours bought a new laptop from PC World a few months ago for around £350 and it lasts an hour if he's lucky and it's rubbish at playing DVDs!!Also, I'd suggest taking a DVD film to put in any laptop you're intersted in and see what it's like to watch and listen to, some have a very poor viewing angle and horrendous sound. Also, if you are going to use it for watching films, you might like to consider one with separate controls on the casing, rather than having to keep going into the system settings, controls etc which can be a pain. You do pay extra for laptops with these features but if you intend to use it for this it could save you quite a bit of hassle. SVideo - if you want to output to, say, a TV or a Video Data Projector (to watch a DVD movie on a larger screen), this is something you'll need. Firewire - not necessary but nice to have - you can use this to directly imput your video camera, camcorder etc to the laptop.Basically, the more you pay, the more you get BUT you can pay too much for a basic machine so shop around. It isn't always easy or possible to upgrade certain aspects of laptops so make sure that what you buy suits your needs and try to predict what you're likely to want in the near future at least.Forgot to say - software - check carefully what you get, there are still a lot of so caled 'included' software packages that are only on short term trials and you can then end up paying around £200 for it afterwards!!! Once you've got the basic operating system/software you can get lots of 'add ons' free off the internet so don't buy stuff you don't need to, such as some very good free virus scanners, photo packages etc. You normally get MS Works as standard which doesn't 'expire' but not much else, again, it depends on what you pay. If you don't intend to do a lot of other more complicated bits and pieces this should more than suffice for your needs.Just remembered summut else!!! Guarantee!!! Make sure you get a good one and if the extended warranty is reasonably prices and covers a lot of stuff seriously consider it, it can be bl**dy expensive to repair them, as I've found to my cost, my Toshiba which cost me £230 second hand started to play up after 6 months and eventually died, it was going to cost at least £250 to get it repaired so went on 'eBay' as a spares or repair, I got £99 back on it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted December 23, 2007 Share Posted December 23, 2007 Clive - 2007-12-23 10:46 PM Whoever is upgrading please think of me for your old one. I paid £50 for each of my last two Laptops so as to give you a clue. Yeah, but Clive they've stopped making 'steam driven' ones now!(Lol) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
davenewellhome Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 Frank Spencer - 2007-12-23 9:35 PM It's pretty obvious that most of the people who have replied don't know much about computors. I wouldn't touch a new one without at least a 40Gigabyte hard drive and at least a Gigabyte of memory. If you want to travel using it on battery, get one with as small a screen as you can afford. As those 15" & 17" displays eat the battery power like you wouldn't believe. You want a DVD/ CD read/writer, built in WiFi & Bluetooth with C/F & or S/D slots for your picture downloads from camera. Plus all the usual things like USB/2 I/R Etc. Oh Frank, you really are so funny! Don't know much about computErs (you can't even spell it properly), well I've been using computers and programming them since the early eighties. I've built and setup dozens of PCs and setup multiple user networks with automated backup to central servers. I've been using PCs of various specifications for video editing since the late 90s, most of them home built. I suggest you put your brain in gear in future before you make sweeping statements like this. My question to the OP was quite simple and intended to narrow the field a bit instead of us all giving a huge list of specs that quite possibly are meaningless to the OP, what spec laptops have you been advised by the retailers to get and at what cost? Truth is if all you want to do is upload photos from a camera and write a diary then a five year old machine with a 15" screen and USB port plus an external hard drive to extend your storage capacity would do all you want. Of course a newer higher spec machine with a faster processor, more memory, bigger internal hard drive, larger display screen, multi format dual layer DVD writer and built in card reader slots will do it all quicker and be more versatile but it will cost you more. As for OS I bought a new laptop earlier this year from Currys, its an advent 7113 and it came with 1GB of ram and Vista. I couldn't get on with Vista simply because I couldn't get drivers for my USB TV tuner so I ditched Vista, bought a legit copy of XP for about £60 and its been running beautifully ever since, in fact I'm using it right now! Having said that I'd suggest that as just about all laptops come with Vista now (although I recall someone saying that Dell are turning them out with XP instead) you give it a try. MS have had a few months to iron out the bugs and third party equipment providers have had time to perfect their drivers for it so you might find it does everything you want and you can live with it. My father has a new laptop with Vista and he loves it. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 I chose to stick with XP when I bought my Acer 5612 laptop earlier this year if only because I know and almost understand XP. It is also on my home computer, and not being that clever with computers, it makes switching files and programmes that much easier. I reckon that by the time XP is no longer supported by MS both machines will be due for replacement anyway. My home PC is 5 years old and has similar spec to the laptop and is still fine for our needs. Unless you want to keep vast quantities of photos on it, or play memory hungry games, or store and play loads of music and/or films, I would think that pretty well any new laptop these days will have more than enough of everything to suffice your needs. Ours has 40gb hard drive, 521mb ram, dvd / cd player, and came with wi-fi and webcam and it does all we need (similar to your needs) well enough. That said if you can get more for not a lot of extra cost it won't hurt. A retractable usb mouse is much easier to use than the little pad, a 12v adaptor for van use, a 1mb usb removable data storage stick (for safe storage of sensitive data), and a padded carry case completed all we need. You could also consider a usb plug in tv adaptor but as we already have a flat screen lcd tv we did not bother. But that's just the way we see it and you must make your own choice. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pmitic Posted December 24, 2007 Author Share Posted December 24, 2007 Yet again you have all come up trumps with your fountain of knowledge thankyou all for your replies. I am looking forward to the sales and armed with the thought that I know a lot more than I did 48hrs ago. Merry Xmas & Happy New Year to all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 I'm actually quite surprised to hear anyone who seems to be enjoying Vista. Its worst aspect is that for a given processor speed and memory, it will run much slower than XP. On a day-to-day basis, that fact alone can drive me mad. It doesn't help that computer vendors describe their offerings as having a 'massive' 1 gigabyte of RAM. Mine crawls with that amount of memory and sometimes seems to have stopped altogether (Yes, I must upgrade the RAM). I've had every Windows operating system since 3.1, back in the mid 1990s and I can say hand on heart that Vista is truly awful. It spends too much time pandering to the 'entertainment' side of PC usage, but in doing so, falls short in many of the essential operations. I can equate it to a motorhome with whizz bang frills, but a crappy conversion. I should add that whenever I come across an issue with Vista, my automatic assumption is that I'm doing something wrong, or it's my particular setup. I then trawl the internet and there it is - the same problem being reported by many others. It's a good job I still have a desktop PC with XP and three AppleMacs, so I can remind myself how computers should work. As for using a laptop for photography, a lot depends on the file sizes being worked with. If the digital camera - or perhaps a scanner - is kicking out big files, these can be quickly converted to much smaller JPEGs, for viewing on a computer and emailing to others. However, if it's necessary to retain the large files, say, to make large and detailed prints, then the specification of the PC becomes much more important. I always switch to the AppleMacs for both photos and video editing, as despite the headline spec not looking as impressive as the Windows equivalents, the software (usually Apple or Adobe) runs much quicker with fewer crashes than with any Microsoft operating system. That's a main reason why the media industry has traditionally used Macs. Did I remember to say that I hate Vista? Shaun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Basil Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 Hi, You could do worse than this for £250, http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/shop/detail.asp?ProductID=4473&CategoryID=11&SubCategoryID= I've bought many computers and peripherals from here and always been more than happy. Got Vista unfortunately but most have nowdays. Bas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
crinklystarfish Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 That about sums it up Shaun, though I think as much as pandering to entertainment it's slowed by an inordinate amount of security.We seem to be at a funny time where Vista isn't supported adequately by hardware or non-MS software. I'm sure it will eventually change, but there's no way I'm dipping my toe into the 'Vista-waters' until it is fully sorted and supported.XP till 2009 I recon! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shaun Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 God, yes, I forgot to mention the blasted security. Vista doesn't like the user doing things, so you constantly have to confirm your actions before it will let you. It treats everyone like an ignorant novice and there's no way to tell it to "Sod off and mind your own business." It's also true, there's loads of software and peripherals which just don't work properly with Vista. My quite new HP printer insists upon reinstalling itself every time I connect it to the laptop. But, as has been observed, it's far harder to buy a laptop without the dreaded Vista, than with it. Those of us who have been lumbered with it, pray, dear users, for the inevitable service releases to iron out all the bugs which should never have been there in the first place. Shaun Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mel B Posted December 24, 2007 Share Posted December 24, 2007 I had to buy a laptop recently for work and at the time there was a choice of XP or Vista, approximately 50% of the models came with XP and 50% with Vista as standard, you simply chose which you wanted and the laptop specs. At the time they were also offering £50 cashback - it was genuine, we got the cheque about 2 weeks ago after about 3 weeks wait. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stelynn Posted December 25, 2007 Share Posted December 25, 2007 Have you seen the Asus Eee PC which seems tailor made for travelling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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