OTish; Laptops

I am not up to date, but nearly four years ago, I bought a Samsung 15.6" i5 64-bit quad-core laptop, and the only thing I can find against it is that it has no indicator to tell me that NumLock is engaged. Otherwise, it's fine, and does WiFi if I ever need it, which is rarely. It also has Bluetooth, although I will never need that, and a built-in NVIDIA screen card. Unlike many laptops, it has a full number keypad built in, making spreadsheet use easy.

Sorry, should have said, budget around the £500 mark.

Ah! I hadn't thought of that. Good point.

usually you get a full keyboard with a larger screen. have a look at what is available at:

I've always used 'refurbished' ex corporate laptops as you get solid machines for not much money. My current one is a HP Elitebook 8440p which cost me well under £200 complete with a legal copy of Windows 7 and a 12 month guarantee. Perfectly adequate for my needs. I use it mainly as a portal to my desktop machine which is in my office on the other side of the farmyard, so can use it without going outside. Mind you it has a higher spec than the desktop !!!

Andrew

I like my Dell.

In any case, choose the SSD option and >= 6GB RAM and it will fly.

Would also recommend looking for 802.11n + ac support if possible for WiFi

Dell do those as well, though of course the machine tends to be wider, or the keys smaller depending on your prefs. I'd probably suggest you try some of the keyboards, as if you are used to a normal keyboard, laptop ones do seem flimsy and or lacking in travel or positive feedback. Brian

Thanks. Bit confused now. These three for example. Whats the difference between AMD Dual Core, Intel Core i3-4005U 1.7GHz and AMD A8-7100 Quad Core?

I know they are the processors but what does that mean?

AMD Dual Core E1-6010 1.35GHz

Intel Core i3-4005U 1.7GHz

AMD A8-7100 Quad Core

Also, I assume the one with 8GB is better and that 1TB is better than 320GB?

This laptop is a beast for the price. I've used this firm for years, they are very good. Have a peek, this one is very good value for money and within your budget.

Sorry, don't understand :-)

Could you repeat in English please?

:-)

Thanks, I'll add to the list.

Not really much to help you except to say that Lenovo are a well-respected brand. Also, I'm sure that you've heard many people say over the years, "Pull the plug out, wait a minute or two and then plug it back in and boot it up" when troubleshooting.

For that reason, I'd make sure you get one where the battery can easily be removed. Some laptops (some Sony models I believe and maybe others) have to be stripped down to remove the battery - if you can't

You have left it a bit late to get a new portable with Windows 7 on it and I reckon you should look long and very hard at Windows 8 before contemplating using it without a touch screen (or using it at all).

You might find things in the refurbed corporate kit to suit.

Do you really mean 4G Wifi? That is wifi directly connected to the 4G mobile network via a dongle rather than via wired ADSL?

Samsung kit is quite good on the price performance scale I have their beefy 17" as my portable and a tiny ASUS T-100 as a go anywhere device.

If you are going to use it as a desktop replacement consider a docking station to go with it and if it isn't likely to spend too much time being hand carried then I reckon the extra inch of screen real estate is worth having for working large spreadsheets. YMMV

It's Virgin Media broadband via a cable to a hub.

Never heard of a docking station, thanks, off to have a look.

Even more confused now. What exactly is a docking station?

They used to be IBM's personal computer brand, of course, before all that business was sold off to Lenovo (Chinese, 12% owned by a wing of the Chinese government), who'd been actually building the machines for IBM for a while.

I'd generally lean towards Dell as a first choice.

Fast...

I'm afraid that there's no other way to say it - 802.11n and 802.11ac are standards - and you'll see them on the specification (or not).

Something like:

It generally adds convenience rather that functionality - though sometimes it gives you more ports (eg USB) than might be available on the laptop.

I could use one, using my laptop for work - but they are ofter very expensive to save me plugging 4 wires...

A docking station is a device that sits on the desk and provides all connections for the laptop, which slides into it. Most (all?) of my laptop's connections are on the sides, which would make it tricky to design one, though.