Laptop-ing on a budget

[freakitchen]

Hi guys

I'm currently looking for a laptop computer, to be used entirely for office / internet tasks. For this reason, I've limited my budget to £399 - pretty much the lowest price in the UK at the moment. All of the models I've seen at this price range only have 256MB of RAM, however, so I'll be adding another stick.

I think I've narrowed things down to two choices, and I'd appreciate all your thoughts on which would be better:

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=99084

This ACER has a 3000+ sempron, and a 15" screen, but the main drawback is 1.5 hour battery life.

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/pr...hs1&l=en&s=dhs

The cheapest DELL, at £399, only has a 14" screen, which looks small, because it appears to be in a 15" chassis. It's also only got a Celeron-M 1.4 processor. However, its battery life is 2.2 hours, and I can upgrade to a better battery for just £10 in the options. I'd also question upgrading the RAM - will non-DELL soDIMM memory work in this machine?

If anyone has any other suggestions besides these, they would be appreciated also.

Thanks,

Freakitchen

[LaptopExtreme]

The Acer is a very good budget system. Yes the battery life could be a little bit better though, but I think the features still out wiegh the battery for such an affordable unit. As for the Dell, yes you can put in non-
Dell memory.

[Dominion]

i'm also looking for a cheap laptop for emails and documents.

http://www.ebuyer.com/customer/produ...duct_uid=92197

how about this budget IBM thinkpad also on ebuyer? not much info on it there

[freakitchen]

Hi Dominion. Thinkpads are good quality - though I ruled that one out of my search because of the apparent 'chunkiness' of it (in comparison to the DELL and ACER), and the lack of extras (e.g. no wireless, no DVD writer). I assume there should be extra info on IBM's website.

Freakitchen

[freakitchen]

For the record, i thought I'd update this thread with my chosen machine.

I eventually spent £451 on a DELL dimension 1300, since as part of their latest weekly offer, they were offering a £70 reduction on their £500 version of the 1300. The price on mine increased by £11 since I added their higher-powered battery, extending life to 3.5-4 hours quoted.

I'm quite pleased with this deal, since I have the good battery life I wanted without sacrificing ability. It has a 1.4 Celly-M, with 512MB of RAM, 60GB HD and a DVD-RW, considerably more than anything else available at this price.

I'll aim to post a review of this when I receive it.

Freakitchen