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Originally Posted by Icey Evening Peeps,
My parents have decided to buy me a laptop to assist my studies and I haven't the faintest idea of what I should be looking to have included as part of a package.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks
ICEY x |
For comparison it may be useful to look at the basic Dell Laptops, even though you may not go for one.
The cheapest advertised over this long weekend is £349.00 incl VAT and delivery, which gets you a basic new laptop with DVD reader and CD writer.
Things that might be important to you depending on what you're intending to do with it are:-
Screen - size / visibility.
Weight - usually from 1.5 - 3.0 kg.
Optical driver - cd reader, dvd reader, cd writer, dvd writer.
Battery life,
Software - Operating System such as Windows 95 / 98 / XP ect.
Software - Application Software - Office etc.
Keyboard quality
Robustness.
Disk space.
Your average new cheap laptop is going to weigh a little under 3 kg, have a battery life around 2 hrs, have a cd writer, and dvd reader, come with Windows XP Home, and have a screen resolution of 1024 * 768. Pretty much all vendors do one like this.
Most of these are more of a consideration if you go for a second hand laptop.
The only unconditional recommendation I have is if going for a second hand laptop you get one with Windows XP (or alreast Windows 2000). Anything less is just a whole lot of hassle, and the most modern software won't work with it.
One reason to go for a second hand laptop is if you want a more portable laptop. For example there is a Dell laptop (C400 ?) which can be had on Ebay for about £200.00 with Windows XP and comes in at not much more than half the weight of the standard ~3kg laptop. ( It doesn't have a built in CD though ).
You may find you don't need Microsoft Office depending on what you do. While the Student Teacher version of Microsoft Office can be had for around £100.00, you can only use it while you're a student. The latest Open Office, a heavyweight free office, may meet your needs.