Laptop, Help Me Choose! (If You'd Be So Kind)

Tayl

Tayl

VIP Member
Hey hey.

Right well, it's come to the point that my main PC is dying, yet again (I swear something is completely frying them in this house because this is the third PC to die on me within 3 years). Well I'm sick of replacing one PC after the next, each costing me just over £1000 a time. So I'm going to invest in a laptop now because gaming isn't something I really have time for anymore. Basically I don't wish to spend anymore than £500 on a laptop. It'll be used for basic Internet use, work related tasks (mostly Office applications) and general buggering about (maybe a tiny amount of light old gaming but none of the new fancy 'looks almost realistic' type gaming, of course).

Now, I have absolutely no idea when it comes to buying laptops, and I'm very dated on computer hardware as of late so I'm feeling like a newbie all over again.

I've came across two laptops that are within my budget range and wondered your opinions on them. They are:

HP Pavilion dv9821ea Entertainment Notebook PC (FF493EA) - Specifications
http://h10010.www1.hp.com/wwpc/uk/en/ho/WF06b/321957-321957-3329744-64354-64354-3675209-3765588.html

That one being the most expensive of the two, nearer the barrier of the budget. Also, HP as a manufacturer, any good? Reliable, well made products or cheap bits of plastic that often have a reliability scale to that of a rock floating in water?

And the cheaper one being:
dell studio t2390 17:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/p...=uk~en~20211~sept_laptop_studio_17_n0973502~~

The HP laptop costs around £479 and the Dell costs around £399. They worth it? Can you think of anything better for less than £500?

Any help with this would be greatly appreciated.

:: Edit ::

One more thing I'm curious of. With, for example, electricity surges, I imagine that with Laptops the battery acts, in it's own way, as a sort of UPS for the Laptop like UPS would for a desktop? In the sense that no doubt regardless of the amount surging into the battery, the voltages / power/ what ever would still be regulated to the laptop from the battery itself stopping any form of a surge from actually damaging the laptop? Or am I completely off on this one?

:: /Edit ::

Best regards,

Rove.
 
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I can't really help you with the Laptop side of things, but my PC is also dying. I have pretty much the same board as you too! :o
 
Mines in the process of crashing (Almost certain it's the graphics card dying however I have a feeling a majority of the other components are going through the same steps they just haven't reached the point of no return yet) whenever I load more than one application at a time (Two seperate windows of Firefox = slaughters this computer now :P).

I'm leaning towards the HP laptop because, having seen it in working order (although it had the crappy demo playing and was restricted to me doing anything other than testing the sensitivity of the mouse touch pad) it seemed rather nice. Plus if I purchase it at Tesco's tomorrow, I get £100 off the RRP.

Rove.
 
RoveWolf said:
Mines in the process of crashing (Almost certain it's the graphics card dying however I have a feeling a majority of the other components are going through the same steps they just haven't reached the point of no return yet) whenever I load more than one application at a time (Two seperate windows of Firefox = slaughters this computer now :P).

I'm leaning towards the HP laptop because, having seen it in working order (although it had the crappy demo playing and was restricted to me doing anything other than testing the sensitivity of the mouse touch pad) it seemed rather nice. Plus if I purchase it at Tesco's tomorrow, I get £100 off the RRP.

Rove.
Click to expand...

Were do you live Usa or UK?
 
Out of those two! Now that I just looked at it! Don't even bother looking at the HP again, Seriously!

That Dell is a pretty sweet deal for the price! Intel Core 2 Duo, HD 3650 (That seems pretty good for a laptop) & 2GB of RAM. Dare I say this, but Dell make pretty good laptops from what I've heard. I'd say it was a no-brainer, go for the Dell! (Don't ever, EVER quote me on that! :P)
 
Yeah, I would have to say the dell is the superior computer here, though HP does make VERY nice laptops. You can also look around online, both Dell and HP always have coupon codes floating around. I don't know if it's the same for UK, but there's a 30% off any Pavillion notebook over $1k right now for HP.
 
Don't get discourage.Be positive thinker.Try SONY brand,do not matter with the price but in quality.I've used it since(2003) i learned computer and until now i stick on it!Good Luck!
 
Personally, I've had better success with Intel CPUs than AMD's. Most other parts are about the same. Dell might win when it comes to customer service too, not sure on that one though.
 
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