Laptop Reccomendation (Non Boaty)

[Deleted User YDKXO]

My 10yr old son wants a laptop for his birthday. He says its for school homework but I know its for stupid computer games. I'm very loathe to fork out £1000 or whatever for something that will probably end up discarded in a corner with last year's Lego
So, can anyone reccomend a reasonably priced laptop for this purpose? How about secondhand? Can you buy decent ones with a warranty and from where?

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[DavidJ]

Mike
Try http://www.laptopshop.co.uk who have a used section. I can recommend IBM Thinkpads for bomb-proofness also I believe Toshiba to be one of the best as well.
David


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[kimhollamby]

Was about to suggest...

Web User. Forum system should be familiar; the site was rebuilt last year and now uses the same one as here.

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[BarryH]

I've got a Tosh laptop, to be honest its not that brilliant. If you leave it on and it goes into "sleep" mode. Nine times out of ten you cant wake the bloody thing up and have to reboot it. I've heard this from other people as well.
Its also had 2 new hard drives, one new power supply and is now having the cd rom replaced as thats just gone tits up.
For good second user machines Morgan Computers on Oxford st seem to have a fair selection.

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[tr7v8]

Buy a copy of Micro Mart more in their than you can shake a stick at!
Cuz who fixes em reckons new Stink pads as flakey for reliability, suggests Dell or Tosh.

<hr width=100% size=1>Jim

Draco 2500

 

[PGD]

Agree with you about the Tosh, we have loads of them at work and 9/10 go wrong. Most of our field sales and managers have them, around 300 in use, all considered a load of Tosh /forums/images/icons/wink.gif.



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[Talon]

I used to support Toshiba laptops, most their problems just need the boards re-seating. Duff screen, reseat , fixed, laptop will not boot up, reseat connections under keyboard to system board fixed.

One of the big ones was, battery life only lasts 20mins then goes dead, power up machine, press reset button with pen and hold until you hear a clunk sound and the laptop resets, give it 12 hours charge, battery life restored.

The sleep mode is a common one as well, power up the laptop whilst holding the Escape key, it will prompt you on the screen to press F1 for set up, press it, go into the set up and turn the sleep mode off! Marvelous.

Mind you, it has been a long time since those days, so it may vary from machine to machine, but you never know.

The worst laptops ever made were IBM's, terrible machines!

<hr width=100% size=1>Alex

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.mad-als.com>http://www.mad-als.com</A><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by Talon on 27/01/2004 14:16 (server time).</FONT></P>

 

[tcm]

Re: sony vaio

We use sony's which don't seem to go pop at all. We have got a 2 yr old machine quite nice but no dvd so no good for the stupid games, sorry, and you be a rubbish dad (since of course he must have found out about the puter from someone else who also has the stupid games....).

Get the cheapest Sony vaio with an integral dvd thingy, i would. Well, i have done so quite few times now and all ok, plus peeps like sony cos they sound a bit non-geeky as if they are a camera. Also, some of them have digi cameras, not needed, fun for 10 minutes. The best games involve creating large armies all afternoon (not sure what that one is) , or grand theft auto slicing people up with chainsaws and stealing their cars. Or maybe that's on a ps2, can't remeber since i am rubbish at all of them.

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[PGD]

It was the Satellite series that we had on mass the very new ones, is withinn the last 3 - 4 months are a bit better to be fair.

Peter

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[Talon]

yes the Sat Pro's were the ones with all the problems, also the T8000's were a bit or a mare sometimes.

The new ones I think are Portege (spelling/forums/images/icons/wink.gif) They are supposed to be very good.

Dell's are good. Mind you their web site shows a laptop from only £699.00 but the moment you click on customise & buy it jumps to £949.00 <A target="_blank" HREF=http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/inspn_1100?c=uk&l=en&s=dhs>Click here.....</A>


<hr width=100% size=1>Alex

<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.mad-als.com>http://www.mad-als.com</A>

 

[PhilF]

yeah they add a service option that bumps up the price

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