good deal on laptop

Hi,

I want to buy a laptop for home use. Can anyone recommend a good one? And where can I get good deals on laptops?

Thanks

not saying its going to be the cheapest but i think i saw a leaflet in the paper the other day where dell were having a sale, might be worth looking at their website

Click below , great little machine and only €450 delivered if you reduce the warranty to 90 days. 3 year warranties are overkill . Do not exceed one year.

http://configure.euro.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?b=&c=ie&cs=ieepp1&l=en&oc=N05135A&rbc=N05135A&s=dhs&sbc=iedhsrsinspn_1300_3

I was advised not to buy a laptop because they are quite delicate. We got ours in '04 and as soon as warranty was out it started to act up. If had my way over I would go for PC.

If you insist on buying one would definitely recommend buying the full cover because a quick read through the Dell forums will soon let know about the type of problems around on laptops.

Worth checking out the Dell Factory Outlet, too. I'm not so sure I'd agree with 2pack's 'do not exceed one year' comment, but that's another matter.

If you want a higher spec machine, the special offers that occasionally come around from Lidl/Aldi seem to represent excellent value, and they all come with a three-year warranty. They're usually priced in the €1299~€1499 range, though.

Let me clarify. When base laptops were £1000 (€1270) new I recommended 3 year warranties on top of that . We are talking about as recently as in 2003 .

Now they are €450 there is no point in overcooking the warranty. They are cheap commodities and a 1 year warranty is plenty in MY opinion . If it breaks thereafter get another one

Hi,

Thanks for your replies. So Dell seems to be the best value when it comes to laptops. What about the likes of PC World. Would it be worth my while checking out what they have in stock?

Babouchka

might be worth checking out pcworld.ie to compare prices to Dell

pcworld warranties are really crap, Dell service is better in Ireland with fast turnaround for repairs.

pcworld will strenously attempt to persuade you to buy an extension from the 1 year standard warranty to 3 years. Do not go there.

I would say the same spec will be €600 with 1 year warranty in pcworld.

Sometimes they have specials offers that are worth considering, but from what I hear their after-sales is pretty dire. Some people might say the same about Dell, but in my (limited) experience they've been pretty OK.

2pack, I do take your point about the questionable value of protecting a €450 'investment'; I suppose I'm thinking more in terms of a €1,000+ machine that would be more upgradeable/'future-proofed'.

babouchka, one point I forgot to mention earlier is that your choice of price range should take into account what you intend to use the laptop for. If it's for basic web surfing, email and a bit of word processing, an entry-level Celeron machine like that Dell model @€450 is more than adequate. If you want to use it for gaming, video editing, storing gazillions of media files etc., then you'll be hard put to beat the Aldi/Lidl offers (usually pretty high-spec, and then a three-year warranty is well worth having).