Luke Xmas Present; Laptop ?

[Lisa_T]

For that budget, and for a second (non-gaming) machine, I'd recommend the Asus Eee PC 1000H. It's small and light - 1.45kg - but sturdy. Not bad specs either - 1GB ram, 80 GB HDD, Atom processor, wifi and bluetooth, up to seven hours of battery life, but note there is no optical drive. Retro games - anything pre 2004 or so - should play on it reasonably well.

It comes with XP but you can put Linux on it. I know several distros including Ubuntu have been customised to work with the Eee's hardware. There's also a flourishing forum for help and support too. Highly recommended. Since getting this I've hardly touched my large and powerful VAIO!

[Melissa]

For that budget, and for a second (non-gaming) machine, I'd recommend the Asus Eee PC 1000H. It's small and light - 1.45kg - but sturdy. Not bad specs either - 1GB ram, 80 GB HDD, Atom processor, wifi and bluetooth, up to seven hours of battery life, but note there is no optical drive. Retro games - anything pre 2004 or so - should play on it reasonably well.

It comes with XP but you can put Linux on it. I know several distros including Ubuntu have been customised to work with the Eee's hardware. There's also a flourishing forum for help and support too. Highly recommended. Since getting this I've hardly touched my large and powerful VAIO!

We currently are running Ubuntu on our desktop but Have an older IBM think pad (this was bought right before Lenovo took over the think series.) My hubby is an IT guy and says that acer is decent computer for the reasonable price.

[Brian M]

Hi

After some thought I knew I would probably buy a Dell ,so I looked at two options ,the first a Dell refurbished from their outlet store and the second from Europc (a Dell again ) who I knew about but thanks to Rosiesmum for jogging my memory .The decider between both which I don't understand is that from Dell direct they only offer a one year RTB warranty while Europc offer 3 year next day on site warranty ,this don't make sense .So after looking at availability from both Euro with their better warranty came up with

XPS M1530 Notebook
Intel Core Duo T540 ,2GB Ram, 250 GB Sata H/D ,DVDRW and very important 256 MB Nvidia Geforce 8600M GT.

It was 50% over budget but so are most things ,ordered it Mon at 4.00 PM and it arrived Tues at 2.30 PM.

Its stashed in a bedroom till I check it over on Sat then its wrapped up and put away .Dawn said that Luke asked the other night that as I am getting a new Laptop (due next week) he wondered if he could have my old one so I hope he will be happy with this one ,I opened the box last night and its brand new so its not refurbished in any way must have been a cancelled order or similar .

[Lisa_T]

We currently are running Ubuntu on our desktop but Have an older IBM think pad (this was bought right before Lenovo took over the think series.) My hubby is an IT guy and says that acer is decent computer for the reasonable price.

Some Acers can be, but I personally would never buy one. Certainly I wouldn't touch their netbook - heard of too many horror stories. Thinkpads are super as long as you can live with the nipple, but their newer models all have a touchpad as well so it doesn't matter.