Laptop recomendations

[Bilb]

Hi, i'm looking for a new laptop due to my current 5 year old laptop overheating and shutting down after very short usage.

1. What is your budget?

No more than £450

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

15 at the smallest, preferably bigger.

3. What screen resolution do you want?

The best for the price range i'm looking at, no particular needs on this one.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

Portable replacement.

5. How much battery life do you need?

Will be plugged in mostly when using it, but the longer the better.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?

No not at all, if anything it will be a Facebook game here and there which a PC worth aound £400 should be capable of.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

Mostly internet browsing/surfing, uploading pictures here and there. Waching videos also.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

Hard drives that come with Laptops in that price range should be adequate for our needs.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

I am from the UK so only reputable sites such as Dell, HP, PC world, Currys etc.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?

My previous laptop lasted around 5 years, would like this one to be able to last similar amount of time.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

DVD reader and writer.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.

The main reason i'm posting is to find out which brand, out of the most reputable ones, is best to get a laptop in my price range.

13. What country do you live in?

UK.

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

I suppose what i'm looking for is the best built laptop which is going to last me as long as possible. Also with good customer support so i don't have to mess around if anything goes wrong.

Hope i haven't rabbled on too much.

Appeciate any recommendations in advance.

 

[americanbrian]

I can't recomend this highly enough based on the price/performance.

http/www.ndc.co.uk/Dell_Inspiron_15RN5110_Corei_Laptop_with_156_Display_and_Optional_Switchable_lids-15127.html

The processor is plenty fast, and the GPU is pretty sweet too.

 

[Bilb]

Thanks for the reply.

I defintely like the style and it's also under the top price am willing to pay, but for such a nice looking/good spec computer at this price, is longevity going to be a problem?

I've been looking at the Dell XPS series and i have a friend who has the 17 inch version and loves it, would you recommenda smaller screenof the XPS or is this better?

Thanks.

 

[Bilb]

Also have you had any experiences with ndc.co.uk?

 

[americanbrian]

This is not "better" in terms of pure performance, but for the price it offers an all round GREAT experience.

I bought this model as a base and upgraded it myself but that involved near complete disassembly and is not for the faint of heart. I won't recommend you do it yourself but the base specs are very good at a very good price.

My pc was upgraded in the following way,

Replacement of cpu with a i7-2720QM
Replacing the TIM with MX-3 high performance thermal paste.
Replacing the HDD with an SSD (OCZ agility 3 240GB)
Adding 4GB of RAM (to make 8GB Dual channel)
Overclocking the GPU to 740MHz core.
TBA, I have ordered a 1920x1080 replacment screen (fromt the L502 range) so the screen will now become 1080p (dell now do a special edition configured with this)

It is actually better at most things than my desktop.

Without upgrading it was still a very nice machine. For example it can play Crysis 2 at 1024x768 with high details >30FPS (see here: http/www.notebookcheck.net/NVIDIA-GeForce-GT-525M.43889.0.html) It will run it at native (1366x768) with reduced details (turn off AA)

The CPU is plenty fast (faster than a Core 2 Quad Q6700) see here: http/www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu_lookup.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i5-2430M+%40+2.40GHz

AND THAT IS WITH 2 CORES (with hyperthreading)

For the price it is a stonker, that is all.

 

[Bilb]

Sounds like you have done a pretty sweet job! Obviously for my use i won't need to be upgrading to these specs, firstly i won't be gaming and secondly i don't want to spend any more money

What you have done with it though is brilliant, the fact its difficult to disassemble a laptop fully and upgrade it would definitely restrict me from doing this, but great work!

Regarding ndc.co.uk, have you ever used them? Are they reliable?

 

[americanbrian]

Also have you had any experiences with ndc.co.uk?

I personally ordered mine off of ebay, from a different seller, alas they have no stcok left.

The comapny NDC has an ebay presence and this is their feedback:

http/feedback.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewFeedback2&userid=ndc-uk&iid=380453807668&de=off&items=25&which=positive&interval=30&_trkparms=positive_30

It is generally very good at 99.6% positive on over 1300 sales this year. and a total of over 15000 positives from their start. So, yes I would buy from them myself if needed.

Take it as you will, some people are less comfortable, but IMHO it is not easy to game the feedback system to that extent, so they must try hard to keep people happy.

 

[Bilb]

Brilliant!
Thanks for your recommendations/help. I probably won't be doing this, but as a matter of wondering, would there be any way to install a backlit keyboard?

 

[Bilb]

Best answer selected by Bilb.

 

[americanbrian]

Ok, so I think it may be possible, but I cannot say for absolutely certain.

The keyboard itself is identical to the l502 xps 15, so the backlit version would definitely fit, but as to whether there is the necessary connector for powering the backlight on the motherboard is kind of up in the air, I would have to have a look. The keyboard connector looks the same but there is an extra ribbon cable that would need to find a home.

They are not cheap either, ~£30-£50 for one new off of ebay.

Ok, so I went ahead and looked at disassembly on youtube and it appears that the connector is still present on the N5110 motherboard so in all likelyhood YES you can install a backlit keyboard.

see these photos:

I have circled what I think will be the backlight connector on the n5110 pic.

 

[americanbrian]

OK WAIT!!!!

The keyboard is a different size than the l502X.

I will do some digging and see what the equivalent is...

 

[americanbrian]

OK,

It has the same keyboard as the l702x, sorry for the mess up, I think I caught it pretty quick though....

 

[Bilb]

Wow you are extremely helpful!
So are you aying this isn't possible or is from the last comment?

 

[americanbrian]

it is with the l702x backlit keyboard.... Same connector illustrated, but larger physical size than the l502x.

 

[Bilb]

Ok, thanks a lot!

 

[Bilb]

Brian,

I just checked some reviews online about ndc.co.uk and they are not brilliant!

I am now a bit reluctant to buy this due to poeple saying they have had alot of faulty parts and bad customer support! Have you got any recommendations from a reputable website/company that i won't have these kind of worries with?

Thanks.

 

[americanbrian]

http/www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Dell-Inspiron-15R-N5110-i3-2310M-15-6-1GB-nVidia-GT525M-4GB-320GB-3-Yr-Warranty-/130729027568?pt=UK_Computing_Laptops_EH&hash=item1e700ea7f0

This is slightly more expensive and has a slightly worse CPU, but the seller has better feedback (100% and over 77000 positives) and they offer a 1 year dell warranty....

 

[americanbrian]

I suppose it is about the level of risk you are willing to take for the savings you can have.

I know a lot about computers and so I am confident that I can fix any problem that comes along. My willingness to risk a slight fault is pretty high.

By no means do I want to get you into bother, you have to make your own decision. I think that in all likelyhood NDC would probably be fine as they seem to ship lots of products and have only a few (10-20) complaints. This is probably a very small portion of what they sell.

It is likely they are pretty crap with repairs/refunds as they must have a very small margin on sales.

If you are in doubt then I am sure that the other seller (more expensive, lesser spec) would be absolutely fine. By this I don't mean there is definitely no problems that could occur, but I am confident that they would be better at sorting them out fairly and in timely fashion.

Good Luck with whatever you decide.

 

[americanbrian]

Another alternative...

Dell is selling this laptop in its clearance section, for £459 (and you can get a free extra lid/cover)

If you join quidco you can get 5% cashback which is about £20 or so bringing the total after rebate to just under your target budget.

The spec on the dell site is as follows...

i3 2350 (2.3 Ghz CPU, sandy bridge)
Geforce 525m 1GB GPU
640GB HDD
4GB RAM

So it is a little more of a balanced compromise. bigger HDD, middling CPU (between ebay sellers) and the proper dell customer service.

Here is a link to the section, it is the second laptop:
http/www.dell.com/uk/p/clearance-deals

you will have to sign up for quidco to get the rebate. I have used them and have recieved cashback several times (so far 100% success (£84 in total for my purchases).

 

[Bilb]

Thanks Brian!

Definitely after seeing the 3 year warranty on ebay and the 100% feedback on over 77000 deals, i am drawn to that laptop even if it is £30 more! I think i am going to go with that one! With the deal on Ebay compared to the hassle i have to go through to get 5% off i think the laptop on ebay still seems the better option!

Thanks for all your help!