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I might be about to come into an amount of money which will allow me to have about £1000 to spend on a lap top.

Now I only want the thing to be able to do some video editing, photo editing, net browesing, DVD watching etc what's the best thing out there.

Someone will tell me a £400 laptop will do all this and guess what? I know this but this is about treating myself as much as anything.

Anyone know the best route to go or pointing out some laptops to check out? Macbook?

I don't have space for a desktop so have to rule that out, I'd expect bluetooth, DVD copying and Wireless as standard

Seriously, unless you are doing some top end design work or audio sequencing you don't need to spend more than £500 on a laptop.

CLICKY

Blu ray, home theatre, fast cpu...

£500 or £1,000 doesn't make a lot of difference, it'll be out of date within months in favour of the next version.

OK you could have convinced me as simply as that.

I didn't realise you get some thing with that kinda of spec for £500

It's been a while since I bought a lap top

Edit to say thank you!

On that note, my laptop is on it's last legs and I need a new one.
All it's ever used for is internet browsing, word processing and putting songs/videos on playing devices. So I think I just need to cheapest [wireless] laptop I can get my hands on, anyone got any ideas where this can be found?
Found one for just shy of £300 in Currys, best so far.

(Sorry to hijack Rob)

Have a look at pcspecialist.co.uk

you get a lot of spec options for your money.

Dont even have to have Vista if you dont want either

Lawrence you probably just need a net book or a notebook rather than a full laptop but comet do a good 16" screen media laptop for 299

And what about DVD rewriting? isthat standard on a blu ray drive

Lawrence, no probs fella hijack away

I bought my laptop direct from HP last March - their website. Spent £399 (the same one was more expensive in Staples, but the manager wasn't interested in price-matching), it came next day and, touch wood, I haven't had a problem.

I'm not sure what specs you need, but on the website's front page they're advertising one for £349.

I (maybe irrationally) felt more peace of mind buying direct from the supplier and would thoroughly recommend them to anyone.

The Blu Ray is read onloy on that one but you would be able to upgrade at order if you call them to have a blu ray writer... or you can get an external drive.

Agecroft wrote:Now I only want the thing to be able to do some video editing, photo editing

If you're gonna be doing video and graphics editing I'd personally say get a MacBook. I know everybody says it's expensive and all that, but it really is worth the cost. I have a five year old iBook (the MacBooks of the time) and in all honesty, it's still chugging along. All it needs is some more RAM and the newer operating system version which wouldn't cost me much to buy (I just haven't because I'm a lazy bu**er)

They're currently still selling the old design white models for just over £700, so don't feel you have to sink the entire budget on the aluminium model. They're both great machines, and in fact I want one of the older models myself (only in black, because they're impossibly pretty)

Lawrence wrote:On that note, my laptop is on it's last legs and I need a new one.

Yeah, I agree with Jordan: a cheap netbook will do the job if you're only doing web browsing and iPod syncing. I used to use Micro Direct for my PC stuff before I went all Apple, and they seem to have an Acer Semprom for £250 which seems a good deal to me

Since I started freelancing, I've had two laptops. I splashed tea on the keyboards of both and they stopped working. They're simply not worth it, from my clumsy point of view. Get a decent desktop system with lots of expansion slots and you can keep upgrading the tin for years to come.

Tomo wrote:I splashed tea on the keyboards of both and they stopped working. They're simply not worth it, from my clumsy point of view.

Tommy-Tippee tea-cups - now there's an idea for Dragon's Den 2009...

Tomo wrote:Since I started freelancing, I've had two laptops. I splashed tea on the keyboards of both and they stopped working. They're simply not worth it, from my clumsy point of view. Get a decent desktop system with lots of expansion slots and you can keep upgrading the tin for years to come.

I've lost count of how many keyboards I've destroyed doing that

But yes, I'm with you with that. I find desktop systems (guess what I have ) so much better if you're working in an office or such, but when you're on the move a lot or work from a café nothing beats a good macbook running Dropbox

Tomo wrote:Since I started freelancing, I've had two laptops. I splashed tea on the keyboards of both and they stopped working. They're simply not worth it, from my clumsy point of view. Get a decent desktop system with lots of expansion slots and you can keep upgrading the tin for years to come.

Yeah I love my rig. So handy being able to just lash in a new hard drive and what not. Power button's broken on it though so I'm gonna have to open her up and fix it asap...