My 6 year old laptop has died (most likely hard drive) and whilst this may be repairable there are so many other ‘quirks’ with it it’s probably not worth the bother.

Don’t need huge amounts of processing power, prefer something that’s going to have decent battery life (>3 hours) and not be kicking out huge amounts of heat (the fan hardly ever runs on my current laptop). 14″ widescreen would be my preference, needs to be fairly portable but it’s my only computer so don’t really want anything smaller than this. Don’t really have any further requirements, in an ideal world I’d get something identical to what I have now with a slightly faster processor and a bit more ram but it doesn’t seem to exist from the quick look I’ve had.

Any recommendations? (I’ve not decided on budget yet)

Dell outlet

http://www1.euro.dell.com/uk/en/dfo/df.aspx?refid=df&s=dfo

Nice 11 inch alienware on there for £500

Or even for £220 (BARGAIN!)

Inspiron 1120

Inspiron 1120 : AMD Athlon II
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Processor : AMD Athlon II Neo K125 (SingleCore,1.7GHz,1MB Cache,12W)
250gb hard drive
Memory : 2048MB (1×2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Notebook Screen:LCD,11.6HDF,WLED,CMO
Obsidian Black IMR No Pattern

11 inch is too small 😉

How much do you want to spend? Are you happy with a Dell refurb? There are about a gazillion options so it’s hard to focus on one. Battery life is really the only thing you’re specific about & this is almost impossible to gauge as the times reported by the manufacturers are about a s reliable as MPGs quoted by car makers.

Eg. new Dell Inspiron 15R does what you need – £430 + delivery
or, Dell Outlet Studio 15 – Tons of power, i7 processor, loads of RAM £514 delivered.

Your apetite for a bargain vs wanting something new & shiny would be one of my first questions, Eg. I just got a an i5 laptop from PCworld’s refurb shop on ebay for £350, a risk but seems to have turned out well so far.

Don’t really have any further requirements, in an ideal world I’d get something identical to what I have now

That would be easier to field if you told us what you had now.

I have one of these and it’s pretty good (although I have a separate games PC and work laptop so it doesn’t get used for much other than browsing…), case design is an acquired taste as well. http://www.comet.co.uk/p/Laptops/buy-HP-G62-B13SA-Laptop/676446

Go by brand.

Toshiba
Acer
HP

Then whatever’s on special offer/clearance.

Currently have or rather had a HP dv1000 (US version if that makes any difference)

14 inch widescreen is preference as you can fit a full size keyboard on minus the numberpad (i touch type).

Processor wise I’m pretty confident that just about any machine will handle what I need to do. What I don’t want is something that’s got loads of power but as a result overheats easily and has the fan running all the time. I only really play dvds, run opera, pidgin, Picasa and notepad ++

£309

Inspiron N 4020

BASE
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64 BIT)
Processor : Intel Pentium Dual Core Processor T4500 (2.3Ghz, 800Mhz, 1MB)
320 GB Hard Drive
4096MB (2×2048) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel
Optical Drive 8X DVD+/-RW
Display : 14in HD WLED TrueLife
Black

I recommend you get a laptop. There, you did ask. You’re welcome!

That Dell is worth looking at

Thanks

Managed to fix the hard drive on my laptop so it’s a bit easier to do my own research now 🙂