take a look on ukhotdeals for the best around for your budget.

sony are pretty but you do pay for the name (even when discounted)

Sony Vaio batteries are brutally expensive to replace. I also had a problem where they changed their software to not recognise the alternative manufacturer battery that I had used so it stopped working after a year. Wouldn't touch Sony again 🙁

I'm quite liking Asus at the moment eg. http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00B2I6E5E/ref=noref?ie=UTF8&psc=1&s=computers
Just had problem that required a warranty repair - they emailed me a DHL label to print and stick on the box, sent it away and it came back by DHL 10 days later. nice. (beware that the model I linked to doesn't have a replaceable battery - it was just a nice example)

Rik,

Sounds grim, has to have a rethink, can you suggest something worthwhile around £400, I've no idea what represents good value or spec.

The one I linked to is 420 and looks nice. Spec seems ok. and battery life not bad for something that portable. Screen size is nice, keyboard is okay. I've got two Asus machines now and I'm very happy with both. The touchpad is important as Windows 8 works better if you learn the multi finger gestures and the touchpad on my Zenbook works well - don't know if it is the same on this though. Don't know what will happen when it comes time to replace the battery but I suspect I can either send it away or look up on the web how to do it

Here try this...

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/fujitsu-lifebook-ah532-15-6-inch-laptop-black-intel-core-i5-3230m-processor-3m-cache-1615387

or this if you want a bit of monster...

http://www.hotukdeals.com/deals/toshiba-satellite-pro-l870-17-3-inch-laptop-intel-core-i5-3230m-2-6ghz-processor-1620480

or this if you know a costco member...

http://www.costco.co.uk/view/product/uk_catalog/cos_1,cos_1.2,cos_1.2.2/154631?referer=carousel

I like the build quality of Lenovo idea pads

http://www.ebuyer.com/516703-lenovo-ideapad-g580-laptop-mbb4guk

Not the cheapest, but well made IME

Dell outlet store is also worth a look.

There is an i3 Toshiba on hot uk deals at the moment for less than £300, but its 2 weeks delivery

That big screen Toshiba looks nice, weight isn't an issue, it will live on the kitchen table.

I've no idea what represents good value or spec

MC- Work out how portable you want it to be in terms of weight, screen size and battery life. The bigger the screen the less the battery life (in general). I like 14 as being a nice trade off but you might not want to work on it all day. 17 is lovely but then it gets a bit big to lug around (if that's what you will be doing). The stuff above all looks good, I like toshiba and fujitsu, so to sort out what is best take a guess at how you will use it first as they are all different sizes

edit:clearly I am too slow typing 🙂 - the tosh looks a great deal

If you've got a big kitchen table the Tosh will be great then. They really do weigh a ton but it's 'proper computer' specification and screen size.

Thanks for the help on this guys I wouldnt have known where to start. I've just ordered the Toshiba,

It's arrived and I'm impressed!

It'll take me a spell to get used to it though.