Hiya Niku2
You're just under the budget I thought you might have mentioned of £600 or so. In December I got my niece a Laptop for birthday and for use at university. I got her a Dell Inspiron 6400 for £610 inc Delivery & VAT I'll still highly recommend this machine and you can get them at £499 inc VAT and Del in a slightly more basic features/spec level.
The minimum specs I'd recommend and suggest would be
1. Core 2 Duo processor
2. 1GB of RAM minimum
3. 80 GB hard disk - any bigger is a bonus of course
4. Vista Home Premium edition (with Dell, you can still specify with Win XP and if you do, get the Media Centre 2005 edition version!)
5. most home laptops are now Widescreens and the 15.4 inch size with 1280x800 pixels at this price level is both popular and looks good.
the Dell 6400 shown at £499 all in, includes all the above (120GB hard disk) so would be ideal. If you want to upgrade certain elements you can - just go throught the customise option.
I've had 3 Dell Inspirons over the last 8 years or so, and my next one is more than likely going to be a Dell but from their top end Precision range and from Dell themselves its coming in at £scary - but some Pwer Sellers on ebay are doing the same machines (from cancelled orders) for a much better £1500. So for me I've found Dell to be excellent - others can and will strongly contest that!
I'd say don't be tempted by the cheaper Celeron processor based machines, even though they will suffice for your current needs, for the difference in price, it's worth the extra much better performance from a Core 2 Duo processor. The AMD based machines are good as well, again for the Turion processor which is their equivalent of the Core 2 Duo (just something to keep in mind when compariing - however the Intel chip really is excellent and AMD have had a hard time keeping up)
As many UKY people are MAC users, take a look at them as well - I've not had any experience with them aas yet, looking to change that soon so i can see if the fuss about them is worthwhile. Maybe speak to some of these UKY people on their experience and compare to see if you can do the same with them.
Have a look at 'reputable' brand name laptops - warranties, build quality, all vary and I'd only really purchase from a well known supplier for a bit more cash than one of the smaller volume based places - there's more chance of the bigger places sorting your machine out than smaller players (argument falls both ways here tho, bigger companies might give u the run around for customer service and the smaller guy might treat you like a king/queen)
Have a look at Evesham.com - theyre award winning and have some great priced/specced machines. Similarly have a look at
http://www.meshcomputers.com/ - they currently have some secial offers on. also look at
http://www.rockdirect.com/ these guys are a little pricier but have some excellent spec machines for just a little more. all 3 of these companies are very well reputed as well, all have award winning machines too.
for a roundup of 'sub £500' laptops tested in PC Pro (I subscibe to it !) look here
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/labs/151/vista-notebooks---sub-500-notebooks/products.htmlThat'll give you a good bit to read !
Have a look at the more expenisve reviews too for comparisons sakes!
Look at Ebuyer and Dabs.com for discounted software and utilities. You will need security software (an absolute must!) and for the paid versions, Norton 360 covers everything for around £50-60, alternatives are Zonealarm Pro and F-Secure.
Norton 360 also includes a backup uliluty as well, if you go for a dedicated solution, then a great one is Acronis True image for around £23.
have a look here for reviews
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/shopper-labs/110594/acronis-true-image-10-home.html (use the drop down box to see each review in the group test!)
External backup drives can be picked u quite cheaply now, a large 320 GB drive is around £70 on ebuyer, so smaller capacities should be less, but for future proofing from what you've described it sounds like a good size.
Free alternatives to the software above are AVAST anti virus - very well known and recommended (only have one Anti Virus solution - never more than one, they interfere) but bear in mind it's ONLY anti virus and no other protection is offered. For Anti Phishing ad Spyware etc, get AdAware SE and/or 2007 - and Spybot Serach and Destroy. Also get Hijak this! - this program scans your PC and shows up everything. It's complicated to an extent, but if you get problems you can post up a 'hijack this' log to computer web forums and people who know alot can analyse it for you and tell you waht to get rid of
specific software such as photo editing stuff, you can get the personal or home versions of the big software again from ebuyer and dabs etc Photoshop essentials srpings to mind.
finally, take a look at the range of machines in PC world where you can touch them and see them - the All in One PC's are great! i got my cousina Sony Vaio with the 20inch TFT screen and PC built into it as they had space issues too. They're a good alternative.
hopefully this will help you ! and seems you got some homework to do! and I do NOT expect one of your 'packages' to be put through my door seeing as I've given you so much to do!!
Cheers! DtM! West London & Slough UK!
