Mr Coeur de Lion Posted July 11, 2007 Share Posted July 11, 2007 My old laptop is dieing. It's in the process of chewing up its second hard drive in less than 6 months and it's becoming too unreliable, so it's time to upgrade. I'm pretty out of touch with what's what (my laptop is an old 2.6ghz celeron and its working life is slowly coming to an end) nowadays.Can anyone recommend a good laptop for around the 800 euros mark? Speed is more important than storage or screen size and it will be used for graphic design work and making simple movies via a digital camcorder.Another requirement is that I would prefer to keep to XP if possible. It's taken me years to learn the ins and outs of XP and I can't be doing wasting time trying to figure out a new operating system.I also want to keep with the US keyboard layout rather than the French one, so if anyone knows of an online UK shop (not ebay), that can ship to France that would be good.Ta. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tel Posted July 11, 2007 Share Posted July 11, 2007 Hi,Not sure about France but to find a laptop in the UK with a US keyboard is almost impossible. The differences between the UK/US keyboard is minimal anyway. There are lots of deals around at the moment, I recently bought an Acer Travelmate 5620 from this company at a much cheaper price than other online suppliers- http://www.shopacer.co.uk/ you can view prices in Euros or GBP and they ship to France (Though quite costly)In the end you need to do a little research before making a decision, but if you want XP you need to find your replacement soon as most of the new computers are sold with pre-installed Vista in one form or another.Best of luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Coeur de Lion Posted July 12, 2007 Author Share Posted July 12, 2007 Thanks Tel. My laptop is Australian, and have been using it so long (since using a UK one) and assumed incorrectly that the UK laptops also have US keybords. Forgot about the minor differences.I'll have a look at that site. You also jogged my memory. play.com deliver free in Europe too, so will have a look there as well. Looks like I'll have to go with vista though. Oh well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Owens88 Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 In recent past Morgan auctions and Morgan computers used to offer a lot of laptops with US keypoards. At good prices (for the UK !)Thier current web site is less 'open' with information and I find you have to enquire more. Good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Coeur de Lion Posted July 12, 2007 Author Share Posted July 12, 2007 I guess there would be nothing to stop me formatting the hard drive and installing the XP software that came with my dieing laptop? This would run ok? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Danny Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 It will install OK but you could have a problem having the copy of Windows XP validated for doing updates if it came with the old laptopDanny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anton Redman Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 A recent very quick trawl round the shops and on line in France :Almost impossible to source anything other than Vista as an operating system at retail. Price performance is now very good .Del are the likeliest to supply into France with US or UK keyboard on a portable and the operating system in AmerEnglish.Not sure XP will have device drivers for a recently purchased portable which came with Vista. If you want XP then Morgan from UK or a Computer Fare in the UK and a second hand machine Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre ZFP Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 Another point in favour of Dell is that they will ship with XP loaded rather than Vista. Thêy quite rightly said that if their customers were not happy with Vista and all its problems then they will provide what the customer wants!Bit surprised you say you're not bothered about screen size and storage. I would have thought that graphic design would want big screen and loads of storage?For speed you want Intel dual core (not the AMD dual core which, while good, doesn't have the grunt of Intel) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nige Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 I would use Dell as they deiliver either from the UK or France the UK delivery is bit more expensive but it can all be done in english, the french is usally free but has to be done in French. But you must ask for english keyborad and english O/S. Delivery is about 4 days from France and about a week from the UK. Then only difference between UK and US is @ and " as far as I remember. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pierre ZFP Posted July 12, 2007 Share Posted July 12, 2007 I think the other difference is that you get a $ but not a £ No idea if you get a € but I somehow doubt it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onion van man Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 [quote user="LyndaandRichard"]I guess there would be nothing to stop me formatting the hard drive and installing the XP software that came with my dieing laptop? This would run ok?[/quote]If the copy of XP came with the original laptop as an OEM version it would be against the EULA which states that OEM versions can only be used on the computer they were supplied with. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnOther Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 To turn this on it's head, 2.5 years is really not so very old for a laptop and 2 HD's in 6 month's is highly unusual.In your position, if you haven't already that is, I think I'd be inclined to take it to an expert for properly sorting (or condeming) before giving up snd shelling out €800 or however much for a new one.Over the past 10 years or so I have personally owned about 10 different laptops and worked on dozens of others and, specific hardware failures excepted, in my experience there is not much which a good clean up, a new HD and a fresh install of the OS won't cure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Coeur de Lion Posted July 13, 2007 Author Share Posted July 13, 2007 In the next year I have been planning on upgrading my laptop anyway. I'll be doing a lot of digital camcorder work which will need at least usb2 compatibility or the ieee socket. My usb ports are pretty much cactussed, they are very wobbly and cut out frequently. The laptop has been through the wars somewhat. The hd is stable for the moment, but I have transferred all my files to my desktop and am just using the laptop as a terminal and saving direct to my desktop.I don't trust experts anymore (in most industries), they do tend to give you advice more suited to getting money out of you. The old addage of if you want a job done properly, do it yourself seems to be a more useful in todays society unfortunately. In my experience anyway. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AnOther Posted July 13, 2007 Share Posted July 13, 2007 2.5 years old and not USB2, what is it ?Whatever, if it doesn't fulfil your needs go for it.[;-)] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Coeur de Lion Posted July 13, 2007 Author Share Posted July 13, 2007 It's a Compaq Presario 2500. Actually, it's 3.5 years old now. I lost a year (easily done). Deffo not usb 2. Very slow. It has also endured a house full of dust when we sanded walls, beams etc.Think I've found the laptop I want on Dell. Inspiron 6400. Just need to phone them up and try to get them to make me an offer I can't refuse! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonzjob Posted July 14, 2007 Share Posted July 14, 2007 Refering back to play.com. They don't deliver electronic kit to anywhere outside the U.K. Have a look at their conditions http://www.play.com/HOME/HOME/6-/AboutUs.html?page=del . I tried before, but they won't even deliver a USB memoery key. Books, pre-recorded CDs or DVDs yes, but not blank CDs, etc. Same with "7dayshop.com". Magic place for CDs, DVDs and batteries, domage! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Coeur de Lion Posted July 14, 2007 Author Share Posted July 14, 2007 [quote user="Jonzjob"]Refering back to play.com. They don't deliver electronic kit to anywhere outside the U.K. Have a look at their conditions http://www.play.com/HOME/HOME/6-/AboutUs.html?page=del . I tried before, but they won't even deliver a USB memoery key. Books, pre-recorded CDs or DVDs yes, but not blank CDs, etc. Same with "7dayshop.com". Magic place for CDs, DVDs and batteries, domage![/quote]Guess the greedy French government (not that that government is any greedier than any other) is trying to make sure it gets its tva cut. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Onion van man Posted July 15, 2007 Share Posted July 15, 2007 [quote user="LyndaandRichard"]Think I've found the laptop I want on Dell. Inspiron 6400. Just need to phone them up and try to get them to make me an offer I can't refuse![/quote]I personally don't think you could buy a better laptop computer than a Dell when you compare pound for pound. why spend hundreds more for a brand name? All brand named laptops have someone elses parts in them anyway! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr Coeur de Lion Posted July 19, 2007 Author Share Posted July 19, 2007 Well after being shunted around (Dell UK said I had to go to Dell France - went there and they were very unhelpful, everytime I asked the woman to speak slower, she would speaker faster and louder - in the end I gave up and called Dell UK again, who this time were able to sell me one). So ex-stock for about 12 quid more in postage to France than the UK, it was shipped out yesterday and is scheduled to be delivered to me today :) Very happy, they can still do XP so I won't have to relearn everything again and it'll be nice to have a keyboard with a pounds key again as well!Thanks for all the advice. This laptop I am using at the mo will be taking flying lessons tomorrow... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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