Laptops - buy in UK or France

[MisterC]

Hi - we are shortly moving to France and need a new laptop. Should we buy in UK or France? Obvious problems with warranties if we buy in UK but are the price differences sufficiently great to make it worth the risk. If we buy in France where would you recommend? Lastly (Hope this doesn't try anyone's patience too much) any suggestions as to model? We might want to run DVD's on it and want something with a quickish start-up that costs peanuts.......Only joking but would prefer under €400.

[NormanH]

Don't forget that if you buy in France you will probably get an AZERTY keyboard.

[suein56]

And that your operating system might well be in French.

[MisterC]

yes I have had the misfortune to use a French keyboard - hadn't remembered that but did realise the operating system would be in French. I use XP in UK and had heard bad reports on Vista so presumably we ought to go for Windows 7 wherever we buy?

[NormanH]

If you are happy to read French you might like to look at this site

http://www.01net.com/liste-produits/32/0/0/0-0/0-0/0-0/0/pc-portables/

[AnOther]

Customer care and service are optional extras in France so you could well be better off buying in UK and accepting that you'd have to send it back there in case of a warranty claim, probably still be quicker.

[Thebiga]

If I had the chance to buy one in France or in the uk before coming here I would go for getting one in the uk. As someone said you would more than likely get a french keyboard and operating system.

You can of course get them when in france from Amazon uk etc and if you want one with all the uk spec they can be found at Pixmania.fr under 'Qwerty'.

So if you were worried about warranty etc go for Pixmania as you can just send it back to them as they are in france.

But probably a lot cheaper in the uk, Well not probably 'will be'.

[dave21478]

The price difference is almost negligible in my experience. I was looking for a laptop last month and found there to be almost no differences in price for similar spec machines between uk and france. Personaly, I would choose a UK laptop as I dont like the AZERTY layout and find having the OS in french to be a hindrance.

A friend recently got an ACER from Auchan for  €359...3gig memory, 350gig hd and I cant remember what processor it had. I was unable to find a significantly better price for the same spec in UK either on the highstreet or any of the online places I know of.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Wouldn't worry about the keyboard being an azerty, a weeks usage and you'll be used to it.

Even the os being in french isn't a problem after a while. You get used to it.

I recently bought an emachines (which is exactly the same as an Acer) for €399 4gb memory, 500gb hard drive, Celeron 900 processor @2.2 ghz, Vista basic, um and some other stuff too. Quite a good little machine.

[Kitty]

We've bought 2 computers in France from Dell France. You can order qwerty keyboard and all the software in English - you need to telephone them (they take your number and ring back). If you wish you can ask for a person who speaks English. In both cases the PC arrived in less than a week.

[nectarine]

A few months ago I bought a Dell notebook and specified QWERTY keyboard and all software in English. It wasn't a problem at all ... everything arrived, all documentation in English, the lot. Very satisfied. There had earlier been a thread that you could buy from Dell UK and get it shipped to France but I had tried that and, no, they don't ship to France. But buying directly from Dell France was simple and they didn't bat an eyelid at my 'UK spec' request.

[Lehaut]

Perhaps I am missing something here, if you intend to come to live in France, you will need to learn French and type letters in French, using accents etc without the hassle of reprogramming the keyboard/buying a French one to plug in.  Having the operating system in French would seem to be one small step on the ladder towards integration.  If you intend to speak to French people about any type of Window problems/advice, you need to know the terms in French. I deliberately loaded my system up with French Vista so that I could at least learn some of the terms and learn to read the technical stuff in French.  It has certainly helped me.

[Albert the InfoGipsy]

Lehaut,

I must disagree with your approach on this score. I speak, read and write pretty fluent French and my wife is French, although she spent most of her adult life in England. I've provided technical support to my various French in-laws, who obviously do use French kit, and in the past I've even done database programming using French versions of MS Access. My wife is a language teacher and translator who needs to be able to produce documents to a rather higher standard of syntactical accuract than most people. Neither of us uses a French OS or an Azerty keyboard and we have never felt the need to.

As far as I am concerned, treating my computers as a way to improve my 'integration' seems like hard work for negligible gain. With the availability of French computer magazines (e.g. SVM) and online forums I can learn all the specialised vocabulary I need without having to be distracted if I really want to get down & dirty with hardware or software when I really need to fix something.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

I agree with Lehaut to a certain extent, in that it is easier to write letters in French with a French keyboard.

However, how often do you have to do this? I can't remember the last time I did this.

I too have fixed computers with the os in French. It's simple, just google the problem and get the English translation, go from there and fix it.

The only reason my computer is French is because i couldn't wait to get an English one.

I wish I had waited until visiting the US though as they are dirt cheap over there.

[NormanH]

[quote user="Lehaut"]Perhaps I am missing something here, if you intend to come to live in France, you will need to learn French and type letters in French, using accents etc without the hassle of reprogramming the keyboard/buying a French one to plug in.  Having the operating system in French would seem to be one small step on the ladder towards integration.  If you intend to speak to French people about any type of Window problems/advice, you need to know the terms in French. I deliberately loaded my system up with French Vista so that I could at least learn some of the terms and learn to read the technical stuff in French.  It has certainly helped me.[/quote]

I too use an AZERTY keyboard and have my OS in French, but in terms of the OP I think it was fair to signal that if you go into the average French Hypermarket you will find laptops automatically with that option, which may not be what he wants.

As for accents in français there is no need for " the hassle of reprogramming the keyboard/buying a French one to plug

in." if he decides to keep a QUERTY keyboard.

Just use a French spell check (I use an add-on for Firefox) and click on the words underlined in red which need accents.

The following is was typed with no accents at all:

Une crème brûlée est un dessert que les français aiment bien

[pachapapa]

Definitely the right keyboard for using in the "Chaume du Querty".[:D]

[Quillan]

[quote user="MisterC"]Hi - we are shortly moving to France and need a new laptop. Should we buy in UK or France? Obvious problems with warranties if we buy in UK but are the price differences sufficiently great to make it worth the risk. If we buy in France where would you recommend? Lastly (Hope this doesn't try anyone's patience too much) any suggestions as to model? We might want to run DVD's on it and want something with a quickish start-up that costs peanuts.......Only joking but would prefer under €400.[/quote]

Quite frankly just buy the one you like and feel happy with. A UK laptop will work in France with no problem. If you are used to a UK keyboard and don't want to change then stick with a UK laptop. Quite a lot of 'up market' makes like Toshiba etc do offer a European warranty (up to 3 years) you just have to pay a bit more. Just make sure you keep the original box in case you ever have to sent it away for repair, most companies insist you use it. If you want to change the keyboard to a French one at a later date most manufactures sell packets of keys so you can change them over then you simply change the keyboard within Windows.

At least if you are in the UK you can visit PC World or similar and try before you buy. I believe they even sell Dells if thats what you really want.

[Lehaut]

Perhaps I should add that we have two children, both in the French education system.  When they use the "main' computer, they need to be able to use it as a French person for their research,  typing correct French etc to do it. as do we in correspondence.  Also, as they both have friends who ring for help occasionally (as their parents do to me sometimes) we all find it easier to sit in front of a French computer looking at the same screen as the person on the other end using the same words.  Its obviously a personal choice, but I have found that it has helped us and my children.  The "negligible" gain for my part has helped in the opportunity to take part in the meetings at the children's college for the debates over the wider use of computers, networking, etc   as well as telephone assistance for French friends.  As I have learnt at the same time, repaired and built computers for fun  (buying parts even in France!), I have not considered it "hard work". 

[Chancer]

If you speak even a little French and want to improve and commicate in French by E-mail etc then I would not fear an azerty keyboard, yes it is frustrating at first but no different to using computer in other countries in say an internet café, after a while it becomes automatic and you will find it a little difficult to use a qwerty one again. You will quickly learn words and phrases from the French operating system.

Now I can happily switch from azerty to qwerty with hardly any errors, those I make are now on the qwerty and it has made me realise that I have gradually begun to touch type without looking at the keys, I no longer use the number keys above the keyboard either now, its just too frustrating on an azerty and after getting usde to the numeric keypad I wonder why we have them above the keyboard on either type.

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

The only annoying thing with a French keyboard is the fact if you don't have a number pad, you have to hit shift and full stop to get a full stop.

Whoever came up with that idea is a complete moran, as full stop must be one of the most used punctuation marks.

[Chancer]

Dont all keybaords have a number pad?

Talking about complete morons I have been using the shift key for full stops for several years, I never thought of using the other one which I use exclusively for decimal points [geek]

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Nope, not all have keypads.

I have another two laptops here, one an Australian Compaq, the other a Dell, neither have keypads.

Glad you can use the decimal point as a full stop now Chancer ;)

[nectarine]

Lehaut, I was trained as a pretty fast touch typist .... 90 words per minute in my heyday - and I do a lot of typing so a QWERTY keyboard is essential . I'm also very good at French so don't consider that a UK spec computer is a barrier to integration, it just helps me to type at the speed that I have been used to for 30 or so years.

Integration is about people meeting and communicating with other people. Driving a RHD drive, for example, doesn't stop you integrating. Sometimes it's easier to stick with what you're used to and not make a big fuss about it.

[Chancer]

[quote user="nectarine"]  Sometimes it's easier to stick with what you're used to and not make a big fuss about it.[/quote]

I understand your comments about touch typing and integration but surely someone wanting to buy a computer in France but insisting on a qwerty keyboard because that is what they are used to is the one making a fuss?

I suppose the same logic applies to some people when it comes to learning the language of their country [Www]

[MisterC]

Seem to have stirred up a hornets nest here! I understand what Lehaut says about integration but I'm not coming to France without any French at all or without years of visiting the place. We have lovely French neighbours and we already feel we are on the way to integrating.

We're not looking to retain a British way of life in France but with so much to absorb, organise and assimilate - do you remember what it was like when you moved to France permanently? - I don't want to overstretch my ability to cope with a fairly traumatic event - especially as we are both near retirement age.

My wife does not use the computer a lot in the UK but wants to, once we come to France - there are arguments for and against Azery/French OS on both sides in her case BUT the jury is out!

Thanks for all your help