Laptops

[fat boy slim]

I have been living in Thailand for ten years now and am going back to the U.K. for a couple of months.I need to buy a laptop to do some work while in the U.K.

I'm not sure of the lingo but from what I've been told I need 80GB hard drive with 1GB of ram for what I need. I have been told the best place to go is Tuk com on south Pattaya Rd.

Any Ideas on Price

What are the best makes.

Can I use them in the U.K. with no problems

Am I better off waiting until I get to the U.K. and buying one there, for Guarantee purposes

Any advice appreciated

[thaipulse]

Many good brands... compaq, hp, IBM, sony, toshiba. My personal favorite is toshiba.

My friend in Hawaii told me that notebooks are CHEAP back in the states now - $400 he got one that is tricked out. I think they are cheaper to order online than to buy in a store. DELL.com has some great buys though I don't prefer their computers - having bought 2 online and recieving them - they have weak chassis.

I'm selling my used compaq v2630TS for 13,900 baht and it's a good deal. Can get a new one like this for about 24,000 baht.

private message for url to see info.

Thanks,

Vern

[astral]

Go for the brand names suggested by Thaipulse and make sure you get a worldwide guarantee.

Prices in Thailand are good compared to the UK.

80Gb disk is the minimum, look for larger ones 120 or 160Gb

1Gb of memory is fine for XP, but 2Gb will be better if the machine has Vista loaded.

[Mahout Angrit]

For your price comparison Dell advertised yesterday in UK

Intel Dual-Core T2080

Windows Vista Business

1024MB SDRAM

80GB Hard Drive

15.4" screen

DVD+/RW Drive

Wireless network card

but only a 1 year Euro collect & return guarantee

for £299 + VAT + delivery (or if purchased before 11/7/07 it's £279)

If you are resident outside UK you may be able to claim the VAT back but you'd have to ask Dell about that.

The Compaq mentioned earlier sounds a good deal ,by comparison,and you may get a guarantee that is valid in Thailand (but not UK!)

I am not recommending it, but if you want to compare high street UK prices you can check PC World

Edited July 3, 2007 by Mahout Angrit

[Firefoxx]

You probably won't find any notebooks sold now with a harddisk *less* than 80GB, so that's a no-brainer. RAM is cheap (1GB is around 1,000 baht), and notebooks need a lot of ram since their hard drives are so slow. Not enough ram=more thrashing of the hard drive=MUCH slower computer. Get a 2GB upgrade if it doesn't come with enough.

If you're planning on traveling often with the notebook, you should look to get one that's less than 2KG in weight (less than 4 lbs). The screen will be smaller than usual, but that's a tradeoff. Also, the lighter notebooks will be invariably more expensive (except for the no-name ones). My aunt just bought 2 Sony notebooks on sale in the US, and they weighed a TON.

If you're not going to do much with it, then you don't need the latest and greatest. Be prepared, though, to chuck it out the window within a few years, since the two major components of a notebook, the graphics and CPU, can't be upgraded, and not buying the latest means chucking it out sooner than later. Balance out your needs and budget, and you'll come out with something that can satisfy you. If you plan on buying cheap, don't plan on doing anything fancy with it, like playing games, since cheap just doesn't cut it (and even expensive doesn't cut it, if you're buying into the big names).

This is a time of crossroads, since Vista has come out and will be commonplace soon enough. It doesn't matter what problems it has, since MS clout and other factors will make it the standard. It happened for XP, and it'll happen for Vista, despite what people want to say. The relevance to you is that you might have to switch to Vista (and if you buy a modern notebook, it might only have Vista, not XP) and Vista has higher requirements than XP.

Edited July 3, 2007 by Firefoxx

[Richard-BKK]

Not forget Acer notebooks, I belief that not everybody is aware that Acer has a long notebook history. Acer notebooks where sold before as Texas Instruments notebooks, after TI sold the whole notebook devision to Acer they all became Acer's.

The Travelmate is still one of the best notebooks around, and can easily be compared with a Compaq. We have several about 10 Compaq notebooks, and in the last 3 months all have visited the Compaq service center. We have 5 Acer notebooks and none ever needed service (hardware).

This statistic can be pure luck or saying something about the quality, you can select it yourself......

[Rice_King]

DELL.com has some great buys though I don't prefer their computers - having bought 2 online and recieving them - they have weak chassis.

Vern

If you bought a Dell with weak chassis, I'll wager it wasn't from the Dell Latitude line. Maybe an Inspiron? The Latitudes are very durable and sturdy. The trade off is that the Latitudes weigh a bit more than the average laptop. The weight can be a factor to some folks.

[fat boy slim]

Thanks for all the info Guys. i'll have to sit awhile and try and digest all the info, but I have at least something to go on now. I won't be playing games on it, as it would be for work. Once again thanks for the replys.

[JimsKnight]

The Inspiron should be ok if its the XPS gaming laptop. I've heard only good things about it.

[peter991]

Interesting reading. I am looking for a laptop/notebook computer for a friend in BKK. A search only found one computer supplier of Notebook computers online in Thailand. Obviously there's quite a few more. Tuk Com - do they have a homepage in English ?

Anybody have any recommendations on price? Basically looking for a 'reasonable laptop,' preferably running legitimate Windows XP (Home), with 2GB of RAM. Computer will basically be used for Internet & email and some games.

Suggestions please.

Peter

[Firefoxx]

The thing about gaming on a laptop is that the VAST majority of laptops, regardless of price, have onboard graphics. Onboard graphics is TERRIBLE for most modern (and not so modern) 3D games. Believe me, I've tried. My friend has a recent Acer laptop with pretty good specs, except for the onboard graphics. I tried play Need for Speed on it, and the frame rate was terrible, even with all graphics options turned way down, and the resolution set to "extremely blocky" (my description of it).

Thing is, a notebook with a *good* graphics chip will cost considerably more (around 6-12k) more than one without it (with otherwise the same specs). There are very few that are under 40k that have a good graphics chip (and I'm NOT talking about ones like the x1300, 8200, 7300, etc which are only slightly better than onboard).

And again, THE AMOUNT OF GRAPHICS MEMORY IS NOT AN INDICATOR OF ITS PERFORMANCE.

If you cross out the gaming requirement, you could get notebooks that fit your needs for very cheap, around 20k. Forget about the OS and the RAM, they can both be bought later for fairly cheap. Keep in mind, tho, that RAM prices are driven by supply and demand. This means that the cheapest type of RAM is the one that's CURRENT. Older RAM, like DDR1 (or SD, even), and just-released RAM, like DDR3, will cost much more. Keep that in mind when buying really old notebooks.