Need A Budget / Semi Budget Laptop

[torrenova]

I'm off travelling to Singapore and the UK for a while on business and I need a laptop.

My requirements are:

Reasonable cost

Fair lifetime expectation

Main uses for browsing, downloading movies etc. and webcam / skype.

I lost the correlation between PC and laptop speeds / chipset / etc. a long time ago and need some pointers.

I was in places like Carrefour and Tesco in the last week and they have some real funny names I have never heard of before. I just could not trust them.

Help !

[misterme]

I'd stick to brand names.

At Carrefour this week I saw Acer and Compac models for about 14,000-17,000.

The prices can't be beat. Can't go wrong buying at these reputable stores, as far as I'm concerned.

[torrenova]

What's this Acer thing ? I see a lot of them about but you also have Asus and other crap (or presumed crap) about.

[ballbreaker]

What's this Acer thing ? I see a lot of them about but you also have Asus and other crap (or presumed crap) about.

I've had an Acer for 2+ years and been very happy with it during that time. Its been around the world several times and only gave me problems at the 2 year mark. Started having random power downs after one of my trips. Acer replaced the motherboard for 4k baht and its good as new.

ASUS has a good rep although I have never owned one myself.

[monty]

What's this Acer thing ? I see a lot of them about but you also have Asus and other crap (or presumed crap) about.

Acer is probably one of the most popular brands here (and many other places, I'm an avid reader of PC magazines, and they always come out pretty good in tests the world over).

Main reasons are very good specs compared to price, and a very good and extensive service/guarantee network. Build quality is only average although the current beige models look to be quite a bit more sturdy then the previous silver models. You'll still get an expected lifespan of over 2 years, an age I often consider changing models anyway.

And at slightly over half the price of an HP or lenovo....

[donna]

i recently purchased an HP Presario V3500 and am very happy with it. i think i paid around 25k in powerbuy. so far so good. i was looking at acer, at a higher price, but the staff in there actually recommended the HP as they said it was better quality with better guarantee.

[monty]

i recently purchased an HP Presario V3500 and am very happy with it. i think i paid around 25k in powerbuy. so far so good. i was looking at acer, at a higher price, but the staff in there actually recommended the HP as they said it was better quality with better guarantee.

It's actually a compaq Donna! HP acquired compac and now uses that brandname for their budget line!

[Naam]

buying a laptop is (among other specs) also a matter of what weight you are willing to carry around when travelling. the lower the weight the more expensive. bought a couple of weeks the smallest Acer with a 12" screen and paid ~28,000 Baht.

Edited March 6, 2008 by Naam

[waveydavey]

Took my Acer to their service centre in Chiang Mai a couple of weeks ago as the screen kept going white. Was worried about how they would deal with it as I'd read that cutting down on customer service was one way they kept the prices so low.

No reason to be concerned though, I was very impressed with them. I took it in at 5pm and they phoned me at 9.30am the next day to say it was ready! No problems since then and they'd even cleaned it for me.

[torrenova]

buying a laptop is (among other specs) also a matter of what weight you are willing to carry around when travelling. the lower the weight the more expensive. bought a couple of weeks the smallest Acer with a 12" screen and paid ~28,000 Baht.

In a perfect world I'd have a larger budget and jusy go to the shop and buy a known brand with near top spec but this is only going to be for a few months so a waste of cash as I still have the house PC.

I don't have the luxury of trading $ for weight unfortunately though I don't want some PC heavy laptop !

Is this Acer thing worldwide or just LOS / SE Asai ?

[Priceless]

buying a laptop is (among other specs) also a matter of what weight you are willing to carry around when travelling. the lower the weight the more expensive. bought a couple of weeks the smallest Acer with a 12" screen and paid ~28,000 Baht.

In a perfect world I'd have a larger budget and jusy go to the shop and buy a known brand with near top spec but this is only going to be for a few months so a waste of cash as I still have the house PC.

I don't have the luxury of trading $ for weight unfortunately though I don't want some PC heavy laptop !

Is this Acer thing worldwide or just LOS / SE Asai ?

Acer is Taiwanese and one of the world's largest makers of PCs (actually third largest after HP and Dell). Very well spoken of here in LOS due to their extensive service network. I've had two of their laptops (actually one for me and the other for the g/f) for 2½ years now with zero problems. Bought them in Europe and have carried them back and forth numerous times.

/ Priceless

Edited March 6, 2008 by Priceless

[BigSnake]

I have seen Lap tops around town for as low as 10500Bt, good quality, look around sure(150percent) you will see many many.

[kevc]

Anybody tried the Acer factory shop, they've got laptops listed 47,000 selling for 24,000 and when you google the model the prices are usually around those prices, I think they are ex display but still come with a warranty. www.acer.co.th and on the right side of the home page in red is the link to the shop.

[naka]

buying a laptop is (among other specs) also a matter of what weight you are willing to carry around when travelling. the lower the weight the more expensive. bought a couple of weeks the smallest Acer with a 12" screen and paid ~28,000 Baht.

In a perfect world I'd have a larger budget and jusy go to the shop and buy a known brand with near top spec but this is only going to be for a few months so a waste of cash as I still have the house PC.

I don't have the luxury of trading $ for weight unfortunately though I don't want some PC heavy laptop !

Is this Acer thing worldwide or just LOS / SE Asai ?

Acer is worldwide and is also the No.1 laptop seller in Asia.

Buy in Singapore if you don't want a Thai keyboard. And you will get the VAT back.

Naka.

Edited March 6, 2008 by naka

[hp8000]

i recently purchased an HP Presario V3500 and am very happy with it. i think i paid around 25k in powerbuy. so far so good. i was looking at acer, at a higher price, but the staff in there actually recommended the HP as they said it was better quality with better guarantee.

I bought the same laptop a few weeks ago and I'm running Windows Vista and GNU/Linux Mandriva in dual boot. I have the AMD Turion64 one.

With Mandriva everything works fine, but I've not been able to find a driver under Vista for the integrated camera. I tried to install XP but was not able to find the proper drivers for this OS. As I don't know much about Windows as I was bored very quick and long time user of Linux I don't know where to search for the drivers, those I found on the compaq website doesn't work.

Can you tell me which OS you run and where you found the drivers (camera only if Vista) (All drivers if XP)

Thanks.

PS. This is a nice small laptop, light (2,3kg) and works hours without ever overheating.

Edited March 6, 2008 by hp8000