Anyone got a decent laptop for sale???

[Smiffy]

My Missus has got a netbook, one of them little Acer "Ones" but running XP it takes about 15 minutes to boot up, and is as slow as four OAP Sundridge members having a fourball on a Sunday morning.
Looking to get her a half decent laptop but don't want to spend a fortune.
Anyone upgrading and have a decent second hand one for sale????
Rob

 

[brendy]

Go onto the dell outlet, they do refurbed and slightly scratched units for sometime up to half price. I had a budget of around 450 to play with in work for my new laptop and instead of getting a naff fujitsu or cheap acer model, I got a 17 inch core2 4th ram flying machine with a proper graphics chip instead of the usual intel bag of balls, was easily worth 800+ but of some hairline scratch on the piano finish cover which I have yet to find. Bought a second one for the same price a week later for the finance director as they were impressed to.

 

[RGDave]

Shame about the Acer. Mine boots in 15 seconds....'cause it's Linux.

Let me guess.....is the C: drive is full and you can't save automatically to the D: drive. If so, it might be worth taking everything off (documents/music/photos/files) and running as many of the clean-up utilities as possible.

Unfortunately, I don't know how much of the "real" XP exists in Windows XP lite, but it might be worth a go before giving up.

 

[Macster]

*cough* Apple Mac * cough*

 

[RobCowan]

I'm going to guess that you got the one with the 8Gb solid state hard drive - they are absolute sh**e running Windows XP because XP cannot work with the solid state drives correctly.

Might be worth an upgrade to Windows 7 if you've got 1Gb of RAM in it - Win7 runs a lot better with the solid state drives & you can install it off a pen drive so no need to bodge a cd drive onto it.

RobC.

 

[Smiffy]

I'm going to guess that you got the one with the 8Gb solid state hard drive - they are absolute sh**e running Windows XP because XP cannot work with the solid state drives correctly.

Might be worth an upgrade to Windows 7 if you've got 1Gb of RAM in it - Win7 runs a lot better with the solid state drives & you can install it off a pen drive so no need to bodge a cd drive onto it.

RobC.

Don't know the actual spec of the machine. I'll have to check.
But God it's slow. She loves using it, when it gets up and running, but half the time she can't be arsed to even fire it up 'cos it takes so long to boot. And shut down.
The one on display in the shop was running Linux and was a lot quicker.
To think I paid £30.00 extra to get this one running XP.
I'm absolutely useless with these things. How much do you think a PC "expert" would charge to get rid of the crap, uninstall XP and put a clean install of Windows 7 in there?????? And do you honestly think that doing that would make the thing useable again. Bear in mind the specification of this little thing is not up to much. Will it have enough resources to run an operating system like Windows 7???? She doesn't have a load of files on there, she literally uses it for checking emails, a bit of online shopping and checking facebook that sort of thing.

 

[RobCowan]

Well, Amazon have got Windows 7 Home Premium as an upgrade for £82.99 (http://www.amazon.co.uk/Microsoft-W..._1_2?ie=UTF8&s=software&qid=1284104339&sr=8-2) and I don't know what people down your way charge, but up here I would charge £35/hour and would estimate 2 hours to wipe & rebuild so you would be looking at roughly £150ish.

However, just looking around I think a lot of people are saying that Windows 7 on the SSD version is rubbish as well so you might be worth just replacing it. The way to find out is to go into My Computer on it when it is fully loaded, right click on the C: drive and go to properties. Just above the pie chart that appears you will see a capacity. If this says 8Gb or thereabouts, you have the SSD version.

If you have the budget for a new machine, Tesco are advertising an eMachines netbook for £179 at http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.208-0573.aspx which is a pretty good spec. Some people may dislike eMachines, but I've found them to be very good machines in the last few years. This one is running XP Home, but it's got the normal style of hard drive so will run a lot better (Just don't buy Norton for it!).

Hope that helps.

 

[StrangelyBrown]

I've got one of these http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/SAMSUNG-N130-10-1I...=item51948ab219 and it's great. I managed to get mine for £149.99 about 2 months ago so there are bargains to be had.

 

[Macster]

Sounds like an iPad would be ideal Smiffy, if thats all she want to do with it.
http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad/

Plus it will store all your Music & Video's too.

Windoze anything is a pain in the arse I would NEVER go back to anything that Bill Gates has had anything to do with, its a constant pain keeping those things running smoothly and trouble free.
My Mac on the other hand hasnt missed a beat in 3yrs.

 

[Smiffy]

Sounds like an iPad would be ideal Smiffy, if thats all she want to do with it.
http://www.apple.com/uk/ipad/

Plus it will store all your Music & Video's too.

Don't wanna spend that sort of money!!
She has an iPod Touch that she loves, I was thinking of getting her a basic laptop to replace the Acer or have read great reviews on Asus netbooks that are supposed to "zip" along.
As I say, she loves the idea of her netbook, just doesn't like the amount of time it takes to boot up/shut down

 

[bobmac]

Was it faster when she first bought it or has it always been slow?

 

[Smiffy]

Was it faster when she first bought it or has it always been slow?

It's always been slow Bob.
We bought it from our local PC World (God help us!) and I took it back about a week later to complain about it. They "checked it out" and reported everything was fine with it so we've just put up with it.
But it's a right pain in the arse

 

[bobmac]

Was it faster when she first bought it or has it always been slow?

It's always been slow Bob.
We bought it from our local PC World (God help us!) and I took it back about a week later to complain about it. They "checked it out" and reported everything was fine with it so we've just put up with it.
But it's a right pain in the arse

I "WAS" going to GIVE you my latest 250gb 4g Ram all singing and dancing laptop but I've changed my mind now and decided to have a cup of tee instead

 

[Smiffy]

I "WAS" going to GIVE you my latest 250gb 4g Ram all singing and dancing laptop but I've changed my mind now and decided to have a cup of tee instead

You wouldn't know what a 250gb 4g ram laptop looked like if it bit you on the arse Bob.
You're more of a techno numpty than me!!
Now go and have a cup of TEA!
(You usually spell "heels" wrong as well mate. It's "heels" not "heals")

 

[bobmac]

I "WAS" going to GIVE you my latest 250gb 4g Ram all singing and dancing laptop but I've changed my mind now and decided to have a cup of tee instead

You wouldn't know what a 250gb 4g ram laptop looked like if it bit you on the arse Bob.
You're more of a techno numpty than me!!
Now go and have a cup of TEA!
(You usually spell "heels" wrong as well mate. It's "heels" not "heals")

Nob

 

[RGDave]

Just spoken to our in-house IT man.

He says sell it or take it somewhere where they might take it off you and give you some credit towards a new laptop.

Apparently this XP is rubbish and made even worse on a solid state drive.

You are doomed. Spending any money on it, other than paying someone to install linux linpus or similar instead, is just money down the plug-hole.

Apprently windows 7 might work, but the cost implications are not worth it.

*The information contained in the post is not to be relied upon and has been obtained through a third party. Any similarity in the wording to a "known" person, actual or virtual is to be ignored.*

 

[Smiffy]

Just spoken to our in-house IT man.

He says sell it or take it somewhere where they might take it off you and give you some credit towards a new laptop.

Apparently this XP is rubbish and made even worse on a solid state drive.

You are doomed. Spending any money on it, other than paying someone to install linux linpus or similar instead, is just money down the plug-hole.

Apprently windows 7 might work, but the cost implications are not worth it.

*The information contained in the post is not to be relied upon and has been obtained through a third party. Any similarity in the wording to a "known" person, actual or virtual is to be ignored.*

I've just contacted the Acer helpdesk to see if they can assist.
I wonder if I'll hear back from them this month?

 

[Macster]

Why not just take the frickin thing back to PC world and tell them its not fit for purpose, and you want your readies back ??

 

[Smiffy]

Why not just take the frickin thing back to PC world and tell them its not fit for purpose, and you want your readies back ??

Feck PC World. You go back down there with any problem to do with a computer that you bought from there and the first thing they say is "you've got a virus" or "you've downloaded some bloatware"....
Bunch of tossers.
And it's out of warranty now anyway

 

[Macster]

I see, and agree about PCW - utter sh1te.

Seriously though, have a look around and see if you can find a used Macbook or something, Mac's are INFINITELY more stable than PC's/Netbooks or anything running Windoze.

they do everything you want, when you want, simply, quickly, quietly, and without fuss.
Simples.