On Fri, Mar 12, 2010 at 9:00 PM, Rob Beard <[email protected]> wrote: > Hi folks, > > Well the time has come where my mum and step-dad have decided to get on > t'internet so they're looking for a laptop. They were planning on > getting me to go with them to PC World to help choose one, but I've > convinced them to hang fire for a week so I can look into what is out there. > > It's been about 3 months since I last really looked into laptops, the > last one I recommended was for my Dad. It was a Compaq CQ-61 15.6" > notebook with about 3GB Ram, a 160GB hard drive and a Pentium Dual Core > CPU for about £350. > > However I've got a few friends with HP and Compaq machines which have > died through motherboard failures. > > Now I've got an Acer Aspire 2920 (12.1" Core 2 Duo) myself which I > managed to get from Comet so I'm quite partial to Acers. > > Anyway, I've been having a look at what is available and in only 3 > months the market seems to have been flooded with low power notebooks > with 1.2 and 1.3Ghz Pentium Dual Core and Athlon Neo CPUs. > > My mum & step-dad don't need anything super fast, they want to do basic > web browsing (my step-dad has been made redundant recently and looking > for a new job seems to be easier with internet access, especially > considering a fair few bigger employers seem to have stupid online > application forms!). They'll also want to do e-mail, and possibly a bit > of basic photo editing. > > So I'm thinking anything made in the past couple of years would be > suitable. I was thinking maybe a pre-owned machine but I think for my > peace of mind they might be better going for a new machine. > > They have a budget of up to £500 although I think realistically they'd > probably be looking nearer the £350 to £400 mark. > > I've seen an Acer Extensa for under £315 at Aria... > > http://tinyurl.com/ycox8mg > > It's got a 15.6" widescreen display, 1.8GHz Dual Core Celeron T3000 CPU, > 160GB hard drive and 1GB Ram. I guess this would be plenty for Ubuntu, > the hard drive again would be plenty (I'd probably suggest they buy an > external hard drive maybe to occasionally backup the laptop onto). > > My only concerns are the Intel GL40 graphics, and the Acer wireless > (although it appears to be Atheros wireless). > > Just wondered if anyone else had this particular model running Ubuntu or > had any other suggestions?
General suggestions: - Avoid anything with a Celeron or "Pentium Dual-Core". They're cut-down chips & crippled. Get a Core 2 Duo as a minimum. (Or an AMD.) - There are often bargains to be had from the surplus clearance houses. My current laptop came from Sterling XS: http://www.sterlingxs.co.uk/ Morgan's is under new ownership but deals may still be had: http://www.morgancomputers.co.uk/ -- Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven Email: [email protected] • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: [email protected] Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 • Cell: +44 7939-087884 • Fax: + 44 870-9151419 AOL/AIM/iChat/Yahoo/Skype: liamproven • LiveJournal/Twitter: lproven MSN: [email protected] • ICQ: 73187508 -- [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-uk https://wiki.ubuntu.com/UKTeam/
