[CONSUMER ADVICE] Laptop Buying

I ended up getting a Dell Inspiron, after hearing some very positive stories about Dell laptops, and I'm very happy with it. I wish I'd gotten as good a price as teeny!

Personally, I would recommend getting yourself an IBM ThinkPad if you can. I couldn't be happier with mine, it's durable, reliable, fast enough for my purposes, though I wish I could have afforded the speediest processor on the market (this one has a Celeron), it does get overwhelmed occasionally when working on large files in Photoshop.

I'm not a Mac user so couldn't say much about those.

I bought what turned out to be a malfunctioning piece-of-sh!t HP laptop from Refurb Depot, and it was only my credit card co. that saved me from losing $1200 on the deal, 'cause those jerkoffs wanted ME to be responsible for fixing the defective laptop they'd sent me. Yeah, right.

I use the 12" PowerBook G4, and it is IDEAL.

As a music nut you will surely love iTunes. Imagine if all your music files (provided you're into that sort of thing) were in a big database that you could query based on pretty much any criteria you choose! It's more intelligent than any other software that purports to be a "library" or "jukebox" and it's inobtrusive and smartly designed (like most Apple software). Two clicks and you've burned a CD.

This computer is PLEASURABLE. To look at it when it's switched off you might say "the screen is surely too small" but believe me, I use this thing 8+ hours a day and it's the IDEAL size and more easy on the eyes than a 17" CRT. I no longer go home with raging headaches from eyestrain. If you need to hook it up to a monitor (ie. for a presentation) you can too (the only caveat being that it does not have DVI-out). Take it to a coffee shop and watch the heads turn!

The keyboard is to die for. If you do a lot of writing/typing you would be hard pressed to find a laptop keyboard that gives you a better balance between softness and clickiness. Plus, it looks more elegant than most of the Soviet-era refuse they're passing off these days ...

Also, I cannot stress how easy Mac OS X is to use. I am a massive nerd, but a lazy one, and I spend less time wrestling with with the O/S than I did when I was on Windows (and about 1% of the wrestle time I spent on Linux).

Many people have reported heat/excessive warmth issues from the 12" PowerBook. The computer does get a bit toasty (the hazard of cramming so much goodness into a small metal box, I suspect) but if you run Software Update to bring yourself up to the newest patch level, you'll be fine.

They start at £1299 which ain't so bad. If you've got a mate who goes to University see if he'll use his education discount for you and you can probably knock of a couple hundred pounds.

(fields of salmon in MacPorn shocker!)

it has a trackpad, but i've used a trackpad for like five or six years or more, happily. my old computer was in such a sorry state, too, that the button was broken so I was using the trackpad to tap, too. no problems.

macos x is a fine, stable operating system. it has unix stuff underneath but you don't have to mess with it if you don't want to. from my reformed computer nerd perspective, a lot of the new features (not just the unix stuff) are really slick. I've had no problems with software, but then I don't have any special needs for my computer. I think aside from a downloaded ftp client (using a web browser as an ftp client sucks ass), I basically only use software that came with it. ichat (aim client) is nice, and itunes (mp3 player) is great. you would probably want to buy or steal a copy of microsoft office, but it comes with word processing etc. software that does the job.

I also have an airport card and airport hub (for wireless). the hub accomodates both ethernet connected to broadband, and a modem line. it broadcasts a standard (mac or pc) wireless signal, up to like 50 meters or something. I haven't had any trouble with it (the one time I thought I did, and spent an hour fucking around with everything I could think of to fix it, it turned out that my ethernet connection to the hub on our internal network was bad - I just suspected the airport first because I figured it would be the sort of thing to get fucked up), moving around the house, down in the basement, etc. the speed is great with a cable internet connection, so if you're still using a modem, wireless would be just as fast for you as using the modem directly. oh, and the ibook's got a built-in ether port and modem, anyway. having an airport hub at home might be extravagant for you, I don't know - but I greatly appreciate the ability to move around my house with no wires. even without the hub, a card is a really good idea if you have anywhere you frequent with wireless service. I've never paid for service (though there was a pay network available in one of my coffeeshops, unbeknownst to me), since my campus, including, happily, my office, is mostly covered with wireless. obviously I think this is the greatest technology ever. I'm a little behind.

regardless of what you buy, buy a lot of extra ram. aside from the eventual upgrades that won't support your processor (the model, not the speed), ram is probably the determining factor in how much useful life you get out of the machine. or you can be a mentalist like me and have no ram for years and run two programs max at once and use no new exciting software once software development leaves you behind.

I have grown very weary of the nipple on my work laptop.

I second the recommendation for whoever have been bigging up Toshiba and IBM Thinkpads. These are the top of the heap when it comes to PC notebooks, truly. Dell is nice, but Toshiba and IBM Thinkpad are a little more reliable.

You cannot go wrong with an Apple, as they just make solid pieces of hardware.

Toshiba and some of the Sonys I have heard good things about, but I have no experience with either one.

No, no Macs, sorry.

anyways, i also want to use soulseek so macs are out.

i am trying to decide between a Dell Inspiron 5100 vs an Ibm thinkpad. i have not looked into the thinkpads, are they worth the it?

help!

I'm getting my new work to get me one too but I don't really want to have thousands of MP3s on a new job's PC.

Since you seem to be quite iAware, I've been meaning to find out: is it normal to have a 6-7 second delay every between every 5th or 6th track when on 'shuffle'? It sort of growls and sounds like it's doing what it should, and the pause is only vaguely irritating, but I've never heard anybody else mention it. Again, I'm using the old 20G beast...

I need a new laptop.

my current one is OK but for, mostly, its build (probs w/ screen/power supply/CD/DVD). it has 512MB RAM, some shitty shared graphics, 30GB HDD, 1.2GHz processor. I've had it for 2 years and had it around europe and america for almost a quarter of that time--it hasn't lasted too badly.

I will be using the new one for drawing and modelling, mainly, so memory and extra, dedicated graphics memory is most key. the bigger the screen, the better. the better the processor, the better. of course. CD/DVD. not too fussed about HDD, since I have an external 200GB drive, so 30GB or so would prob be fine. the more robust, the better, too.

tell me things I don't know. PLEASE GUYS

COME ON PLEASE

oh, would like to pay less than £1200/$2200 but if there was something great, for a little more, who knows?

COME ON PLEASE PLEASE

I have a 15" screen, just now, and that is OK. ideally, I would have a 12" or 14" and another 19"+ screen to plug it into, on my desk!!!!!!!!

it's the graphics memory that makes it difficulter. HP look good and toshiba look good, too. sony is expensive, yes.

: S

yes, I only just looked at the micro anvika, now--never heard of it, before, but it seems to be priced the same, everywhere else. dabs.com, simplycomputers/whatever.

thanks, for the advice!!!

BUT--it is still over £400 under the retail price and he says it has 1024MB RAM instead of 512MB. I am scared!!! what do I do?

I have even looked at getting a train to WREXHAM, tomorrow or so, and BACK! to pick it up, if I win it. it would cost £70 and ten hours of travelling but I would be a bit safer, that way.

anyone got any ebay horror stories, to put me off? or are you good at spotting potential SCAMS?

but, haha.

I went to john lewis, today, and looked at the HP 17" laptop, that I wanted. it seemed a little less robust, than I had hoped for. I looked around and found this. it is the same spec, as the HP, but with double the RAM and the memory card reader is hotswappable, with a second battery and stuff. also, the lid is steel. robuster. it is also slightly smaller and lighter. it is priced at slightly higher, than the HP. I have found some, on ebay. it seems that gateway have kinda stopped trading, in the UK. does anyone know any more?

Oh, and beware of random refurb outlets, I bought a laptop from Refurb Depot and they sent me a piece of shit that wasn't working properly and then gave me massive attitude and headaches when I tried to return it - had to send my credit card people after them, who luckily saved me from getting ripped off to the tune of $1100.

I've bought parts and things from Buy.com and they've been great so far. What about checking customer reviews on Amazon to see what others say? Also epinions, even searching on Slashdot. Best to do your research.

mine is over a year old and i havent had it freeze up on me to the point of rebooting a single time. it is fabulous. pretty quiet as well.

Well, my sister and a friend, both with good positive feeback, were phished and before they realised it high end electrical goods suddenly appeared on their seller lists. Look at their payment options, avoid anything which asks for a money order or wire transfer only.

- Can't be a Mac. Boo hiss etc.
- Reasonable price (around 1200 UKP tops - cheaper the better)
- It'll be used for basic Home Office stuff - no need for
super-duper graphics accelerator etc. Reasonable sized HD
(20Gb would be fine). Processor needs to be good enough to
handle Dreamweaver, Word, Excel, Acrobat. Not blazing super
duper but not clunky old shite
- key issue - needs built in 56K Modem, Ethernet card and
wireless ready - 11g standard if poss. But wireless is not necessary if has PCMIA card slot for
wireless card - how much do they go for? Is it better to go
for a built in standard, or use card slots?
- Pretty robust as it'll be moved a bit, and not too heavy
either (ie, given the price, a nice Vaio is out, but nor do
we want an anvil typewriter stylee thing).

A general tip is to buy a laptop which uses the Pentium M CPU (Centrino) since the CPU uses less power than the Pentium 4. Oh, and I'd choose a built-in wireless solution instead of using the PCMCIA route.

The Dell Inspiron line looks like it has a few good deals depending on what he's looking for.

Samsung X20 might be what you are looking for.

I also think the screens on the Vaio are superb; are samsung screens OK?

do you own a laptop?

MAXDATA ECO 4000 IW
Basic System

Processor: Intel® Celeron® M processor 370
(1.50 GHz, 400 MHz, 1 MB cache)
Operating System: Original Microsoft® Windows® XP
Home
Display/Resolution: 15.4 inch TFT -WXGA (1280 x 800)
Capacity: 256 MB DDR2 SDRAM
Chipset: Intel® 910 GML / ICH6-M
Disk: 40.0 GB hard drive, 5.400 (U/min)
Graphics: Intel® Media Accelerator 900
Sound: HD Audio System
Drives: DVD/CD-RW combo drive
Modem: Internal 56k modem/V.92
WLAN: WLAN 802.11 b/g
Network: LAN 10/100 MBit/s onboard
Interfaces: 3 x USB 2.0, 1 x PCMCIA Type II,
1 x LAN, 1 x Modem, 1 x IEEE1394
(FireWire), 1 x VGA external,
1 x S-Video-Out, 1 x Line-Out,
1 x Line-In, 1 x Mic-In,
1 x Kensington Lock
Dimensions: 353.8 x 25–33.5 x 250 mm
Weight: approx. 2.9 kg (depending on
configuration)
Software: Norton AntiVirus, Nero Express,
Power DVD Player
Warranty: 2 year warranty, 1 year pick-up &
return service (have to check this...)

or hang on longer for a low-end refurb mac costing twice as much, and with the possibly still latent possibility of making me FURIOUS every other day?

price: £300 vs £210
proc: celeron 1.5 vs pentium m 1.7
xp: home vs professional
ram: 512 vs 512
hd: 80 vs 80

cant remember the rest of the stuff, i only bought it to fuck around with linux on, though the fact that it runs better than my powerbook means i might shift reaktor over there.

i guess they're pretty comparable, but the fact you can pay £90 less not to have celeron must be worth investigating

a 2.16ghz macbookpro is £1349. and apparently you need some sort of seatbelt too

other than some graphicy stuff, explain to me what is so good about the MBP. you can shout if you like, i don't mind!

I wonder if I can hold of till WWDC.... Ed, any word on what's next for the desktop Macs?

oh, the macbook has to have a glossy screen? i dont like the sound of that

i could get dell inspirion 6400 for another £300 less, also core 2 duo, but 1.66ghz, rather than 2

you all hate dells still though, right?

when the quads come out, is everything going to drop, pricewise, again?

MBPs will get the next serious bump around Expo '08 (slight chance xmas 07) when 45nm quad core chips with proper shared cache become available. In time for my next upgrade.

is it possible to get a laptop with 2gb of ram for £650? where is best to buy from?

As a supplement to my fading fast desktop, is this one any good?

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Samsung_R40_Plus_LWM_440_NP-R40XY02-SUK/version.asp

must...resist...

We're thinking about getting one of those XO laptops next month in the "Give One Get One" program.

better: http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Acer_Aspire_5710WLMi_LX.AHB0X.093/version.asp

I've got an Acer Aspire, 15 months old. Just got it back from my local computer shop where it was in for 6 weeks getting repaired.

okays i defer to thy wisdom. excuse my ignorance but how's it better?

it's got a proper core 2 duo processor unlike the first one which has a celeron :( :( :(

aaah i seeeee. that's good enough for me. and is that price okay?

pretty much. you get a 'better' version of vista on the acer as well but it probably wouldn't make much difference.

of course if the budget allows you could always lol get a mac (etc)

what spec is good for playing live music from? im thinking a 2gb ram, maybe this one http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Asus_F3Jp_Laptop_F3JP-AS113C/version.asp but is there anything i need to know about processor and stuff? am i right in thinking i can just wipe over the vista crap and stick xp on there instead, or do some laptops not work like this?

i made the mistake of whacking vista on my pc and after realising my mistake tried to put xp back but it appears to have done something that's fucked the xp install program. so possibly not.

for music i'd say get a macbook (no, seriously) and logic express 8, use the education discount store, they never check

it's weird about the vista xp thing, is there some kind of solution to it? annoyingly i can't get a mac as my music-playing program doesn't work on macs.

what is best processor-wise when it comes to playing music - reliability is key, obv

well the in-thing at the moment is intel's core 2 duo and the low end apple laptops have superior versions of it to any pc laptop at similar prices, but probably the difference isn't noticeable. just don't get a celeron :(

i don't know if there's a solution to the OS problem because i'm not sure what the problem actually is, it's just like the pc is sulking or something

Best processor for playing music....

All processors are reliable unless they are faulty, all modern processors are more than capable of playing music.

Your OS problem, I have no idea give us some more information, when you are installing XP are you formatting the hard disk?

im using a porgram which can eat up processor speed by adding effects, an external behringer mixer, external soundcard etc. is there a certain type of processor which is better than others for this type of thing or all they all pretty much the same?

surely you can install xp over vista, couldn't you do this with xp and me and 98 ?

vista changes some bootup process which makes installing xp after vista a headache.

Your program may use certain processor features to speed things up, its doubtful, some audio software such as Guitar Rig requires things like Altivec on older Macs.

People use Athlon 64s to run multiple effects on multitrack audio like Cubase so even previous generation processors are enough for audio and effects.

A Core 2 Duo should be more than enough.

the most annoying thing is that to buy a modern laptop with xp rather than vista costs an extra £40! not sure if this includes a cd copy of vista to use in future or not but still.. grr

Get Vista it's fine unless you're a gamer, or have lots of weird unsupported hardware.

im going to avoid vista as my music software doesnt work so well on that, plus im planning on sticking a few games on there too.

at the moment its a toss up between: http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/Asus_F3Jp_Laptop_F3JP-AS113C/version.asp
* Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo T5300 - 1.73GHz - 533MHz FSB - 2MB L2 Cache
* RAM: 2048MB DDR2
* Hard Drive: 160GB
* Screen: 15.4" Widescreen TFT WXGA+
* Optical Drive: DVD±RW
* Graphics: ATI Radeon X1700 supporting 512MB HyperMemory
* Wireless LAN: 802.11a/b/g - Call for advice on Wireless Networking
* Warranty: 2 Year Warranty
* Bluetooth Enabled
* Built-In 1.3 MegaPixel Camera
* FREE Mouse and Carry Case included
(with XP for £610)

and one of the dell vostros:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx/4x_vostro_1500?c=uk&cs=ukbsdt1&l=en&s=bsd
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T7250 (2.00 GHz, 2 MB L2 cache, 800 MHz FSB)
LCD 15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display
INTEGRATED WEBCAM Matte Jet Black without Camera
MEMORY 2048MB 667MHz Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM (2x1024)
HARD DRIVE 160GB (5400RPM) SATA Hard Drive
GRAPHICS CARD 256MB nVidia® GeForce® 8600M GT
OPTICAL DRIVE Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
PRIMARY BATTERY Primary 9-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (85 WHr)
with XP for £600.

which one is best? im mostly wanting it for playing out music live, it'd be nice to play games on too, but first and foremost it's for playing music on.

The latter for music. The former for gaming. And even then, my experience with ATi tells me the latter for gaming anyway.

ah thanks, why is the latter better for music? is it worth an extra £40 to boost the processor to Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 Processor (2.0GHz,800MHz,4MB L2 cache) ?

if you're actually manipulating music and not just playing back MP3s, the higher processor speed means you will be able to do more stuff without slowdown. I guess it depends what you mean by "play" music. Isn't that one £10 cheaper, not £40 more expensive?

yeah id be putting fx on the tracks and such, so a better processor would probly be best. (i wasnt sure which i should be looking for - ram or processor).

i mean the dell vostro one can have a better processor for £40, from a T7250 to a T7300 (with 4mb L2 cache rather than 2mb L2 cache, though im not sure what that means) is this improvement worth £40? theres also an upgrade to a T7500 Processor 2.2GHz but that's £90 and a bit out of my budget, unless its necessary.

question! in the UK, can you get a laptop that's 10-13" across in the new under-£400 bottom end of the market? i really want something that is both SMALL and CHEAP but i don't know if such a thing exists yet, plz advise

Asus too small?

http://www.morecomputers.com/extra.asp?pn=EEE%20PC%204G-BK

That seems incredibly lo-spec. Hm.

I see a lot of 'refurbished' second-hand laptops being advertised - what does 'refurbished' mean, in real terms? Is there a reason to be particularly wary of them?

( F'rinstance I just found this online:

Dell D400, Intel Centrino 1.4G, 512Mb, 40G, DVD, Wireless, 12.1monitor, Win XP

for £225, 'refurbished'. If I wasn't waiting til the end of the month that'd seem a pretty good deal.)

i dunno about uk but if over here dell pushes their 'certified refurb' program and you get to keep whatever the original warranty was. i bought two desktops for the office cheep with almost 3 years onsite svc. i would give used laptops a bit more scrutiny though.

i've noticed dell laptop monitors fuck up too much for my comfort, at least the low end ones

those are pretty shabby specs even for used anyway these days

Check out:

Dell Vostro
HP Micronote 2133
Asus Eee
Acer Wind

I rather like the HP micronote.

Sorry, MSI wind.

It hadn't occurred to me to check the 'small business' computers rather than the 'home' ones. gosh.

I remember looking at the Asus Eee back when I was disappointed that one laptop per child laptops were only showing up in north america, I didn't realise that kind of semi-laptop had so much competition yet. I'm in two minds whether one of these things — or a cheap business laptop — will do me, or whether I want a DVD/CD player and to be able to run a bit more than just word processing/internet.

Dell Vostro then

http://blog.laptopmag.com/getting-windy-full-specs-of-the-msi-wind

msi wind looking good right now...but is 10" too big?

pc world are doing a nice samsung that's tempting me even though the last thing i need is another computer

it's time

i've actually never owned a computer lol

do you want a mac or an el cheapo

ive never really used macs much, but i'm not against them. i think its time to make up my mind on this issue. i am getting an iphone on thurs, maybe a mac makes sense now.

macs never make sense

macbooks for $999 - can't beat for price/performance imo

i think you can pay it off w/ $24 a month or somethin?

i've got scrill right now, it ain't a thing

yeah get macbook. i have had to fix stuff on mine but now when i go back on a pc like at work i get angry

i always have to do work on PCs

oh shit and all my sims are for PC!!!!!!!

well the new new macbooks are nice but they're $1300 -- 2nd gen macbook for $999 is tight

had my macbook almost a year now, totally addicted to it. granted it replaced a shitty, low-memory dell, so anything would have seemed like a big improvement. still. it's nice.

Definitely MacBook. You can run Windows on it when you need to Sims it.

nice!

If you like rebooting to XP when you feel like playing the Sims and then rebooting to Mac OS to check yr email/ILX etc

you can get the sims for mac without all the windows crap :D

I guess roxymuzak has already bought the sims on PC

i can sell them, it aint a thing

actually i just realized it really aint a thing, cause i only play sims at work, where i have a pc. so whatever. mac it is!

You could save a few bucks on a refurb and use the money to max out the RAM, always my preferred move.

http://store.apple.com/us/browse/home/specialdeals/mac?mco=MTMzNTY

Apple store refurb = dope. You can get Applecare too, which is advisable with a notebook.

not a mac but cheapo

I have a very nice 15" MacBook Pro for sale. People on Craigslist keep trying to get me to ship it to Africa. That's never going to happen.

how much!

http://ak.buy.com/db_assets/large_images/100/210490100.jpg

"latitude"

tht thing looks 1˚ of latitude thick

I bought a $500 old shitty Toshiba from Wal-Mart 2 years ago and it's still doing OK... of course I only use Winamp, MS Word, and Firefox, so ymmv.

http://img111.imageshack.us/img111/857/delldudetn4.jpg

you can buy my macbook in august, roxy. It has a "£" key and a battery that doesn't work!

sounds like a real good deaPPPPPPPPPFFFFFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!

A new battery is about $100, so if caek takes of 1/2 street price for lappy for bad battery then you are to get a deal rox.

you will have to come to the winner of Liveblogging caek's job applications — "Wisconsin? i hear that's a real party state." to collect

u gettin new compu for post doc caek???

I hope so. This one is lame.

Actually, it's fine. I just need a new battery. I should save the money and go to more conferences.

"how much!"

Make me an offer? But first I would ask if you really need the firepower of the Macbook Pro? Like, do you do more than surf the web or word process? The pro has additional firepower that's best for people who are doing video, music, animation, etc.

This is one of the ones you can install Windows on if you want to. If you're really curious, shoot me an email offline. It's such a great computer, but I ended up with a newer 17" through a job I did earlier this year and it's silly to have two laptops.

Reasons to get a MBP over a MB:

1. You have an aircard.
2. You do video or audio and need an outboard FW800 disk.
3. You like having a nice big ol screen.
4. You play 3d games and need better 3d proc...wait, nobody who needs 3d performance buys a Mac lappy.

Distinctions that have vanished from MBP/MB:
1. Memory capacity.
2. External video capability.
3. Superdrive (DVD writing) vs. combo (CD writing) drive.
4. Network speeds, wired and wireless.
5. Glossy vs. matte screen options.

also in my experience the pros are more lemony than the regular unleaded macbook

^ this is why I am loathe to get rid of this computer. It's not a lemon. Though I have used Applecare to replace the power supply and the battery. It's a good one for sure. (this is not a sales pitch--it's my first Mac and though I have no allegiance to Apple, I have loved this computer).

im looking for a mac to use when djing. im a bit clueless about the options but im looking for something powerful enough to cope with whatever i throw at it (more than 2gb ram, etc). should i look at buying a refurbished one? (im in the uk)

is it possible to buy a mac set up with the monitor separate to the tower (ie. not a laptop) but buy a case so it can be packed up easily and be transported about, or is it best to just stick with a laptop type one?

Are you talking about lugging a monitor around with you to DJ gigs? You def. want a laptop instead of the hassle you're describing. Anyway, a Mini probably doesn't have enough oomph, and a Mac Pro weighs a fucking ton.

DJ software isn't going to be terribly RAM-intensive, FYI. Not unless you have to keep the entire library in memory.

I'm shopping for one for basic writing/surfing/music listening needs.

Anyway, a Mini probably doesn't have enough oomph

my brother happily runs logic studio on his!

yeah i was thinking about carting a (lightweight) monitor around, but sounds a bit too complicated.

anyone know of a good place to buy a reconditioned mac from? im looking for a pretty high-spec one, for around £800ish. (new ones are around £1400 arent they?)

so the new macbook is still a much better deal than the new macbook air, which does not have ethernet, right? does the aluminum mean you don't need a protective cover at all? do people just carry laptops in their rucksacks without any protective covering? and nothing happens to them?

yeah it seems to work for lots of folks actually

MacBook Air really isn't all that.

^^Truth bomb.

Nate, yes I would like to be able to use it for more than wp and the web. I'd love. I am not going to make you an offer because I loathe that process. Email me and tell me what you'd like for it, please!

<3

Whoever Kyle is, send me your email address dude. Emily, I'll write you. :)

So, I ended up with a myspace acquaintance buying my laptop yesterday. I cleaned off all the data and set it up for her. She gave me a check.

Today, I deposited the check. All good.

This evening, she called me. She dropped it on accident, really hard. It no longer works.

!!!

(yes, it's under Applecare and will be fixed as long as she can convince them that she didn't drop it).

I dropped an iBook once, a week after the 1 year of non-Applecare warranty had expired, right on the plugged-in power adapter. Thereafter, the machine would freeze up after about 5 minutes of use. (I peeked at the logs and I seem to have killed the graphics chip.)

Since then, every Mac I get is Applecared.

Do you guys know anything about Netbooks/Mini Laptops? I'm considering:

http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-NC10-14GB-10-2-Inch-Netbook-Processor/dp/B001I45TA8

or

http://www.amazon.com/1035NR-10-2-Inch-Netbook-Intel-Processor/dp/B001J6N9J8

An ex-girlfriend of mine set her laptop on the floor while make her bed, then proceeded to step on it, completely breaking the screen.

She was one high stress/high maintenance lady.

bro-in-law suggests Inspiron 1525 for my basic needs.

i've had a toshiba laptop for a few years now and it has been great all that time, no major problems whatsoever.

is it possible to get a laptop with 2gb of ram for £650? where is best to buy from?

― siobh (siobh), Monday, February 5, 2007 9:40 PM

what kinda Toshiba will meet my basic web/write/mail needs?

I am mind-controlled by World's No. 1 risky terrorist Toshiba Satellite E105. Very good EMR pattern! Super shipping!! A++++++++

^about twice what I can spend

why not just the Satellite L305

newegg.com

hey guys im looking to sell my macbook parts - what could i sell and how much could i fetch? screen, cd-drive etc are perfect. also im paranoid about selling my hard drive. should i be?

xp: thx!

Are there brands to avoid bcz of servicing ripoffs? -- Someone claimed to me that only Dell fixes Dells at extortionist rates.

Can't I just get similar warranties w/ anything at newegg?

bro-in-law suggests Inspiron 1525 for my basic needs.

I just bought one from the Dell Outlet site, with a -%20 rebate code that I found. Ended up being $480 after everything. Works fantastic - even though it has Vista on it - I'm very pleased.

vostro laptops are super cheap on the small business side

hey guys im looking to sell my macbook parts - what could i sell and how much could i fetch? screen, cd-drive etc are perfect. also im paranoid about selling my hard drive. should i be?

― jordan s (J0rdan S.), Monday, January 5, 2009 1:07 PM (1 week ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

You have 3 options

1. Sell it,
2. Destroy it, or
3. Carry it around with you for the rest of yr life.

I think there's nothing wrong with #1 as long as you have blanked it with zeroes. No, that's not perfect security, but you have to have some mighty powerful enemies for it to matter.

If you prefer 2., then you can go out to the firing range with Morbs or Tom and I'm sure they'll help you turn it into swiss disk.

Can't I just get similar warranties w/ anything at newegg?

I'm unfortunately no help on this question because all the I'M A PCs I know are hobbyist types who service their own machines and get spare parts from ebay

jordan, reformat the HD and ebay the whole unit

if you can't reformat the HD then just remove it and ebay it without one

anyone rep for Acer? their Extensa goes for about $100 less on Newegg right now than Toshiba L305.

As far as I'm concerned, the support offerings for a PC lappy are more important than the hardware itself.

yeah I'm sure, which means I pretty much need my brother-in-law to select all that.

I like Acer for their monitors but know nothing about their full machines.

advantage of going years and years between buying computers = even the cheapest stuff appears to have mindblowing specs

Has the amount of time you keep your computer gone up ? how long have you had your computer?

actually: I was thinking it had been like 6 years, but apparently it's been just under 4? so never mind that alleged realization.

looking back into desktops is even more mindblowing, though, geez

Okay, here's my question. I have a 6 year old Mac PowerBook. For one of my sources of income I need to run Windows. I have this Virtual PC program so I can run Windows on the Powerbook, but the software I use that requires Windows keeps getting upgraded so that it runs slower and slower, plus it's really picky about what printers it can print to. This is a problem, because currently I have to print a lot of things.

Should I get a new or one year old Mac laptop that could run Windows faster or should I just get a PC laptop and save over $1000?

I'd get the Mac; it's your baseline platform and will be a boost for everything you do, not just the Windows stuff.

But everything else I do works fine on the 6 year old powerbook, and I worry about having to upgrade a bunch of mac software. Are there things that you all know of that work in 10.4 that need new versions in 10.5? If I were to get a used Windows XP laptop I wouldn't have to upgrade anything.

xp Bob Six: Actually yes, my previous computers before the laptop I only had for four years, this one is 5 years and counting.

This is probably the sort of thing you say and then are immediately proven wrong on, but I feel like we might be getting past the point where there are such constant sudden leaps in what normal people do with computers that super-frequent updating is necessary. I mean, is there anything on the horizon that's about to get everyday users to scramble up?

(I know, I know, five years from now we will look back at that post and go "hahaha how did he ever think we could live without being able to sequence the human genome on a laptop at the dinner table")

The "what normal people do" is crucial. The Powerbook I bought in 2001 still does what I want it to do just fine. It runs new browsers and so the WWW just loads more slowly than it used to when everything looked like ILX. On the other hand I do my writing on a typesetting system that predates the PC so computer speed's not a big concern for my work; maybe my needs are abnormally undemanding. As far as I know you wouldn't have to upgrade any Mac software...b/w OS X and what's available freely, software needn't be a huge expense if you're on a Mac---this depends a ton on what software you use, though;

"What normal people do" = yeah, I probably wouldn't be bothered, specs-wise, for a long time, if it weren't for making/recording music stuff. Although I guess a good share of normal people play games, which is pretty obvious driver of computing needs.

I mean, is there anything on the horizon that's about to get everyday users to scramble up?

aside from that megalomaniac gates and his memory guzzling OS?

I've used XP on my last 2 laptops for about 5-6 years now and it's never given me a moments hassle. Im amazed at how often MacOS has updates. Ive not changed OS for almost this whole decade, I think. No hard drive deaths, no registry screwups, no viruses, no loss of data, no slowdowns (apart from needing faster video cards for gaming). Perhaps I dont do a lot of demanding things on my system, I dunno.

(I cant see myself going to vista in a hurry, is what Im sayin)

i'm in the middle of a windows special episode right now, so please allow me some gates hate

ps i'm using XP too :(

XP was a great operating system, it ran more or less without any issues on my dell desktop for six years. I finally got a mac but the windows install I run on vmware fusion is XP and it still works really well.

darraghpc vs darraghmac

If you get a new Mac you can run Windows natively on it, using the Boot Camp software which comes with 10.5. However, your programs might have to be upgraded to run on 10.5. If you have license keys, the upgrade should probably be free.

It used to be that you could get refurbished Macbooks (refurbished meaning hand-checked by Apple, re-bathed in unicorn tears, etc.) from the Apple Store for less than 900 - however it seems their stock has run dry at the moment. I would keep an eye on their refurb page to see if any Macbooks pop up.

I've got a Dell that's 5 years old that mostly works fine but a) has become increasingly slow at i) booting up, ii) opening Firefox, iii) seems to run out of memory more and more, and b) has a relatively small hard disk that constantly has me burning stuff to CDRs and offloading to my external HD (which I try not to use too often in order to preserve it).

So, having been out the game for 5 years, which brands are the ones to look at? Dell and Lenovo ThinkPads? What's the word on HP and Toshiba (for which I see a lot of ads/coupons/deals)? Should I be willing to spend more money to get a better/faster processor, based on the idea that it'll be more useful for me for a longer time?

i really liked my toshiba but it died in 2 years which i kind of expected. i ended up getting a macbook pro this time because i couldnt stand the thought of using vista.

How old was it when it died? (RIP.)

2, probably closer to 3 years old. i wasnt exactly gentle with it though.

and i think it was only the fan

A faster processor is nice, but I'm more focused on getting gobs of memory (I'm about to buy a computer and am opting for 4GB of memory instead of the standard 2). In general, I've decided that getting a high performance computer, despite the higher cost, makes sense. $200-400 extra bucks for a considerably less frustrating computing experience is a no-brainer for me.

I also hate windows, but the whole mac/windows debate is hella boring so I want press.

I bought a brand new laptop today and there seems to be something wrong with the soundcard or something. When I use a traktor-like program to mix mp3's there are serious and frequent audio dropouts. In addition, the laptop speakers are pretty much unlistenable, there's a lot of distortion on the midrange, i.e. there's a lot of clipping at low levels. This is a brand new computer, and I'm prepared to return it, but I have to make a decision tomorrow.

Anyone have any idea about this, it's a compaq laptop

this thread is relevant to my interests. Current laptop (3 year old Thinkpad) seems to be dying, seems like it would be more cost-effective to just get a new one. Any suggestions? Should I wait until Windows 7 is released? Looking to spend about $6-700, less if possible.

it's a compaq laptop

hit the eject button, now

Definitely wait till windows 7 is both released and has had enough chance to bed down. Give it a few months. It seems to be garnering good reviews from the people who panned vista so worth waiting for.

Also laptop speakers are by definition unlistenable. No idea about the audio dropouts but worth listening to on headphones before condemning it entirely. Audio is still a nasty warty mess in windows so your audio program may not like your sound card or your driver. Check for updates to the drivers and also check to see if any other audio programs give similar problems.

A good time to bring this up, maybe: I really want a netbook, rrrrobyn convinced me! What does anyone know about them? Looking at the new Acer "Aspire One" with the 11-inch screens but they start at $350. Should I go used instead, for the money? Is this market moving so fast that I shouldn't get bogged down with anything too expensive?

A netbook is what it is and they are not moving as fast as the rest of the market. Not sure if there is much benefit in getting an 11 inch screen over a 10 inch screen and you save $50 by staying small. Second hand should be no problem at all if you check the specs. Lots of people buy netbooks and then discover that they aren't really all that powerful and struggle at some of the things they want to do.

Samsung and HP netbooks also seem to review well and would be worth a look. I'd consider this wee thing, for example:

http://cgi.ebay.com/Hp-Mininote-2133-2GB-RAM-120GB-7200-RPM-Webcam-netbook_W0QQitemZ230366885340QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_comp_laptop?hash=item35a2efb5dc&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14#ht_500wt_924

or this

http://cgi.ebay.com/Samsung-NC10-Netbook-Laptop-Blue-Upgraded-2GB-RAM_W0QQitemZ300338867384QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_comp_laptop?hash=item45ed976cb8&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14#ht_500wt_924

Will they be able to watch streaming video ie my "Instant viewing" on Netflix? That plus ILX plus Facespace etc is all I really care about. I'm never going to have $1500 for a mac so it's time to say "fuck it" and move on.

Yeah, it should be able to, Laurel. PCs are much better than Macs at doing streaming video, particularly Flash video. Do you know what format Netflix streams in?

That's a good question which I am not fully able to answer, video is relatively resource intensive and people seem to have mixed results, particularly with netflix, depending on the netbook.

Netflix is silverlight, which seems to be more resource intensive than flash, if more reliable.

So what spec should I look for to make sure it can handle that video load, Ed?

It is difficult to say, Netflix says a 1.2Ghz processor should be sufficient. Most of the grumbling seem to be around March this year, specifically naming the Acer Aspire one, but since then there has been a major upgrade to silverlight and there seems to be a marked decline in grumbling.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-10199350-56.html

Might want to ask someone who has one or try it out in the computer store.

I tried rrrrobyn's at my house once, and watching tv on hulu was impossible due to lag between picture & sound and stop-start issues, but I'm not sure whether part of that was our occasionally dodgy stolen wi-fi. Thx for advice.

Definitely wait till windows 7 is both released and has had enough chance to bed down.

I'm seeing a lot of ads for free upgrades to Windows 7, and I'd rather take advantage of the back-to-school sales. In the meantime, I can always downgrade to XP, right?

Should I look for a 64-bit CPU to give myself the possibility of upgrading to > 4 GB of RAM? Or will 32 continue to last me for at least a few more years?

anybody have anything to say about asus laptops? i'm kinda tempted to get one in a few months but haven't used the brand before.

I will probably have to get a PC for work. To much software not available for the Mac, parallels/bootcamp not really good enough either.

Lenovo X201 is the thing to beat, I think.

hey guys

don't ever buy an eee pc

most frustrating piece of shit i've ever owned

i've literally spent the last four hours trying to get a torrent client to work

picking through linux forums and shit

fuck this goddamn

never again

microsoft for fucking life

a poem, by Big Hoos.

but yeah, I went several months using ubuntu (linux). You needed a fucking add-on for EVERYTHING. The built-in music player needed 3!! downloads before I could start playing mp3 files. You need to download the separate supports depending on what filetype you wanted to view a video in (.avi, .mpeg, etc). Word .doc's were incompatible WITH THE OS - it refused to simply just let me save them and transfer them to a usb-stick. It was infuriating.

oh, but no viruses.

lol it took me a few years to realize that the 'open source = the best!!' line of thought was a bunch of bollocks and a grand swindle perpetrated by geeks evreywhere

yeah i've been using linux on all my computers since 2007 or so and this is just the last fucking straw

i shouldn't have to wade through hours worth of outdated forum posts to find a damn repository that's still active

a hoos should buy a mac imo

don't ever buy an eee pc

i've had two eee pc's and been pretty happy with them! the screen on my one is broken now i'm looking to replace it with something ideally just as portable but more powerful (i guess i'm looking for an 'ultrabook'). the asus zenbooks look pretty cool but they are almost as expensive as macs!

yeah that was written in a fit of blind rage, it really wasn't all that bad.

i just bought the zenbook UX31E

my eee pc has been pretty great. i can type on it and my battery life is 8+, it's just what i need given that i carry it by bike. biggest problem is video can choke it pretty easily ime.

damn this thing is fast

this thing == ilx obv

i need a new one to replace my '09 Compaq Presario

so, roughly equivalent

low to mid $, will stream video (mostly live baseball)

i got a couple of these for the office recently after doing some scouring and i've been impressed
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07BJLGJ9H

is that low to mid $$$, wouldve thought that a v decent spec

$700 which I guess is mid given that you can buy a MacBook or a Dell for 1500 easily. I have the i5 version of the above and it was nearly £600 with a big anniversary discount about 1.5 years ago.

You should be able to go quite a lot cheaper than that though, you don't need an i7 and ssd to watch YouTube.

ya think it's OK to buy something "certified refurbished"?

https://www.amazon.com/Elitebook-840-LED-backlit-Professional-Refurbished/dp/B07FSRST8M/

I do it at work all the time, but only if the seller is Amazon themselves or Amazon Warehouse. They will accept returns without much fuss. Third-party sellers on Amazon Marketplace you have no idea if they will honor a returns policy or (more frequently) they'll be too incompetent/indifferent to do it correctly.

Wellll, in the last 90 days, the distributor above has 40/40 positive ratings.

(I don't even know how to search for similar products sold by Amazon.)

They're probably fine, the order is fulfilled by Amazon so that means Amazon will process the returns. Looks like back in May they shipped out a bunch of defective systems, but Amazon took the returns.

thanks

Is it better to wait till Black Friday/Cyber Monday/Holiday as opposed to getting a new laptop right now? QOL for my 8-year-old laptop is awful.

how are the prices on what you're looking for? i bought my current laptop after nearly ten years of using the previous one and prices had dropped so much in that time for what i wanted (nothing special or high-end).

I'm eying something higher end, lord knows why since I'm probably going to just stream on it.

What's a good laptop just for web browsing/video streaming/ms office? I've got a mac, but my wife's laptop is dying and she's not terribly picky. I don't know anything about non-mac laptops though, and there appear to be a billion options.

I'd probably just get a Microsoft Surface with a keyboard stand for anyone who just wanted typing and web in 2018.

no idea if it's good but it's a choice you won't have to spend that much time thinking about!

that said there's apparently six different ones of them now so even that's a drag

The surface keyboard is the worst and completely unusable without enough table space. If you career about using it on a plane or on you lap, don't buy one.

gonna choose to believe career was not an autocorrect there

didn't even occur to me that it was not the word intended

double unintendre

probably will mostly be used to work from home occasionally but yeah probably actually for lap use apart from that.

What's a good laptop just for web browsing/video streaming/ms office? I've got a mac, but my wife's laptop is dying and she's not terribly picky. I don't know anything about non-mac laptops though, and there appear to be a billion options.

I recently bought a used Chromebook for about 60 euros and use it for surfing/streaming/writing

it's lightweight, has good battery time, basically great value for money (I use Google Docs for writing, if you have Office 365 or whatever the cloud Office is called, it should work fine too)

If one has a laptop with a keyboard that's fucked up -- ie, some keys don't produce the characters they're supposed to! -- can one download a fix, or have to box up the thing and ship it back to the fuckups? Asking for a friend. :/

nb: what I have in REALITY (ie what shows up on the screen) is a QWERTZ keyboard like this, mislabeled as a standard US keyboard:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTZ#/media/File:KB_Germany.svg

try rebooting and moving to austria

Is it new enough to be on warranty? If so, get it replaced! It is unlikely that yours was the only fuck-up, so they are already fielding complaints and replacing yours would be just S.O.P.

If it is approaching its expiration date but money is too tight to buy a replacement, it might be worth looking for a keyboard remapping utility program. I know such programs used to exist, ages ago. There are fans of non-standard keyboard layouts, like the Dvorak keyboard, so such programs may still be floating around out there. This might provide a relatively cheap workaround, but only if all the required characters can be produced by pressing a key somewhere on the keyboard; it could not magically produce characters all on its own.

Even then, I won't guarantee success.

I am on a 90-day warranty, so i should be able to get it replaced.

Is it definitely the keyboard? I've definitely been on Windows machines before where the language got switched somewhere in Control Panel (or, obnoxiously, through obscure keyboard combinations which can be hit accidentally) so that it was interpreting input as German, or Chinese.

well, i hit the keys and different characters come up. i don't know how to begin to determine what causes it. how would i unfuck the control panel?

this is what i hate about this century. i never wanted to own a car because you have to be an amateur mechanic! now i have to be an amateur geek.

give this kind of thing a try

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/258824/how-to-change-your-keyboard-layout

will do

this thing has Windows 10

similar, i think https://support.microsoft.com/en-in/help/4027670/windows-10-add-and-switch-input-and-display-language-preferences

thx

yeah, def sounds like settings

wishin & hopin

so it's kinda funny, right next to date/time at the bottom it sais "ENG LB", which stood for English/Luxembourgish keyboard. I have clicked and changed it to "ENG US".

Thanks for everyone who pointed out the obvious, lob 'senile uncle' jokes at me.

I'm thinking of buying a new laptop this year and, for the first time a non-macbook

I had the 2014 Air which was great, but has gradually ground down over the last few months and now no longer turns on. I have a 2017 Pro from work, and Ive never liked it. Bad keyboard, and would hang sometimes, has never felt particularly solid. That had an incident and is now also dead, anyway

With both being dead I've had to buy an emergency laptop so i could actually work. Got the cheapest one in the shop, a €250 Lenovo Ideapad. 4gb RAM and runs like a dog (on windows), awful. I put Linux on it, and its actually kind of not that bad. I still have to reboot it as it does hang, so not a good longer term solution. its bulky and heavy but usable for right now

Going to need a proper replacement though, and looking at macbook prices idk I can justify it! Was looking at the Asus Zenbook as a possibility. 800ish doesnt seem so bad, but can i go cheaper and still have something good to use?

criteria:
1) light/small-ish
2) good battery

zenbook looks good, maybe the dell xps? the vivobook is cheaper so maybe theres a trade off. is there any reason in 2019 to got back to macbooks?

its a decade since i bought a laptop but im always peeking

id have said an xps with min i5 to futureproof a little but a decent spec thinkpad or similar should be zippy enough too

im presuming that you know enough to get an ssd in and max the ram for whatever model it is you currently have. makes a huge difference in a windows.

I won't have windows on it, will be a linux distro!

the zenbook is 8gb ram and 256gb SSD for €849. I don't think i need to spec it up any more than that. I'd like to be able to run vagrant and docker, but above a certain level of performance, size, weight and price are more important

Just make sure you're comfortable with the keyboard, mousepad and screen before you buy. My laptop (Acer, 8mb, SSD) is perfectly functional but the screen isn't great and I find not having separate mouse buttons really awkward.

this is definitely a worry, never thought about it with the Air, but the keyboard and feel of the last macbook just wasnt right

OK so the Dell XPS 13/15 seems to be the de facto undisputed Windows laptop these days, but what else is in a similar league? They are SO expensive!!! Also, my work laptop is a 14" screen and it is the perfect sweet spot between the 13 (which feels a little too tiny) and the 15 (which I prefer but is a bit bigger and more $$$)

Ideally I'd like something with user-upgradable RAM, though I know that gets harder and harder these days, and a Ryzen would be great but isn't critical. The only heavy duty stuff I do is very occasional video ripping/conversion with HandBrake, and retro-ish gaming, like mostly stuff that came out 10+ years ago. I don't play a lot of newer stuff, so I think an integrated GPU should be more more than adequate (for reference, my current machine is a 2012 ThinkPad T530 with 8 GB of RAM and I played through Dead Space and Bioshock Infinite just fine on the lowest settings, which I didn't at all mind). I want a nice, solid keyboard, and in terms of screen I want it to have great color and brightness, but I don't need it to go beyond 1920x1080 (I had 3000x2000 on my last work laptop, and it was great but unnecessary and caused scaling issues in a lot of programs, and I switched to a 1920x1080 several months ago and it's caused little-to-no bother). I also don't really care about touch.

When I last bought a laptop (2012), USB3 was still newish and a lot of laptops didn't have it, but I assume everything at this point has USB-C/Thunderbolt, so I don't imagine ports or interfaces will be much of a factor.

Given that I'm only looking for 16GB of RAM and something in the i5 range, do I even need a workhorse/ultrabook style laptop? Does build quality drop off precipitously at the $1000 range? I have no idea what I'm doing anymore apart from whatever Wirecutter recommends.

I bought two of my kids the HP PC Portable Pavilion Gaming 15,6" i5-9300H - RAM 8Go - Stockage 128Go SSD + 1To HDD - GTX1050 - Win 10. Each was 600 €. They seem fine?

I need a new laptop. This one is fucked. It keeps randomly switching itself off, dunno why, I don't think it's overheating, the battery isn't dead, there's nothing in the Event Log. The headphone socket/soundcard is also fucked, which is v annoying because it's the main way I play music through my stereo.

I have no idea what brands/etc are good these days. I only know I wouldn't buy one of these again, it's a Medion and it's a piece of junk. it has a serious drawback for a laptop. you can't take it anywhere or the screen will break. I've had to replace it twice, just through it being in a suitcase, wrapped in clothes, in the boot of a car. get to destination and the screen is totally fucked, like in those videos of idiots punching their TV when their sports team loses. never had that happen with any other laptop ever.

I don't want to spend more than £1000. any ideas? I don't play a lot of games or anything too intensive really. what are good brands these days? I had a Lenovo before this one that was good for a lot longer but I have no idea what they are like nowadays. I use a MacBook for work but I am not an Apple fan at all. I figure I'll get a Windows laptop, then wipe this one and stick Linux Mint on it.

Lenovo are solid value, asus and acer in the same bracket as safe vets before you start to delve into the different configurations available

i reaearched a purchase for my brother lately and ended up recommending matebook which has really good build quality on top of the actual reportwd specs

I just got an HP laptop with bang & olufsen audio through this site - https://www.mycheaplaptop.co.uk/ - they do refurbished only, I got a laptop sold for £2000 a couple of years ago for £500 and they were happy to change the specs (I wanted a bigger HD) when I called them. Been burned on refurbished laptops before but this one seems good so far, the website looks really dodgy I know.

It is great having a top spec sound card after years of shitty laptops

My company gave me a Dell laptop at the start of the pandemic... I don't actually know the model number. It's fine, fairly robust but I've only taken it out of the house a handful of times

Asus & Acer seem to be pretty affordable, thanks dmac.

there are some bargains on mycheaplaptop.co.uk, processors are well old though, presumably that's why they're so cheap though. pity they don't have anything a bit more expensive at the moment, because the prices seem good. thanks, will keep an eye on it

dependimg on whats important to you the variations can be fucking dizzying out there tbh

xp yeah having a look they just seem to have the cheaper ones on there right now for some reason.

I went browsing in the shops on tottenham court road before I bought, that was useful.

this isn't going v well.

I thought maybe I'd splash out a bit and upped my budget a bit, but the 2 laptops I had my eye on, at different websites, both went up £350 last week. wtf. so those are way out now because they were already more than I planned to spend.

another thing - are UK keyboards being phased out or something? I keep seeing laptops at UK shops like Currys with US keyboard layouts. what's that about?

thinkpad x1 carbon series is a bit above your price range but are excellent machines that work well with linux

If you're not bothering with Windows, you can save a bit and customize pretty much everything on your laptop (including keyboard layout):
https://frame.work/gb/en/products/laptop-diy-13-gen-intel

Also, if you're mostly using a browser and music playback (not recording), you could save even more with a Chromebook (which does have the option to run Linux within it, but apparently there's no USB support so forget recording music etc...).

Lastly, if you're alright with having your work MacBook do double duty, you could install a Linux virtual machine on it via https://getutm.app/ and work out a backup/encryption scheme if work ever reclaims it, or segregate it entirely by running it off a small external SSD.

don't transport it by wrapping towels around it! laptops are delicate precision machines! spend £20 on a padded laptop protector at least

I have a £300 voucher for Currys/PC World, as a replacement for a laptop that was so slow as to be useless (but had been covered by one of their insurances). Would probably double my spend to get something half decent. Likely to be used a lot but not for much fancy (eg. gaming) - more emails, internet browsing and a small amount of music. As ever, any recommendations? Ta!

And/or anything to particularly look for? (Bloke in shop mentioned Corei3 or above).

Do PC shops in the UK let you test out devices in-store?

Something I think really gets overlooked for laptops is just how comfortable the keyboard is -- try a few typing tests with them.
If they have internet set up, you might also try testing how responsive it is after opening 20 tabs on a browser playing various youtube clips simultaneously -- also pick a movie scene you like to see how much you like the screen.

As far as processor goes -- this wouldn't be a direct test, but if you can, try the above tests using just battery to see how it performs (often, laptops behave quite differently plugged in than on battery), listen to hear if a fan starts revving up.

Chromebook could cover a lot of your requirements while allowing budget for screen/build quality imo

Ta, both.

https://gizmodo.com/hp-pavilion-plus-14-2023-review-performance-1851066819

$900 is budget now?