Laptop time! (Could use some advice)

[Devlin]

Im currently in the process of puchasing a laptop ... or atleast trying to find a good alternative.

My price range is somewhere around 4000SEK (about 400 euro), so Im not looking for any monster-laptop. It will be used mainly for studying and occasionally watching movies on, photoshopping etc. I dont plan on gaming on it.

One I got my eyes on is Acer Aspire 5520G which is currently offered at a nice discount, 450 euro instead of its normal price which is more around 600 euro.


Specs
Screen: 15.4" CrystalBrite
CPU: AMD Turion X2 TL-60, 2.0Ghz
RAM: 4GB, 2x2048MB, DDR2 667Mhz
HDD: 160GB SATA 5400rpm
GFX: nVidia GeForce 8400M G 128MB
CD/DVD: DVD±RW (+R Dual Layer)

Modem: 56k v.92 Modem
Networks card: 10/100/1000Mbit
WLAN: WLAN 802.11b/g, 54Mbit

Webcam: 0.3 Megapixel
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium
Measurements: 366 x 43 x 274mm
Weight: 2.75kg

Acer Aspire 5520 Series information
http://global.acer.com/products/notebook/as5520.htm

This is indeed looking good for the price, but I wonder if theres anyone out there with first-hand experience with this brand and model? If so, what are your thoughts about it?
Secondly I wonder if theres any specific laptop that You could recommend, which is within the same pricerange (~400euro).

Any help is appreciated!

[delling]

Sounds good.

It's an Acer -- cheap brand. You will still get decent support I guess.

It's pretty big -- 2.75kg. You don't want to be transporting that around a lot, unless you have strong shoulders...

Not sure of the processor/graphics capabilities. I would never do Photoshop stuffs on a laptop, but I think it will be OK...

Sounds like a great spec for the price. The main trade-off being weight.

Wise man once said 'Power, portability, price. Pick two.'

For 450 euros you can't really go wrong though...

[Inphy]

It's a great laptop. The service of Acer is pretty good.

The negative side is that it'll take about 3 hours to remove all the crap acer put on it. That's about 20gyg of programms and useless utilities.

Furthermore they're pretty good laptops.

[Myogoblin]

looks good and should be fine for photoshopping and the like, Mine was pretty poor with 2gb in but now I've added 4gb it helped MASSIVE. the recovery disk wont be a problem, just strip the i386 folder off and look up slipstreaming vlite should do it, not tried it but nlite was really awesome for XP disks, id say if you could get a slightly better vid card you got yoursself a monster already

[Auran]

Wise man once said 'Power, portability, price. Pick two.'

Obama?

[kawe]

Looks just great for the price, and should be more than enough for your uses. Bit of a brick, aye, but a good deal, and looks sturdy too!

[kagir]

Whatever you do, stay away from Lenovo.. no offense but it's Chinese crap. I've been through 5 computers now with hardware errors.

Lenovo ThinkPad != IBM ThinkPad quality wise.. however they are just as ugly!

[Devlin]

the motherfucking offer on the acer has expired. i was gonna order it today after school ... but i was in school for 15 hours

[delling]

It is unlike Dell to be beaten on price... did you check them?

[Devlin]

looking at this one atm, 400 euro. Nowhere near the Acer though


HP 550 - Celeron M 530 1.73 GHz - 15.4" TFT

Dimensions: 35.8 cm x 26.7 cm x 3.2 cm
Weight:   2.5 kg

Processor: Intel Celeron M 530 / 1.73 GHz
RAM: 1 GB (installed) / 4 GB (max) - DDR2 SDRAM - 667 MHz ( 1 x 1 GB )
HDD: 120 GB - Serial ATA-150 - 5400 rpm

CD/DVD: DVD±RW (+R dubbla lager) / DVD-RAM med LightScribe Technology
Display: 15.4" TFT 1280 x 800 ( WXGA ) - BrightView
Grafics: Intel GMA X3100


Network: Nätverkskort - Ethernet, Fast Ethernet, IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g
wireless NIC, Broadcom 4311BG

Batterytime: up to 4.5h
OS: Microsoft Windows Vista Home Basic

[Devlin]

dell got a total of 0 laptops below 500 euro...

fucking dell .... see what i did there!

i might end up with a fucking eee 900 or something :/

[kawe]

Get the Acer already!

And anyway, Dell's pricing is, part for part on customisation options, roughly equal to alienware's. Dell are great if you want some super cheap pc tower + screen etc etc, but otherwise not that impressive last time I looked.

[Gerdi]

I just bought this laptop:
Hp Pavilion DV5 - 1037 (Atleast that is what is it called here in Denmark )



Bought it for around 700 euro, wich I think is quite cheap compaired to the spec's of the computer.

I worked in a computerstore not long time ago. And like Delling said Acer is cheap brand... I saw just as many Acer's getting returned as I sold, and that is the thing with Acer, either you are just lucky getting a product wich will be stable for the rest of the time you have it, or you will get a computer wich will braek after a year, and then just continue down a long road of software errors and system breakdown.

Acer's components are awsome individual, although I would probably repalce most of them, but the way they put those parts togeather is just not wroking propperly, atleast due to my expirience.

PacketBell made a few good computers, but nothing I would go for, Asus are really awsome, but also very expensive, HP is generally family computer togeather with DELL, Toshiba is what I have expirienced ok if you put a lot of money into it, but those cheap ones you dont wana buy and the service support aint that good.

If you buy cheap ass laptops, and a Vista system with a laptop with 1-2gb ram, you are gonna eventually regret it and shoot your self for not putting in another 200 for a much better computer.

EDIT: PS. I know vista 32-bit dont support 4gb-ram, but what the hell.. they gotta change that in some update oneday.. and I installed windows XP for the full advance of the computer insetad XP > VISTA !!!!

[Inphy]

Perhaps: http://www.bcc.nl/shop/Notebooks_en_laptops.Computer/product/productinfo/YDfAqA1wF6kAAAEbbewIUJG0 devlin?

Dutch store, i know. But still a fine laptop, for 499.


And gerdi... goodluck with that. We had about 10 of those returned to the store in the past 2 months, because they all had problems. So we asked the other stores in the country, and they all had the same problems. So don't hesitate to return it once you notice a small problem.

[Gerdi]

Ill remember that Inphy, guess that is what you get from buying brand new products that never been released before.. (atleast not in Denmark), and tryed to look on the internet for the computer, but could not find it at all.. Better start backing up my files then.. -.- 3 years warenty though, so can always get a new computer, since the insurance cover all errors exept if its stolen.
Usually HP had some good products, so still think they madea few good computers, The design though is a bit like DELL, and those touch buttons (volume-mute, ect.) work like hell.. So if it wasent for the price, and its spec, I probably would have spend more time finding another one

Any of you guys tryed Asus ? Seems to be awsome laptop's but I only heard bad things about em, but guess what you only hear is complains, since none post "Damn this computer is amazing!" in review's.