I'm in desperate need of a new PC or shall I go for a laptop? I just don't know what to do.

I have no idea what is good or not, apart from Sony Vaio and i'm not sure that their prices have dropped as I don't have huge amounts of money to be throwing at this.

I don't want a netbook, they are too small and also like a full keyboard(tubby fingers), what ever I get i'll be using a mouse as don't like that pad thing on laptops. Ooh I like a large screen too.

Uses: It will be used daily for many things, it need's to have a large memory and capability of downloading things. Internet use will be high. At this time I prefer a PC but am open to suggestions as to why a laptop maybe better.

My Boy needs a laptop for Uni and we don't know which one would be best.

I have no idea where to start and how much difference is there between 6GB and 8GB of memory. and what about GB in the hard drive too, whats a flash drive?

I love to upload photos and videos too.

So in all the F series of the Vaio looks good, the screen's are large, but so is the price, argghh. So does the E series..

JG lets hope someone can help us then :-)

I bought myself a laptop earlier this year as a back up to my desktop.  Laptop lives in the kitchen and almost always on!  I've downloaded loads of photos etc and it's been brilliant.  Now only use desk top for updating my website.

I bought a cordless mouse at the same time and it's brilliant.  Both came from Tesco Direct - fast delivery etc.

I bought a mid price range laptop and cannot remember what memory capacity it has etc - look online and do a comparrison.  Wouldn't recommend an Acer though - daughter had one and only lasted a year and she doesn't use hers very often.

> Now only use desk top for updating my website.

Can you not do that on your laptop then?
What brand is your's and how much did you pay for it? Is it fast?

I'm doing comparisons but have no idea what i'm looking at or how much GB in memory and hard drive that actually is, literally.

What ever I get it has to have a shop so if it goes wrong I have somewhere to take it back to and speak to someone in person about it.

It's a personal thing I guess - I love my desktop, husband loves his laptop.
When it comes to advice then I'd stay away from the big high street stores and find an small independant company. Tell them what you need it for and then tell them your top price budget. The high street stores tend to try and talk you into things you don't need - by telling you that you do (if that makes sense !). Independants know their stuff and are more likely to find something to fit your needs. We use a small firm - any probs and they are here the same day. I've heard nightmares about after sales service with the big stores.
Anyway, if you get advice and quotes you could always see if you can get the same thing on the high street at a better price.

The programme for updating website is on my desktop and you don't seem to be able to copy it which would enable you to download onto another computer.  I'm happy the way it is - I would hate to lose all the work I've done.

I think my laptop was just over £400 and is a Compaq.  Very fast.  Looks as though they have now gone down a bit in price having a quick look on internet.

We have a small computer shop near us and they are brilliant at giving advice - and usually charge nothing!  'Touch wood' have had no need to take laptop to them.

Wouldn't worry too much about getting a massive hard drive (320gb is plenty for general use). If you have loads of photos/video you are probably better off getting an external hard drive which would give huge capacity and extra security as well :) The laptop/PC question really depends where/how you use your computer. We prefer to sit with a laptop on our laps using Wifi rather than sit in our cold(er) study at a desk (which we still can do if we need to) As for the rest of the spec, it just depends on how much money you have and exactly what you will use it for - so, yes, get some good advice.

Daisy

I've just bought a laptop,still have my desktop but I've made an office upstairs for it as it attracted so much dust downstairs and wanted a laptop for every day stuff. On my sons instruction cos he understands all the tech stuff I've got a Dell with a 17.3 screen and so far I'm quite impressed with it.

Kind Regards

We had a laptop but it died after a few years and we decided to get a PC instead.  My thinking at the time was, if we got a PC then the printer and stuff was always set up so less hassle to print/scan.  Turns out I don't do a lot of printing to justify having this monstrosity in the corner of my living room!  I will be going back to a tidy laptop next time without a doubt.  Have you checked out tescos direct.  They have laptops at great prices.

I absolutely hate laptops -for a start the keyboard ends up being so small it's hard to type on. A big disadvantage is that you cannot expand/upgrade as much on a laptop as there are no free slots like inside a desktop. You can usually increase the memory a bit but other than that, nothing. I have had laptops alongside my desktop for years and years and I only ever use it in emergencies. Also what people don't realise is that the battery don't last long so it's not like you don't need cables. A normal, full sized laptop has a battery that lasts around 2 hours, a netbook (much smaller) 7 or so.

Boy's problem is that he won't have room for a 'proper' computer.

I much prefer my laptop at home. I have a Toshiba, one daughter has a sony viao, the other an acer and they are all great. Not had any problems with any of them really. My younger daughter had an advent originally but it broke down constantly and was back at the manufacturer twice however she then accidently broke the screen and I had it replaced on my household insurance when they sent the acer. Since then her advent has been in my mum's with an external screen attached and it has been fine :-). The worst thing I suppose is that the batteries are not great but doesn't worry me as i have them plugged in most of the time anyway.

The Viao has a proper keypad which is great for my daughter as she does a lot of number work at uni. I only bought it as she was having problems with her Toshiba and the price was much the same as an equivalent toshiba at the time. I got her old laptop, installed Windows 7 instead of Vista and it has been great ever since. I remember the days when I had the best computer in the house, sigh!

One thing I would say is buy the best processor (don't get an Intel Celeron processor, cheaper but much slower, always go for a full Intel Pentium or Core) and as much cache memory and RAM as you can get in your budget - these are the things that will make it run faster, particularly the cache, not hard disk capacity. I don't know much about AMD processors as I have a personal preference for Intel. The processor/RAM/cache goes for a laptop or a desktop. I have always bought from PC World and I never take their insurance :-) .

M x

>> The Viao has a proper keypad

See it still swings back to this for me. I'll probably plug it in if its near a socket, i'm not one for transporting it about as I have my Iphone, so really its going to be staying in the house.

Thanks for the rest of the advice, just need to find the money now as I was told I could get a decent laptop for £300, but with regarding the need for a large screen and proper size keypad i've priced myself well out of that I think?

I've got one of each-
PC in the home office- linked up to printer etc. Big memory and huge monitor and use it for working from home on as can access to all my work emails too.
Laptop useful for when you don't want to be confined to the office and away from rest of the family and netbook which I use the most as its easy to carry round and can perch it on the arm of the sofa lol but I tend to use it for surfing rather than working. The one I have is a Dell and it has a keyboard suitable for big fingers. Think it depends upon how much space you have in the home and whether you want a desk etc and whether you use scanners/printers etc which need linking to PC or laptop
I use wireless too- so depends upon whether you have wireless or not as well as to your decision?

I've got a tiny notebook that has normal size almost keyboard.  My computer is still upstairs and I haven't used it for almost 10 months.  I can do my photo's, update my web site view most things.  The only thing I can't do is see photo's on internet photography sites sometimes as they are to large. 

>>> The Viao has a proper keypad
>

Remember the keypad is the number pad - all of my other ones have keyboards that are absoloutely fine with regards to key size and layout. My OH has a netbook and I find the keys too small for any real work though fine for surfing etc.

Remember the more you spend the less likely you will need to upgrade quickly. This laptop is now 4 years old and is still fast enough not to annoy me too much and capable of running all the software I need. The most expensive ones tend to be for games players as they need the fastest processors and best graphics cards to run the latest games successfully so you don't need to go to the top end of the market but you should get a decent laptop that will do for a good few years for around £400-£600.

Thanks Dakkobear.. Can I also ask how easy is it to link up printer and scanner each time you want to use them with the laptop?

> Remember the keypad is the number pad

Oh yes I don't want to have to press a silly shift button to do numbers. Been looking at Dell again and there seems to be wasted space where the keyboard is, they could make a larger keyboard on that.

You just plug them in as normal and once it's been set up you don't have to reset so no problem there.

> Can I also ask how easy is it to link up printer and scanner each time you want to use them with the laptop?

No problem at all - install the driver on the laptop then just plug in via the USB as Perrodeagua says.

Go wireless - no need to be connected to the printer/scanner then. Tis spooky though - suddenly the printer starts on it's own and then I discover it's husband in the other room !.

> Go wireless - no need to be connected to the printer/scanner then

Yes - but you do have to make sure that everything is compatible :) We had big problems with our printer/scanner and Vista and our wireless router. If I printed it worked OK, but if I scanned it didn't. I spent nearly all week emailing HP Helpdesk and then we never got it sorted out :( So can only scan if I use OH's laptop :(

Daisy

Luckily no problems here thank goodness and we are vista.

All linked up to PC our combined printer and scanner, well the scanner decided its not connected any more, but printer works ok :-(... How I hate these things, have no idea how to fix them..

Sue - Ken says Mac is the way to go really - come over to ours - you can have a dip in the tub and he'll show you his apple mac - works so good with the iphone too - and if I had my way I'd have my own mac - next year next year :) :)  Virus software built in and its beautiful!!!!

> you can have a dip in the tub

Dip in tub... Right i'll be over with a bottle :-)   Oh yeah Mac, I wasn't sure about these because of no windows options.. But yes to see how it all works i'm there.. Now what was it you said, oh yes hot tub ;-) I'll call you tomorrow about sorting that out..

lol :) yes talk tomorrow Thurs/Fri good :)

Macs cost a million pounds, but I do love them. I thought my OH was MENTAL when he spent £1000+ on a laptop but it is amazing, once you get used to using a different operating system its lovely. My poor laptop seems like something from the stone age now and just sits gathering dust, nice big screen on the MacBook Pro and the battery lasts for 6 hours or so when fully charged.
I like drawing with a graphics tablet and the mac is so much better with it than the other laptop, also uploads things quickly. It's a lot of money to spend though if your just gonna use it for word processing and internet and if it ever breaks down it can only be repaired at an AppleShop.

> Macs cost a million pounds, but I do love them.

Hmm, yes just looked at the prices - Do like that IMac though... seems to be the last thing I do, I tend to work out what I want and then see what it costs, which is proving a problem all over the place right now, not just this issue.

What would be logical is work out how much I can afford and go from there, but then I know i'd be missing out on something.

It's almost like having the wrong dog for you..In a weird analogy me having a BC(A random breed I plucked out) is like getting a very cheap laptop, its ok but not for me in any way shape or form.. No point getting something which isn't right.

Laptops for me. I've bought 2 Vaios, the first lasted 5 years, this one is on the verge of needing to be replaced after just over three. Both were at the top end of the range, very light and very good, except for working in strong sunlight (eg outdoors), when the screen was almost useless. I had a look the other day at prices and I thought for the sake of spending £750-800 you could get lose enough to what I paid twice that for. The E series looks an interesting option next to the £1600 ultra portables.

If you go onto NOVATECH website they build the computer to your spec, reasonable proce and you can phone them for advice.

Ive got two son's both got their machines from Novatech - because they build what you want you dont get stuff you dont want as in off the shelf machines.

You can always buy a buffalo to back up your photo's to and keep the hard drive clean and it runs as fast as it ever did. Having had both machines our next is a desk top, we use a note book for on the move, ie on the trains and showing company presentations.