computers

[suffolkpete]

I'll second John's recommendation for ebuyer

[JPB]

don't buy a packard bell...

ooops

....unless you have a shortage of cheap, thin sheets of steel for making really poor repair patches to rusty cars in order to scrape an MOT. I have about three cases from older (P2 era) Packard Bell desktop towers and these are ideal for making non-structural patches and/or horribly inadequate bodges. The rest of these machines tended not to last long enough to take an upgrade because of the horrid, cheap caps they used on their no-name mobos.

I remember when Currys started flogging these machines back in the early 2000s. Their ads read "NOW WITH MASSIVE R.A.M." which in 2001 speak meant 384MB, 512 if you were really lucky.
Other brands' cases were either even thinner or made from aluminium so those weren't much cop either.
I've only ever worked on one Packard Bell-branded laptop though and far from being their usual mediocre stuff, that was an AKA of a half decent HP machine that was actually even easier than a Dell to perform surgery on. It was surprisingly upgradeable too and is still soldiering on running Damned Small and doing simple Calc (open source version of M$ Excel from the Libre Office people) jobs in an ATC admin room where it matters not one tiny bit that driving the thing involves setting it away then going and making a cuppa. By the time the tea's masted, the machine has usually managed one edit to one cell in one row but nobody can bear to throw the thing out. I'd shoot it to death if the office manager asked, but the damned thing would probably take a slug in its screen and still go on working. Slowly.

[mach1rob]

We have an Alienware lappy, it was great, would do pretty much everything desktop pc would do, and being a gaming machine daughter could play sims on it no bother. Then we started getting the crashes, heard a couple of different opinions, both graphic card related, one was wrong driver, now updated, next was dead graphics card, throw the lappy away buy another one. TBH I've not tried it since, maybe I should? But we bought it secondhand and it was well within your budget, the only downside now is Dell have bought them out, so support for the older pre Dell machines is pretty much non existent, when what you need tells you to log in on the AW site and then download it from there, but it won't let you register/log on and all Dell tell you to do is ring a helpline...

[TerryG]

I would be slightly wary of used games laptops as they will have been THRASHED meaning the ram and graphics memory will be past it's prime and getting parts is never as easy or cheap as for a desktop PC.
As I have said previously, Dell's support is worse than useless. Saying that my Linux laptop is an old Inspiron 6400, it is bomb proof reliable and for what it is, pretty nippy.
You can get a reasonable 3d card in even business laptops now. My elitebook has a GeForce card which copes with anything I have thrown at it. Ignoring the £300 limit but anything that has Intel graphics (or AMD/ATI graphics with an AMD processor) won't do "real" games at all.

[mach1rob]

I've not opened this one up, but have been told it's scrap basically as you can't replace the graphics card, yet

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/GENUINE-Dell- ... 35c43fa90e

so there must be a way, apart from the crashes it's bloody good when its going.

[TerryG]

If you want to use it as a normal desktop, you can get an external graphics card. They aren't great but work OK for office stuff. We use them with lots of the laptops at work to get second and third displays on.

[mach1rob]

It was to mainly use for schoolwork etc with the ability to play Sims, then she could go play it elsewhere and not tie up main PC for hours on end.

Trouble is, once you've had use of a decent machine, owt else of a lesser spec just doesn't cut the mustard really.

[zipgun]

When i said the occasional game , they're not 3d..just kids low spec games . Blue ray - not interested . HD -not interested , loud speakers - so long as it can be heard will be ok . Can the toshiba c50 play a cd and dvd as it comes? She will want Word - that'll be £80 on top then?

[TerryG]

You can't get away with a low spec machine if you want to use it properly for long periods but for Facebook and homework, cheap and cheerful is fine. It will play DVDs and listen to music with no problem. To purchase Office Home & Student you will spend between £80 and £110 depending where you buy it. Having noticed the £79.99 offer from Microsoft has ended (conveniently just before Christmas). They are still offering a 30 day trial so you can install it now and buy it in Jan when the price has come down again.
I have purchased machines from £400-£4000 for various companies over the years.
Cheap machines have their place, in the factory at work, the most expensive laptop is £400 as they only last 6-12 months before they are dropped or end up full of metal filings, etc. In the offices they range from £700 probooks up to £2500 elitebooks.
For a child, I would be looking for cheap and cheerful as it is guaranteed to have an orange juice related accident sooner or later.

[zipgun]

Funnily enough she said the same ! Orange juice .. best break a cheap one Don't do faceplace