Really, very nice.

They sell Acers in Aldi! Not so good TBH, although im sure they do a fine job really ;) Probably weigh more.

no interest in blu ray, I don't know what it is.

Blu Ray is HD movies. 4 or 9 times as many pixels on the screen as your average DVD, if you have a HD TV that is. You can reant a Blu Ray from Blockbusters and watch it on your TV using your laptop as a player. You need a special drive to read the disc though. PS3s have them in. You would connect your laptop to your HDTV using a HDMI cable (HDMI to HDMI) which also carries high quality sound :)


I can totally understand what your saying about playing games at home and needing "work" type laptop. The GMA 4500HD is a hell of a lot better than the GMA3100, but dont be fooled by the size of the intergrated memory, it has no bearing on the speed of the thing.

I would go for a good Intel processor. And a HDD with atleast 5400rpm. And RAM at atleast 667mhz.

As for which processor - well you want a "Core 2 Duo/Centrino" - Not to be mixed up with "Dual Cores". The Dual Cores kinda suck, although they are better than single cores.

Heres a thread which shows the full heirarchy of processors (keep scrolling after you hit the first part because they are in about four blocks down the thread) 

Well the new ATI 4770 is a hell of a piece of kit and costs only �80 at most!

Just though I'd mention it, they only launched this week.... 

Shambler, if �400 is a hard limit and there's simply no way you can go any more expensive (borrow cash from a mate, etc) then fair enough, but an extra �50-�100 can go a really long way.

I started out looking for a �400 laptop last summer, but ended up getting a �540 one. Incredibly glad I did, this will last me a while.

Coincidentally, I got a similar, previous version of the laptop Ricky recommended before.

I bought mine off Amazon and got a great deal, so I had a look if I could find a bargain on the 6930g there. Low and behold, here it is for �499
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-AS6530G-Blu-Ray-DVD-SuperMulti/dp/B001W0ZWE6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1241182859&sr=1-1
Saving of �70 there.

Alternatively, with no Bluray, and a cheap graphics card, there's this for �448:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Aspire-16-inch-Laptop-Premium-GeForce/dp/B001G7PI2Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1241183624&sr=1-2

I can vouch for the short delivery times and the general quality of the laptops, no complaints. 

lo and behold 

since this is the hardware thread, recently picked up a Logitech G9 mouse after lusting after one for a while. Holy balls this is one high-quality piece of kit. 

I want the laptop for the same sort of stuff I'm currently using my desktop for, except for gaming. My desktop is basically a 2003 PC, just with an updated GFX card and 2gb of ram. I am pretty sure the sort of laptops I'm looking at will not only be adequate but excessive for my needs. I'd rather spend a few quid less than a few quid more.

(And put the few quid towards updating this old clunker (which is still very satisfactory for everything except the Crysis demo)). 

I want one :) 

fair enough. If you aren't using it for gaming and don't want a big screen then that's money wasted I guess. Had another look around and found another Acer for you, coming in at �391. T5800 Processor, 3 GB ram.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Acer-Aspire-15-6-inch-Laptop-Intel/dp/B001G7PI26/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1241196696&sr=1-1

Also, you said you were looking for an optical mouse too, heard this is good on a budget but haven't used one myself:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Logitech-OEM-RX1000-Laser-Mouse/dp/B000GQMJ8E/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1241197519&sr=1-2

Hope that helps.


Ricky
Yeah I know man. Ridiculous how quick components drop in value and your existing kit becomes worthless! That laptop would play current games well, for �448. Crazy talk... 

Yeh, Shambler already proved I've lost 50� in the last 4 months for a start :( 

i see they finally brought back the forward/back side buttons on their mice, instead of just a back button alone.

i might finally buy a new mouse instead of always going back to mx500/518 mice, although i still think the mx500/518 was the best mouse design ever for comfort and utility. 

I'm still using my 510. Lovely blue turtle shell effect too... 

Is fine so far, there's some problems with compatability, but to be honest alot of the crap I'm having problems with was due to change anyway.

Also, I'm looking for a thumbtrack mouse - any suggestions? 

By thumb track I mean those that you don't move - they have a trackball, but a thumb operated one. They're pretty rare it seems, logitech had a few models.

I forked out 50 quid for my last one a few years ago. They're wierd to get used to but the precision and speed is worth it, as well as being able to operate with minimal movement being a bonus. 

I just set my face as my login password. Facial recognition FTW 

or he'll come and cut off your face. 

...set my ass as my log-in password. Or, rather, tried to. It gave me an error: "Password Rejected: Recognition already identified with user: "ijed"". Hmmmm.... 

 

speaking of hardware, my router sucks. It's a d-link WBR-1310, and I'm pretty dissapointed since all previous d-link routers/network adapters i've bought were trouble free. But this one can't keep a goddamn connection for more than a few hours, and needs occasional hard-resets just get re-establish a connection.

Anyone got a recommendation for a good, basic wireless router? I've heard linksys is good, is that true? 

not too basic... i would like a decent web-based admin tool, firewall, packet routing type tools. I just don't need the flashy "Gamer Xtreeeme Routers" that sell for $200 for no apparent reason. 

Will you not be doing any Xtreeeme routing then? 

It doesn't want to work, and is anyway slower than just typing a password since the camera has to power up. Typical wave of the future. 

Recognised me today. I'm guessing this is how I'll feel in a year or so when my kid calls me daddy. 

i was just wondering if anyone had ever seen something like this:

how it goes is that after some hours of use, i start to see wierd things happening with stuff related to the video card.

for example, games, geometry flicker and video files either show up black (with sound) or with a thick pinkish/gray line going horizontally at a random height. the line flickers but stays at the same position.

restarting the machine gets rid of the problem, so it seems it's video ram corruption? 

it would occur more randomly, unless it only happens when overheating, but then I'd expect it to happen quite soon after the restart again. (same with most other problems)

vague idea: bug with mem management in driver? 

is obviously guesswork. I've seen the weirdest stuff happen