laptop ?

[silka]

I am thinking of buying a basic laptop at Tesco.
Toshiba c650-194-c900 1 GB 250 GB Windows 7 at £299
Is it OK ?

[ChuckFickens]

Windows7 struggles with 1GB of ram, it's only got 2 USB ports which could become an issue, it has a celeron processor, which is the budget cheapo intel processor...

And finally, having had to setup exactly that model for somebody yesterday.... it generally feels very cheap and flimsy

(that said, it is cheap!)

[silka]

So would you say no as I am not too good on these things ?
It is for home use only and I need cheapish ?
I have a desktop

[ChuckFickens]

My main concern with it would be the 1GB of RAM, I really can't believe that anyone is still selling a new computer with windows7 and 1GB of RAM.

If you spend about £30 on upgrading the RAM to 2GB then it will run a whole lot better, the one I was working on yesterday was noticeably struggling due to lack of RAM even after I'd removed all the unnecessary toshiba rubbish they install.

The 2 USB ports could be an inconvenience if you ever want to connect more than 2 things to it at once, but it's not the end of the world.

I guess if you accept the fact it is a cheap budget laptop and as such does feel cheap and is made from cheap parts then it will do the job.

[silka]

Right so you know your stuff and I dont think that would be a good buy.
Can you possibly suggest another one , possibly from Tesco ?

[Sqad]

Not sure if this is any relevance, but I bought a "cheapie" with 2 USB ports but I bought a USB2.0 Hub made by NGS and that gave me 3USB ports.

[ChuckFickens]

For the extra £70 I'd go for this one, it's still the same basic chassis so will still only have the 2 USB ports, but it has 3GB of ram and a faster processor (it also has a larger hard drive, but that wasn't really an issue on the other one)

As Sqad correctly says, if the 2 USBs does become an issue then a USB hub will give you more ports at the slight cost of convenience.

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.205-8687.aspx

[gingejbee]

Sorry that there are no suggestions for you, but I think Chuck has said it all - cheap is cheap for a reason. Could you stretch the budget by, say, £100? You'll have a much bigger and better choice. If you buy at £300 and find it slow and a pain to use, that's money wasted; pay more for a faster, better machine that's a pleasure to use and you'll be a happier bunny. As with so many things, it's down to balancing your expectations against your budget.

[gingejbee]

Done before Chuck's 12.41 post - I'm a slow b*****!

[silka]

Thanks for your comments.
I decided I could stretch to a bit more.
That sounds OK Chuck.
Some one I was talking to today said they had bought a lenovo G550 T4300 3 GB £379 at Tesco.
Any thoughts ??????

[gingejbee]

The Toshiba C650 V120 that Chuck refers to above would be a better bet at £369 - it was £699, then £449. Final comment!

[silka]

Thank you.
Its just I noticed the other at webcam