New laptop
 

OK I have got some money through means fair or foul and I have £400 max to buy a laptop. My home PC is fine but I really want a laptop for the portability and I do need to upgrade certain areas of my PC anyhow. So what i want to know is: which one? I know plenty about spec etc but i'm looking for build, reliability etc.

The couple I am looking at are:

Currys - Shop for Laptops - Acer 5735 Powerful performance with a massive 3 GB memory

Sony VGN-NS10LS Laptops - Cheap Sony Laptops.. Buy the Sony VGN-NS10LS laptop at PC World.

but Acer are not exactly a front runner and the Sony has great specs but kind of looks meh. Any help? I have a portable 250gb HD anyhow so I don't mind losing a little HD space for better spec etc

Do you guys use windows over there? If so just make sure you get something without Vista and with a big HD and it'll be fine for you.

We do use Windows we are not backward u know ;) Unfortunately virtually every PC comes with Vista. I use XP at home and have heard that Vista is a pain :(

I am a tech support person and ACERS are dreadful. The best way to explain them is playing russian roulette. If you get lucky and get one that doesnt break then its money well worth it. But like most I've seen they break and the call center help and parts are both expensive and frustrating to get.

As much as Windows Vista Vs Xp. I've used both 2+ years and I've warmed up to the idea of vista. You need atleast 3 gigs of ram with windows vista to have to run smoothly. Roughly 1 -1.5 gigs to run vista +vista add-ons and another 1.5 gigs for other applications you may open. I've tryied to use all my ram on windows vista and only gotten it to 2.91 gigs used. The windows vista add-ons makes me like vista over xp. I'm able to regulate how much cpu and ram is being used by each application. This is extremely helpful in knowing what I need for a computer and also knowing if my computer is infected with a virus.

^^^

Cheers for that. Appreciated.

I Should have asked this prior, but what do you plan on using the computer for ?

Everyday use. I'm not a gamer or anything like that.

Vista's great, don't get me wrong... but I have 3 gigs. With his price range he's likely looking at a 2 gig system, so with that, I'd recommend XP. Also I'm pretty sure Dell is offering XP with their systems now.

Before I had my macbook I had an Acer similar to that one and it was great. Never had any problems with it.

Acers are really good laptops if they stay in 1 piece. But I've seen more issues with Acer then any other laptop. And calling up their support line is a nightmare. Out of 4 years doing this I've only seen 1 HP that I had to fix, and it was a corrupted file that could happen to any computer. This is just from my perspective and hope that is helpful.