Lo all.

My housemate has asked me if I can find them a new laptop as theirs is a bit old and dying. Their budget is about £350 and would strongly prefer a laptop with xp not vista. 1gig of ram would be nice, but 512 is ok if its ddr2 (as I have some spare).

Any ideas as xp lappys seem to be unfortunately scarce now?

Ta muchly.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/134704 - A bit over-priced but it includes a XP downgrade CD so you can go back to XP no problem.

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/139960 - Something a bit more basic

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/142148 - Same again a bit overpriced but it looks quite good to me


It might also be worth checking out the deals on LaptopsDirect.co.uk too


Liam

//www.ebay.co.uk
//www.mininova.org

Maldonado: was really looking for new and a licenced copy of the os...

Liam, saw those, but only 1 falls in the budget of £350, was wondering if there was any other shop people knew of that might have some. Its only going to be used for internetting and a PhD writeup, but it would be nice to see what can be had at this price.

http://www.staples.co.uk

They have a celeron in there for £300 inc VAT, plus a copy of XP home and you are sorted.  Oretty much the only way youll get a semi-decent spec lappy with XP now.

There are quite often deals on the Dell Vostro 1500, which will can be specd with XP, I havent seen a deal on hotukdeals recently but they normally appear on there, the Dell news letter normally has a 10% discount attached and you could also try DMXdimension, which is a Dell discount site (not owned by dell).

BTW I dont work for dell! but was impressed with the spec you could get for the price on the Vostro systems, I picked myself up a 1700 (not available with XP, but going to get a re-format soon!).

Hope that helps

Jake

http://www.novatech.co.uk/novatech/specpage.html?NNB-587

not the worlds fastest, but 1GB of RAM and my Novatech lappy has served me well. Mine isnt this exact model, but I believe Novatech just buy them barebones and stick whatever CPU/RAM/HDD they fancy in so itll probably be the same base unit.

Vostro 1500
Price:£363.08  inc. vat and del.

Not a bad price for the spec, might be worth waiting a while, when Dell do some upgrades for free, as only doing free delivery at the moment. Built in webcam as a bonus on this model at the moment and 10% off some upgrades.

Catalog Number:        202 N0415002
Base    Intel® Core™ 2 Duo Processor T5270 (1.40 GHz, 800 MHz FSB, 2 MB L2-cache)
Microsoft Operating System    Genuine Windows® XP Home Edition - English
Memory    2048MB (2x1024) 667MHz DDR2 Dual Channel
Keyboard    Internal Keyboard - UK/Irish (QWERTY)
Video Card    Integrated Intel® Graphic Media Accelerator X3100
Hard Drive    120GB (5400rpm) SATA Hard Drive
Modem    56.6k V.92 Capable Internal Modem & Adapter - UK
Optical Devices    Fixed Internal 8X DVD+/-RW Drive
Wireless Networking    Dell™ Wireless 1395 (802.11 b/g) MiniPCI Card
Microsoft Application Software    Microsoft® Works 9.0 - English
Standard Warranty    1Yr Basic Warranty - Next Business Day
Power Supply    90W AC Adapter
Primary Battery    Primary 6-cell Lithium-Ion Battery (56 WHr)
Colour Choice    Matte Jet Black with 2.0 mega pixel camera
LCD    15.4" Wide Screen WXGA (1280 x 800) Display