Laptop Recommendation (for me mum)

[ratty]

Hi Ho,

My mother has blown up the PC I gave her. Now she is not exactly computer savvy but my sister lives in Cambodia and she needs a laptop to communicate with her. She also likes her digital photos and the occasional you tube video of her grandson.

Any recommendations for a low cost laptop for her? I have not got a scooby which makes, if any, are any good!

[silverfox]

You could always recommend a Sarah Palin Hillbilly Palm Pilot

[Narnia]

We've had a couple of Dells without much hassle over the years. Basically you can choose what extra's you want from their basic models, thus adding to the price. If you don't want an all singing all dancing one then I think you can get one quite cheaply.

[Marmora Man]

I bought my son a net book to replace his broken laptop. ?230 from PC World (they have some trade in deals at present that might be worth a look too) - does all you ask Ratty and more but has no DVD drive - tho if needed peripherals can be added. Upsides, light, cheap and very portable. Downside - small"ish" screen.

[Loz]

These days, they are all much of a muchness. There's bugger all money in hardware so everyone builds down to a price (except Apple and Vaio - they build up to a big price). Know what spec you want (recommend no less than 2GB mem, 160GB hard disk) and find what's out there.

Keep an eye out on dabs.com. They've had some storming HP deals on there.

Toshiba and HP are usually solid. Dell are cheap and cheerful, but tend to have the sort of customer service last seen at Ryanair.

And I've got to ask... how did she manage to blow up her pc?

[Ann]

Does it have to be new? There is a website called BigPockets that sell on refurbished Computers of all types. I bought a Dell laptop from them about two years ago that works fine. My teenagers use it and because it only cost about ?160 I don't worry too much about it getting hauled from room to room, no doubt your mum's would be subject to much kinder use.

I'm not at all knowledgeable about specs and so on but the site will give you details. Mine does all it needs to for me.

Good luck.

[ratty]

Thanks for all these tips. Makes my life that bit easier. She did not really blow the pc up. Think it just ran out if steam.