The Wondering Brit

I think everyone who has ever read this blog or knows me knows that when it comes to Laptop purchasing – I strongly recommend Dell!
I’ve been messing around with laptops for years and have learned many things to double check before purchasing one.
There are also companies I will no longer go near like Sony, Toshiba and Apple, and for good reason!
If you want instant bang for your buck, then you opt for Acer, if you want equal bang for your buck but robustness and lost cost parts availability then you go for Dell.
The trick with Dell is to find as near perfect model, power and features on thier website and then RING THEM!!! Tell them you can’t find ‘exactly’ what you want and make sure you tell them you don’t want to spend more than a given amount – the trick is for that figure to be £100 less that what you did want to spend… Because true to any sales person – they’ll try to tempt you to part with just a little more! They will then bulid you the laptop!

In a moment I’ll prove this fact with what our intrepid reader and commenter Fenny has just done!

But when it comes to power and innovation – Dell always win hands down!!  While many people will rave about the Macbook Air, what they don’t know is that Dell had already produced a thinner, stronger and far more powerful version of that design for less money than the Mac book – the irony is the shear number of Air users switching to Windows 7!!

After all, Dell producted the first ever multi touch tablet that is fully functional and truly works – unlike many of the competitors!

Their latest Latitude Z is a very smart bit of kit and has been around since Sept 09, yet again – we’re hear little or nothing about it. Heck it has auto document  scanning and facial recognition from it’s webcam – the moment you step away it logs you off, like wise upon your return it recognises you, unlocks the laptop and logs you on. It also has induction charging if you so want it and smartphone connectivity.

As for parts : You must remember that the real cost value of a laptop to a manufacturer is around $120! The single most expensive part is the screen and these cost them $12.50. Your screen is never covered by the warranty and I replaced mine for £60. But I’ve worn out the keyboard on my Inspiron 6400 and it cost me £10.41 for a brand new one on Ebay! As such I NEVER purchase a warranty… It just isnt worth it (to me anyway).

So as of Feb 2010, what was the best bang for Fenny’s buck?
Well Fenny and I sat down over the phone and went through the process of looking at all the available things on the market – the top of the resulting list was Acer and Lenovo!
We then went to the Dell site and looked at the nearest Laptop for price… It came down to processor and wifi/Bluetooth and ram quantities.
A day later and Fenny had phoned Dell and what she got even astounded me!!

Dell Inspiron in Obsidian Black   
Intel® Core  i5-430M (2.26Ghz, 4Threads, turbo boost up to 2.53 GHz,3M cache) 
15.6″ High Definition (1366×768) WLED    
1.3 Mega pixel Integrated Web Camera    
4096MB 1067MHz Dual Channel DDR3 SDRAM [2x2048]    
500GB (5400RPM) Serial ATA Hard Drive    
DVD +/- RW Drive (read/write CD & DVD)     
Primary 6-cell 48 WHr Lithium Ion battery    
1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5450  1  
Dell Wireless 1397 Mini Card (802.11 b/g)    
Dell Wireless 365 Bluetooth Module
90W AC Adaptor

Now, I went off around the web looking for a laptop with that power and the cheapest I found was £980! Cozmic took a wild guess at £1400…
Total cost – try £600!!!!

So yeah, you want power – reliability and ultimate quality…. Now you know where and how to buy it!!
Just so we’re clear about this – I’m not talking to Fenny at the moment!