[Moneysaver217]

Dear forum, I am a new user. I HAVE 4 QUESTIONS. I want a new laptop for under £500

Criteria:

-university work
-Browsing Internet/Mail
-Iplayer videos
-Long Battery life
-Fast Performance Machine (No hang time)

MY RESEARCH:

The Acer Aspire 6930G.
Aspire 6930G 16-inch Laptop, Intel Core 2 Duo T5800: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

OR

Play.com (UK) : Acer Aspire 6930G - 583G25BN / Core 2 Duo T5800 2GHz / 3GB / 250GB / 16" / Blu-ray / Vista Home Premium / Laptop / Notebook (LX.AUU0X.214) : Computing - Free Delivery


1) Is this the correct choice for my needs?
2) Where shall I buy the 6930G from? Amazon or Play, both have 1 year warranty, but the product numbers are different. Play has LX.AUU0X.214 and Amazon has LX.AUU0X.151, which one do I select and what is the difference?
3) Is it the best Acer under £500? Anything better you recommend?
4) Also what is the difference between these 2, one is £445 and the other £480:

Aspire 6930G 16-inch Laptop, Intel Core 2 Duo T5800: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

and

Aspire 6930G 16-inch Laptop, Intel Core 2 Duo T5800: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

4 Questions which I hope you can answer. Thanks.

[Numptycodhead]

[QUOTE=Moneysaver217;9487162]
4) Also what is the difference between these 2, one is £445 and the other £480:

Aspire 6930G 16-inch Laptop, Intel Core 2 Duo T5800: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo

and

Aspire 6930G 16-inch Laptop, Intel Core 2 Duo T5800: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo
QUOTE]


The difference between the two is that the more expensive one has a Blu-Ray drive instead of a CD/DVD combo.


I'm no expert on these so I can't really answer your other questions but they all seem like much of a muchness in terms of spec. I guess if you had a specific need for something, then you'd notice it was missing!

My best guess is that the spec should suit your needs (no heavy gaming!) except for your battery life. I'm sure someone will flame/correct me on this but on these bigger machines, the battery life tends not to be what they're built for. And then it depends how hard you push your machine and how bright you have the display etc.
If you are looking for portability, nip down your local retailer and check out the size before you buy online, you might be surprised at the size/weight.

[Iccz]

It's a perfectly good laptop and will do all you require.
As said above the blu-ray drive is a slight difference.
Most laptops around the 400-500 mark are pretty much one and the same bar a few minor things such as drives and audio etc, they will pretty much all be able to easily cope with what you need to do on them.

Battery life is pretty much standard on laptops that size you get 2-3 hours, if you need a high life battery then you can look at buying a better battery for the machine or get a netbook - but they're only 10"

Work, Browsing and iPlayer are all very low in terms of their demand so they'll be fine, and ask for the machine not hanging, providing you keep it clean - no spyware etc then it'll run perfectly smoothly

[Moneysaver217]

Can someone answer Question 2 please. So I can go and buy it tomorrow.

2) Where shall I buy the 6930G from? Amazon or Play, both have 1 year warranty, but the product numbers are different. Play has LX.AUU0X.214 and Amazon has LX.AUU0X.151, which one do I select and what is the difference?

[Mark Kay]

The difference was that the '151' machine had DDR3 memory whilst the other has only DDR2.

Amazon now out of stock though.

[Moneysaver217]

Thanks for the answer Emperor. Is there a big difference between ddr2 and ddr3? Im thinking of buying it from play.com for £480, the ddr2 one underneath.

Play.com (UK) : Acer Aspire 6930G - 583G25BN / Core 2 Duo T5800 2GHz / 3GB / 250GB / 16" / Blu-ray / Vista Home Premium / Laptop / Notebook (LX.AUU0X.214) : Computing - Free Delivery

Should I go for it?

And finally how does it compare to this one from Argos, better or worse?

Buy Acer Aspire 7730 17in Laptop. at Argos.co.uk - Your Online Shop for .

Appreciate the help.

[Mark Kay]

Wouldn't like to say what difference the RAM would make as I'm guessing that the DDR3 mmeory is the cheap type with high latency.

The Argos machine has onboard/shared graphics so I would avoid this model.