Looking for a laptop max of £400

[Mr Banana]

Ok i am looking for a new laptop as an upgrade for the eeepc i have for sale (i don't mind if it's another eeepc - it has served me well).

I don't want something massive and heavy, looking to play a few games now and then but nothing too fancy - enough to handle supreme commander 2 will do - or is that asking too much with £400?

[Mr. Grapes]

have you looked at CULV notebooks? range from 11" (Dell 11z) up to 14-15" generally. Asus do the UL30 for about £350 from a warehouse that sells phones for cars.

all have the same res (1366x768) no matter what screen size, choice of CPU's from 1.3GHz celeron core solo's to dual core jobbies. proper Core architecture with typically 8Hrs of battery life, but with some actual CPU power. only downside is usually only intel HD4500 GFX except where some have added discrete graphics as well (e.g. GT210m)

[Mr Banana]

Well i have been thinking about getting a 12" eeepc with the nvidia ion chipset along side a dual core atom.
http://www.simplyasus.com/ASUS_EEE_PC_1201N_700446.html

I think a 12" screen should suit me nicely.

Thoughts on that unit (of course i know it won't run SC2 though)?

[El Wayneo]

You can get an 11" Acer ferrari laptop with 3200 ATi graphics for about £385.

Athlon II dual core as well.

[Mr. Grapes]

that's the fly in the ointment... ION netbook...

tbh, the GFX are probably not quite good enough to be useful (unless you want to run XBMC live from it...) and the same goes for the CPU.
So I think I'd still take CPU over GPU tho...
I'd love to 'borrow' one for a month, but I'll probably just stick with mu D600 a while longer...

[Mr. Grapes]

You can get an 11" Acer ferrari laptop with 3200 ATi graphics for about £385.

Athlon II dual core as well.

as long as you don't mind the Ferrari branding. something that puts me off a bit..

[Mr Banana]

I am looking more towards 12/13" screens here.

[sibeer]

The HP Ion 11.6 on offer at Aria currently is the same as mine. It is great for light gaming, have a look here for an idea of what is possible on one:

http://myhpmini.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=54&t=2280

[sibeer]

Found the Aria link too:

http://www.aria.co.uk/SuperSpecials/Other+products/HP+Compaq+Mini+311c+ION+11.6%22+Netbook+-+%28VJ555EA%23ABU%29+?productId=40618

Cost me about £350, but that was over 8 months ago.

[pt-]

The HP ION netbook that we have is absolutely awesome + for the price I think it's good value. I hear rumours that you can overclock it as well to make it into a beast. It's on the myhpmini website.

[Mr. Grapes]

not bad... this is one of the ones i was considering.

[davee]

I saw a vid of an Nvidia ION netbook running COD 4 fine. Should mean its fine for Sup Com 2. Sup Com 2 sucks in comparison to Sup Com anyway.

[sibeer]

Yep, will go up to around 2Ghz no probs, but I don't like to clock laptops as they break easy enough without making them hotter :cry

Really easy to change the Ion to full Ion from LE too as that is only a XP Netbook license restriction and the chipset is the same as the Windows 7 ones. Just need mod drivers and you are good to go, or you can tell your bios that it's a Windows 7 model, but that's a little more involved.

[Bradmax57]

I just got a Dell Vostro 1220 for £299+VAT

Spec c2d P8600 1066fsb 3mb cache
1280x800 12.1" Glossy with 1.3mb webcam
DVDRW
3 USB, vga, sd card reader, LAN, Modem, mini pcmie (or whatever its called)
B/G Wifi
Vista Business (changed to win7 pro)
2gb (1 dimm spare)
250gb 7200 16mb Cache
Intel GMA4500

Other than the GMA 4500 its brilliant, but for cpu intensive stuff its not too bad, copes with Half Life 2 good enough :)

Only downside was it didnt come with Bluetooth, I bought the module and fitted it myself, had to rip the whole thing to part which was a bit of a chore but now all working and am pretty happy with it, its very sturdy, has a nice keyboard and touchpad which works pretty well.

[Lukna]

Same here.
Looking for a perfect laptop for 2 months now.
12" or 13", 10" is just to small for me.
With a budget of £500 is really hard to find laptop with something better than Intel GMA4500HD.
Was waiting for an Ion 2 like Asus 1201PN but as it seems it still doesn't come with optimus and not sure if Atom is worth it.
After reading many reviews best choice will probably be Asus UL30 or Acer Aspire Timeline 1810TZ (11.6")
Only thing that holds me back is the 4500HD, but guess I just expect too much for £500.
Hope it helps mate.

[Bradmax57]

seriously the gma4500 isnt too bad for some light gameplay, ive tried half life 2, gtr evolution, team fortess 2 etc all run fine, then again i do have a strong cpu to back it up, would be good if someone could develop some decent drivers as from my understanding its not that bad hardware wise?