Going to buy New Laptop. Your help and advice

Hello all,

Just a quick one for you and sure it will fire up all sorts of interesting advice.
I am looking at buying a new laptop this week as ny 2 year old Compaq v6 series no longer cutting it really and wanted a new laptop that would rund Windows 7 64Bit well.
My desktop has installs of 64Bit and 32Bit 7048 but have decided I will leave that running 32Bit only as mostly use that.
I want to start using a laptop more often as my main computer so that I can move things around a little here to make for more room.

Now the bit I need you all for....... I have about £550 to spend and just want a nice laptop for every day use that will be good for Windows 7 64Bit to be installed. So really will need to have 4Gb Ram and good size Hdd. Was looking at possibly one of the new Acer machines as looking much better now. (Couple of years ago wouldn't give them a second look)
Was perhapse looking at a 17" version.
The other possibility was a HP pavillion but so many versions hard to know what one.

So come on lets get that grey matter going and see if someone can come up with my new dream machine for a miniscule budget of £550. I am a little poor right now so all I have to spend.

Thanks in advance all.

From the prices over this side of the pond I notice the Acer's usually have the same price as the HP's, but usually outfitted with a better video card, more RAM and HD space.

Looks like in conversion to CDN, you have about 998 to spend, with that in mind I looked at our best online store in Canada, NCIX.com:

NCIX.com - Buy Acer AS7730-6717 Intel Core 2 Duo T6400 4GB 320GB 17IN WXGA DVDRW LAN Vista Home Premium Notebook - LX.AS30X.011 In Canada.

4GB ram and 17 inch display, 2.16ghz dual core2, pretty nice for 969$ and in your price range.

Another model is:

NCIX.com - Buy Acer AS6935-6683 Core 2 Duo T6400 4GB 500GB 16IN WXGA DVDRW Vista Premium Notebook - LX.ATN0X.047 In Canada.

Bigger HD, a couple extra bucks more then 998$ but still, up to you if its worth the extra HD.

NCIX.com - Buy Acer Aspire AS5735-6999 Core 2 Duo T6400 4GB 500GB 15.6IN WXGA DVDRW LAN Vista Premium Notebook - LX.AU50X.261 In Canada.

This one is nice, but only a 15.6 display, however its 879$.

Some good choices for your "small" budget, I wish I had that much to blow on a nice new laptop, I'm thinking of a netbook personally, just for surfing and playing sins of a solar empire.

Thanks Angryman, the advice very usefull, was looking at the same models to be honest. Just a case of making mind up as to the 17" monitor version I think.
I tell you I am only spending this much as it is because of an insurance payout. Times are bloody tough right now I tell you. Hence the request for advice, don't want to be making a mistake.
I also said small budget as there is always someone out there who comes back and says...... "I wouldn't spend less that £1500 on a good laptop". Hell wouldn't that be nice but sadly we have other things more important to spend the cash on, like ever demanding kids. lol


Anyway thanks again for the input and the time you took to look into it. Much appreciated.

Yeah, well hardware is reasonable until you go bleeding edge, then the price doubles practically.

not worth the bother, 3 weeks later its the second rate price like the rest of it!