Good laptop for under 300?

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08 Oct 2011, 1:29 pm

Hey!
My Macbook Aluminium I bought February 2010 is starting to go on its way out.
My Macbooks issues:
1. Screen flickers at boot or after waken from sleep
2. Sometimes I cannot get the laptop to boot OSX (Black screen, Its on But I cannot turn it off or anything forcing me to remove the battery)
3.The battery is almost dead
4.The body work is chipped all over the place.
5. I have experienced the screen locking up and graphical artefacts all over the screen about 4 times so far.
I take really good care of my laptops. I never drop them or bash them or anything like that.
I have used it as my desktop until July this year.
It has left my house multiple amounts of times (As we go on holiday allot).

I need my new laptop to be reliable.
It needs to be reasonably good quality.
I was thinking of getting the HP G62, but the issue is that its not got too much of a good GPU (Dont mind an Intel one it just that I would rather have something with a little more power).
Is this asking a little much for 300?
It needs to be under 15 inches.
I will be purchasing it next year.
I will be mainly running Linux on it.

V001
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08 Oct 2011, 3:10 pm

Find a lap top maker that will allow you to buy without windows or even has Linux preinstalled.
Iam guessing you know how to install Linux ?

mglosenger
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08 Oct 2011, 5:24 pm

One other thing.. surely your Mac is still under warranty.. perhaps you want to switch over to Linux regardless, but why not get a fixed Mac while you're at it

Madbones
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08 Oct 2011, 5:54 pm

mglosenger wrote:

One other thing.. surely your Mac is still under warranty.. perhaps you want to switch over to Linux regardless, but why not get a fixed Mac while you're at it

Its probably not worth fixing if you think about it.
I prefer Linux anyway.
Plus, I would get an i3 laptop if I bought a new one (the HP one is an i3) so I think it would be worth spending the 300.

Madbones
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08 Oct 2011, 5:54 pm

V001 wrote:

Find a lap top maker that will allow you to buy without windows or even has Linux preinstalled.
Iam guessing you know how to install Linux ?

Yeah I know how.
Know any good sites that will allow me to do it.

SammichEater
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08 Oct 2011, 5:57 pm

I'd go with one of AMD's accelerated processing units over an i3 with s***ty graphics.

If, by under 300, you mean less than 300 USD, you don't have much of a choice. Many low power netbooks cost more than $300.

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Madbones
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08 Oct 2011, 6:02 pm

SammichEater wrote:

I ment pounds sorry.
PC Specialist allows me to build a reasonably good system for under 311 pounds.
Pretty good.
Except the CPU is 1.5 dual (I think) AMD Zacate

Enigmatic_Oddity
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08 Oct 2011, 6:34 pm

Under $300 the only option I can see is a netbook with Linux. Even then it'd have to be an older model with minimal RAM and onboard storage.

HalibutSandwich
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08 Oct 2011, 10:13 pm

So you're in the UK? Just google "linux laptops". Here's a Lenovo for 335:
http://shop.linuxemporium.co.uk/hardwar ... 260aae9518

MudandStars
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09 Oct 2011, 3:17 am

Madbones wrote:

I ment pounds sorry.

£300 is a bit over $450 USD for people's information

.

this link may be helpful for you

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/laptops-under-GBP300/page.asp

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mglosenger
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09 Oct 2011, 5:13 am

Madbones wrote:

mglosenger wrote:

One other thing.. surely your Mac is still under warranty.. perhaps you want to switch over to Linux regardless, but why not get a fixed Mac while you're at it

Its probably not worth fixing if you think about it.
I prefer Linux anyway.
Plus, I would get an i3 laptop if I bought a new one (the HP one is an i3) so I think it would be worth spending the 300.

If it's under warranty, fixing it would be free, but, true, it would involve some effort, and perhaps you consider it too much effort.

Madbones
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09 Oct 2011, 5:20 am

mglosenger wrote:

Madbones wrote:

mglosenger wrote:

One other thing.. surely your Mac is still under warranty.. perhaps you want to switch over to Linux regardless, but why not get a fixed Mac while you're at it

Its probably not worth fixing if you think about it.
I prefer Linux anyway.
Plus, I would get an i3 laptop if I bought a new one (the HP one is an i3) so I think it would be worth spending the 300.

If it's under warranty, fixing it would be free, but, true, it would involve some effort, and perhaps you consider it too much effort.

Unfortunately its not under warranty anymore.
Its not definite I'l get a new one.
I really to be honest want to upgrade my Macbook, but it would be a huge waste upgrading it to 4GB of ram and a 1TB HDD if it breaks a couple months later.

Enigmatic_Oddity
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09 Oct 2011, 6:38 am

You could always use the RAM and hard drive for your next computer even if it does break down.

mglosenger
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09 Oct 2011, 7:41 am

Ah, yeah, if it's not under warranty then that's a whole other thing. Re: RAM and hard drive, you can reuse the RAM as long as they both use DDR2 or DDR3 or whatnot. Ditto for hard drives as long as they both use IDE or both use SATA (new computers should all use SATA for a few years now..).

And you'll definitely be able to get a similarly capable Linux system for cheaper than an Apple system.

Madbones
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09 Oct 2011, 10:28 am

mglosenger wrote:

Yeah.
This is why I love Linux, it runs on anything, but if you put on a good system its even more amazing.

Might get a Samsung RV511-A07UK Core i3 Laptop.

Orr
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09 Oct 2011, 10:55 am

I recently purchased a Dell Lattitude D810 from ebay for £95. Pentium M 780 @2.26, 15.4" 1900x1200 LCD, ATI x600 video card, 2 RAM slots for up to 2GB( only £20 from big-name manufacturer), IDE only, no SATA. This machine has no problem running the latest version of Fedora. I do not use the laptop for watching 1080p videos, or playing the latest 3d games, which are the only major advantages I could see in a more powerful system. I was considering buying a netbook, but ultimately could not justify the extra cost, although a warranty would be nice.

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