Laptop purchase - advice appreciated

My Toshiba has been very good.

It has survived having a cup of lemon and ginger tea thrown all over it, twice!

No good to me, I don't drink that. Could you test it with a cup of Earl Grey please?

I think any tea is alright so long as it doesn't have sugar in it.

I've never moved so fast as when I've spilt tea on the computer.

If you're going to buy a new laptop then its something you want for a long while so might as well fork out a lot more for top quality one, £400 will get you a decent one but really you need to be spending at least 300 quid more

Sony, Toshiba or HP best in general? Any particular model under £400 that is a stand out?

you've been on here for 12 years and you;re asking for advice on a  400 quid laptop

Er...what's your point?

You'll need to be more specific on your requirements. You don't need to spend $400 on a laptop just to run Microsoft Word.

i.e. what is more important, storage, speed, memory etc

They all do the same phucking thing for 400 quid, just a different name, like with cloths and food, you are playing for the name, quality wise all the same, just maybe different specs, i.e some have 4gb memory, some 6, the ones with the better rep have 4gb for 400 quid the ones like acer may have 6 for 400, don;t be robbed and fooled on name

when I first started school, people took the piss when I wore a trainer brand no one had heard of, I was the best footballer in the year and they all then wanted to know where they could get my trainers so they could be as good, TRENDY names are no different to regular joes they just have more nicely marketed products. they all virtually do the same phucking thing

Just had a scout round deals on laptops at Currys

Nothing worthwhile - the only decent one at the moment is out of your price range

There's stuff about £100 cashback on laptops though

For the one you have got -- you should be able to turn on the backlit keyboard (if it has one, which is not clear from PCW/Currys site) and you will be able to change the mouse pad sensitivity.

Probably: start > all programs > vaio control centre > keyboard & mouse > look around for something likely.

Some techies will be along soon -- I have to go to work.

Replacements: i5 is better than i3 although either is fine; 8GB RAM is better than 4GB. Check the keyboard layout for spare keys that will annoy you.

I hate HP with a vengeance!

My daughter's HP Pavilion (large screen) cost me circa £600.00 before VAT. I saved that through my business.

It went "Blue Screen" two weeks out of warranty.

I e-mailed them on a Sunday and got a positive response the same day which was fantastic. It was a known problem
being the "Graphics Card" which was integral with the "Mother Board".

They would send a bag for return and fix it as ""a onetime out of warranty repair". How fantastic is that?

Then they realised that I was not in the US and would pass it to UK.

A week later there was no response so I pursued it and it was a bag of rats. First they said they wouldn't do it,
but later said they would followed by they wouldn't.

What they would do is repair it for £250.00 but if the repair didn't work they still wanted £250.00!

How beyond disgraceful is that? It wouldn't cost 250.00 to send a new one!

So we have the great British contemptuous rip off again.

The Americans pay two thirds of the price here and get top class and caring service.

The only thing I regretted later, is not passing it to "Watch Dog", because they would have been crucified!

I bought her an "Acer" which looks and is fantastic, and still going strong two and a half years later.

As Ramruna said, if your existing one does have a backlight,  go to Vaio Control Center/Mouse and Keyboard  and select Keyboard Backlight.

If you click on Touchpad Operations you can also change settings for that, you could turn off the tap function so you actually need to press the button rather than slightly tapping the touchpad to click.

Having said that my last 2 laptops have been Toshiba and have had no problems.

Cheers. Don't have that mouse and keyboard option through the control center which makes me think it doesn't have the backlight, but the reviews of it on the site say that it does have it so am no further forward.

Will have a look at touchpad operations, thanks.

You normally get a better deal online than in a shop
Try some of the links on the left to the below sites from my website

http://www.smashiton.com/Main/Computing.htm

Ebuyer
Savastore
Dabs
ChiiliBlast
UKPartPicker
eBay computers
Computer Planet
Dell
EuroPC
Zoom
PCSpecialist

Have you decided on :-
screen size
battery - do you intend to use it often when not plugged in? (Most cheaper laptop battery use time is pretty short ca 2 hours)
Operating system required? - If bought without, you can buy e.g. Windows 7 for ca £35-40 on ebay
processor  Fro intel processors, the i7 is fastest & dearest followed by i5 & i3
hard drive - old style or solid state drive?
memory
dvd drive
......

http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/toshiba-satellite-l50...   this is a nice computer if you add in another 4GB of ram

I know u said u dont like lenovos, but I was in pc world just a few days ago and had alook at this laptoo in real life

^http://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/computing/laptops/laptops/lenovo-z50-70-15-6-l... and must say it was really nice, solid processor and full HD screen

if u really cant spend over £400 id go with that toshiba and get another 4GB of ram installed