Hi all,

My mother is studying an online university course and she wants a new laptop to work on. It has to have the following specifications, according to what her uni recommends:

Processor: 3.0 GHz processor
Memory: 2 GB of RAM
Drives: DVD-RW which can read and write both DVD and CD discs
Hard disk: at least 100 GB hard disk drive (typical sizes usually 300 GB and up)
Screen: 17” LCD screen (desktop) or 15.4” (laptop).
It also has to be Windows OS

I'm trying to buy her one for Christmas (a new one, she's refusing a used or refurb :-/ ) but I make £200 a month. I have a small amount of savings but I can only go as far as £350 for a laptop and even then I'm really pushing it.

My question is, is it even possible to buy a computer of this specification, and new, for £350 or less? If so, could anyone point me to where I might find one? I've been looking online all over the place and it seems to be the processor speed that's the bugbear. I can find plenty of laptops that meet all the other specs, but nothing that has a processor beyond 2.5ghz (and that was with something called Burst, without that the speed was 2.16ghz I think).

My second question is, she only needs the laptop for basic internet, word processing, and watching videos. Her course doesn't have any special computer software that she has to use or anything like that so I personally think a slower processor would be fine. The specs above are listed by her university as 'recommended' but as she only needs the laptop for basic everyday things, could she get away with a slower processor, or no? Any advice/guidance would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Edited to add:

My mum just saw this: http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produ...ber/2927789.htm and loves it. Specs are:

CPU, Memory and Operating System:

Intel Pentium N3540 quad core processor.
2.16GHz processor speed.
4GB RAM.
1000GB SATA hard drive.
Microsoft Windows 8.1.

Display features:

15.6 inch screen.
High definition display.
Resolution 1366 x 768 pixels.

DVD optical drives:

DVD+RW (read/write).

It doesn't have the recommended speed as you can see, but would it work well for what she needs it for?

Those recommended specs don't mention the number of CPU cores. Do you have info on that? It's not as simple as "dual core 1.5 Ghz = single core 3Ghz", but a quad core at 2.16Ghz is definitely going to outpace a single core 3Ghz. So given that you say there isn't any special software she needs with esoteric requirements, I'd say a 2-2.5Ghz quad or higher would be more than sufficient. Honestly, it'll probably be overkill. I think going for 4GB of RAM is a good idea, as 2GB is going to suck pretty bad on Windows 7 or 8.

They're offering a nice saving on that laptop. The only roughly comparable machine I can find elsewhere for that price point is the Acer Aspire ES1-512-C5YW from Novatech, which is slightly cheaper but suffers quite a bit on CPU and has less hard drive space than the HP; so I'd go for the Argos deal.

It doesn't say anything about the number of cores unfortunately, just that it should be 3GHz - I'm not exactly good with computers myself so I don't really have any understanding of how good a processor is, I just take whatever the shop mentions at face value.

Unfortunately, the laptop that I linked is completely sold out which has upset my mother greatly, haha. I will keep the one you mentioned in mind but my mum isn't sold on it yet.

Oh, that's a shame! If you have a look in the "Help building/buying a new computer" sticky, there are links to some other good UK suppliers whose websites it'd be worth browsing.

Thanks Nysha, I'll have a good look around there

Pizza, unfortunately that one is sold out too for both home delivery and store pick up (I checked every store within 20 miles as well ) I might give Currys/Argos a call tomorrow and just ask if there's any left at all, never know, might get lucky.