Advice needed on buying lap-top please

[Catwoman]

Hi everyone. I need a bit of help deciding which/what type of computer/lap-top I should consider buying. ???It's an idea for birthday pressie for my 17yr old. She is used to a French key-board, so unless they are MEGA-more expensive here, I would prob buy in France, but that's as far as my knowledge goes! Hard to believe, I know, in this day and age, that there should be someone like me, but there you are. ::)Any ideas/suggestions/help greatly appreciated (ps: pls dont talk about very tekky stuff without explaining it! As far as I am concerned, a "byte" is something you take out of an apple).
Thank yooo

[Ali]

Whats your budget CW - how much are you going to spend?

[lib]

And what would she be using it for, and would it need to travel?

[Catwoman]

My budget is as little as I can get away with!! Is 300-400 euros too silly ? My computer is about 7 years old, (I know, don't say it!) so I'm not really sure how much they cost nowadays, but I'm sure u can spend loads! I'd like to get a fairly decent one that won't be out-of-date within a year, and yes, if it could travel without being too teeeny, that would be good. She would use it for school work and probably these sites like facebook, You tube and music things.

[Ali]

I think this is really hard to answer.

Everyone will have their own opinion.

Personally I would go for a netbook. Netbooks are just the same (except they don't have a CD drive) as Lap Tops only a huge amount lighter and smaller to pop in a bag and go.

They have SD, SDHC, SDXC, MMC card slot if she wants to listen to music etc and can swap and save data using that. (They are the same things that iPods and cameras use)

They have built in wifi so she can sit at home, school, MaccyDos or any wifi zone and surf

Their batteries tend to last around 10 hours or so whilst in use without charge (longer than lappys).

Fli has a Samsung Netbook, the screen is brilliant, so much better than the lappy I'm using at the moment and if we go anywhere we take the Samsung Netbook not the lappy as the netbook is so much smaller and lighter.

Here's an amazon.fr link to netbooks:

www.amazon.fr/gp/search/ref=sr_nr_n_7?rh=n%3A340858031%2Cn%3A!340859031%2Cn%3A429878031&bbn=340859031&ie=UTF8&qid=1312789316&rnid=340859031

For a price bracket I'd go somewhere between 300 and 400 euros.

Anybody else have some suggestions?

[Catwoman]

Thanks, I'll have a look; so would I be right in saying that if I got a laptop not a notebook, she could watch dvds on it?

[Donkey0aty]

She'll be able to watch dvd's on a laptop,but not on a notebook.

IMHO I'd go for a Dell with their service package. If anything goes wrong with it,they'll pick it up,provide a replacement whilst they fix the original,and then return yours all sorted. Dell's are the "volvo" of the laptop world!

Anything over 2.6Ghz is ok,and if you can afford it (or someone else can) then I'd get an external hard-drive for back-up. Keeping everything important on an ex-HD frees up memory on the laptop and keeps it running faster,also safer in case of bugs........Donk

[Catwoman]

Thanks for all the suggestions, I think I need to go on a few web-sites/in a few shops and have a look now