Any chance anyone with any idea can help?
Friends want a laptop and went to Curry's to have a look. She said she can get a Toshiba one for £379. I said Curry's were probably expensive and there would be better deals around.
Anyone know where they can get a decent laptop for a good price? They dont need anything fancy - just word and broadband....
And while we're there, they dont have a home phone but obviously need to pay line rental for broadband ( I presume). They dont care about a home phone but will get one if its not very much money. Any ideas? Talk Talk must surely be cheap phone calls. Thats what I have and it comes with free broadband. Can you beat that?

Any help appreciated as I'm crap at these things and will be looking for a new laptop soon myself

carphone warehouse give away a laptop with their broadband i beleive!

Talktalk is same company as carphone warehouse.
I've heard talktalk wasn't the best when it came out but they bought AOL last year and thats who I'm with and never had any problems with them. Maybe buying AOL helped them sort out their problems too.

As for laptops don't buy a Sony unless you've got more money than sense, its the same as any other for twice the price and very poor service from what my mate told me about his.
I have a Acer which I think is spot on and most my family have Dell which is probably the easiest and most customisable to buy from but maybe not the cheapest.

dell do a good deal, there's a fair few good offers on laptopsdirect.co.uk too

thanks folks, much appreciated

Ebuyer.com in Sheffield, online of course have always come up with the goods for me but they'll only do the hardware. Even my very tight son used them. They do an Acer laptop for less than £400 which is more than adequate.

Dell was crap, on personal experience don't touch them, when the laptop was on the cooling fan sounded like a motobike running.

Don't buy Sony. Nice kit but one problem; they don't sell replacement parts only parts and labour. Whatever needs doing they insist its sent back to them at £200 a hour.

Staples seem to have a good one on offer at the mo. HP with 2GB RAM and 160GB hard drive, can't remember the model no. but it's instore and worth a look. Dell have good deals on generally. Mine's a Dell, but if I didn't have one I'd deffo give the one at Staples the once over.

On the phone line thing, if they don't want or need a landline in, why not go for one of these new mobile broadband things. We use the t-mobile one at work and it's cracking, I think 3 have launched one for something like £10 a month for 1gb, which doesn't sound a lot, but if you don't download music or films and only want it for occasion surfing, seems canny to me.

http://www.three.co.uk/personal/product ... detail.omp

T-mobiles current offer is unlimited downloads for £15 a month, problem is its a two year contract.

http://www.t-mobile.co.uk/shop/mobile-b ... y-monthly/

As for the laptop, horses for courses, never had a problem with Dell, got two Inspiron's at SWMBO's business, no problems with them. Start at £329 from dell themselves.

dont get HP, ive had nothing but problems, with the screen keep going off, and after 6 months the built in wifi breaks, it happens on most HP & COMPAQ laptops, google it if you dont believe me, its a big well known problem.

I have an Acer which is OK, but wasnt that cheap. I have bought loads of Dells, they are failry cheap, well built and last for a while. I personally wouldnt look anywhere else. Phones - avoid BT if you can cos they are basically the Devil in earthly form - they will do anything they can to get your money and not give you the service that you paid for, and then they will offer the worst service imaginable. Not that I'm twisted by bitter experience of them like.

I'm so twisted and bitter by what has happened to us in the past three years in here, I must have a face like a big round bitter twisty thing

If you gunna buy from Currys or Comet i would buy online as its usually cheaper and free delivery.

Woolworths do laptops for £300,not sure how good they are tho.

No you haven't, parmo, you look very nice

1hour after i wrote about my compaq laptop it fookin well only packed in! having to get it sent away for repairs or hopefully a new one! fookin sods law or what

I agree with Mr PTBAP, I use a Vodaphone 3g broadband card and its fantastic. Good connection 99% of the time and it makes a laptop really portable, you can even use it in a moving vehicle - not if you're driving obviously!

I now don't have a home phone line and I don't think I'll ever have one again.

I get this card free from work but if I didn't I'd certainly get one. £25 a month for unlimited data transfer anywhere in the world.