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hi folks looking to buy a descent new laptop up to £300 - £400 never owned one so would like a bit of help please, not for games just the internet really cheers. ;)
                                                            All advice is much appreciated.

Acer Aspire 5750

HPPavilion g6

ASUSX501A-XX006V

Kev, personnally i will go for them they are good computer especially the asus .  ;).Nap

P.C World has a H.P Pavilion on offer it ends today. Should be £529 now £329 plus £200 worth of free software and stuff.lol. Its online aswell

If its just for browsing the Internet?

Have you thought about an iPad?

Always on, no boot time, locked down, virus free.

You can pick up an iPad 2 for that money or even an iPad 3

Barely use my laptop nowadays (apart from photo editing, downloading). iPad just so convenient and used every day!

As Nap says Asus are good machines, though I can't say I've got my finger on the pulse of what,s hot in the laptop world ;D
I bought one a few weeks ago from, of all places, Asda, for a very good price. Have a look here;
http://direct.asda.com/Laptops/4061,default,sc.html (http://direct.asda.com/Laptops/4061,default,sc.html)

Like Napoleon I would recoomend the HP Pavillion g6. I paid £499 for mine last year so £329 is a bargain. I also had never owned a laptop before getting mine. The HP Pavillion is excellent and I am well satisfied with mine. If you missed that PC world offer I bet if you went in tomorrow they would still let you have it.

I'm with JRD. Gotta be a Mac.

I've had an iPad for a few years now, not a bad piece of kit.

Just bought a Google Nexus 7, £199, half the price of an iPad.
Must admit very impressed up 'til now, Great for browsing the interweb
and you can play lots of free games as well.

Only bad point....front facing camera (very strange).

lots of good laptops around but I'd advise you to think of how you intend to use it before selecting one.

One of the most limiting factors is the screen size . lots of huge 17"+ screens out there but most are now widescreen which is brilliant for movies but absolutely useless for regular Word and Excell useage due to the ratio of height to width of the screen.

I have used a HP Pavillion DV7 17" for a couple of years now and to be honest I hate the thing. Well to be honest I just hate laptops period . The screen height is just 8.5"  and with Windows 7 taskbars , sidebars and all the other information bars at the top and bottom of the screen it seriously reduces the vertical viewing area.



If you are used to using a 22" +  LCD screen you'll probably find a laptop's work area restrictive for surfing and word /excel type applications. you need to consider the screen's 'aspect ratio' and the screens 'native resolution' carefully.

Whatever you do don't choose a laptop with the combined mousepad and buttons . These abominations should have been phased out by now but i expect there will be a few on offer here and there.
With these, you cannot rest a finger on the left or right  mouse button ready toselect something at the same time as using another finger on the mouse pad part to move the cursor on the screen or scroll the page. My advice would be to select a laptop with seperate pad and mouse buttons .

larger laptops 17"+ generally have provision for 2x hard disc drives make sure that you either have 2x drives fitted or it is supplied with the caddy and connecting cable for fitting a second hard drive. i had to order my second caddy and cable from the US because the HP Pavillion DV7 came without them!

As others have said you need to think how you intend to use the laptop. Because we spend a lot of time  ,in the garden, conservatory  and out camping in our RV and surfing whilst watching tv we decided to buy ourselves a 10" netbook each which is brilliant for carting about and sitting on your knee . We even use them in bed for downloading TV programes and general surfing or reading books on them. I would imagine an Iplayer or tablet type netbook would be even better.

If like me you are a togger and spend a lot of your time editing pictures and videos and business bookkeeping /company accounts etc you'll probably  need a large hi-res screen with plenty of memory and dual hard drive . its horses for courses ;D