First Born wants to buy a new laptop but doesn't know what make. She's prepared to pay up to a grand, recommendations please. We've currently got between us a Dell (been rubbish), an Acer (OK I guess), HP (old, slow, but does the husband) and a Compaq Presario (been reliable but the battery is now shite).

It's just for Uni work, music, photography, internet. Doesn't need 'complicated and stupid' - her words!

Go with Lenovo, then. I've been a fan for the last 2.5 years - works like a charm And yep, I pretty much use it for the same stuff i.e., not complicated and stupid

Let me know if you need any further help in zeroing down to the models available now.

armandra!

If the Compaq is still reliable, might it not be worth just getting a new battery for it?

I love my Toshiba Qosmio, but it might be a bit out of her price range and unnecessarily complicated, so not really a lot of help

Well I can speak about all three of those.

Compaq batteries have been rubbish in a couple we had, but if that's all that's wrong then a new battery is the cheapest option.

Lenovo are what used to be IBM before they sold it to the Chinese. Pretty solid, I have a T400 myself, keyboards tend to be the first thing to fail.

Wife has had a Toshiba Satellite L500 for about 18months. So far it's had zero problems. Readily available and I'd recommend them.

The last three laptops I've had have been Toshibas - no problems at all with any of them, all very reliable and they all fulfilled my needs at the time. I think my dad is still using the very first one I had, which must be 8-9 years old now. I'd rather use my laptop than my pc for my everyday needs (and I'm a gamer) so I like to get my money's worth.

You really need to get down what its for.

Is it a desktop replacement (eg the main machine they'll use). If so you need enough omph to do all the usual stuff (and particularly the photo work) - so you're looking for 15-17", 4G of memory, sensible processor, etc.

Is it an occasional laptop (eg looking for something that can be moved, but still have a desktop). If so then you can skimp on the capabilities, provided you can still do the basics.

Is it for a 'go everywhere' device, when weight, size and battery life comes to the fore.

Brand really isn't that key. Most boxes are made of the same components, on the same production lines in China. What you pay for in a brand is .... the label on the box - they are usually no better than a carefully chosen, less branded, box.

Personally I went for Samsung, no issues, works fine. I got that because mine had a Full HD screen, giving you more screen space to work with in a 16" box. I would also consider the netbook approach if you are looking for go anywhere device - they are very cheap now, and provided you have no high power needs, quite up the job of casual use (keyboards aren't good, but you can always plug in full size jobbies at home). They are also easy to carry around and almost disposable if you drop them.

Personally I wouldn't go apple. The ipad is overpriced 'shiny gadget' with its only purpose to consume stuff - its not something you can do work on. The macbooks are similarly overpriced, shiny, stuff - and OSX isn't really any simpler than Win7 - particularly if you want to do something it doesn't want to let you.

Thanks for these. Didn't realise IBM were no longer IBM As for Apple, I wouldn't give them house room, no matter how pretty they are. Haven't looked at batteries, she reckoned she was told they were too expensive but I'll check them out. She wants a new machine and will be passing on the old one to her sister whose Dell wants dropping off a high cliff so will probably get a new battery anyway.

Personally I find Apple OSX to be much more stable and user friendly. The image manipulation is soooo much faster than on a PC... I'd never go back to a PC after using my mac. Just surprised to read them being 'dissed'

Just look on ebay for batteries.

Is she going to carry it around, say to Uni? That would have a big influence on what I'd buy.

If it's staying at home, Lenovos are sturdy workhorses, but plain and heavy (ooh, much like myself ). The Geek and I had Thinkpads for years, and he's a professional geek. We've also had Dells, and he's had Toshibas and Compaqs for work. I'm not sure what he's got now, but it's huge and top spec so probably not suitable (he demos on it). He's also on his 2nd iPad and planning the third

I currently have an HP Mini. It does everything I need but is not without its frustrations screen-size wise, however after 7 days crossing Europe last year with virtually no internet access, I bought this to travel with. If I need to do work on it I hook it up to a mega screen The Geek has in the study.

Might be worth checking out if she wants to stick it in her backpack.

Main issues right there, I reckon.

Every laptop on the market will be sufficient for her needs... If it's gonna sit on the desk most of the time, $500 or $600 will be enough.

If it's going to be moved around from room to room or elsewhere, battery life and portability become much more important.

Will suggest a couple of laptops later if I can find any good ones...

Don't want to get into the usual back'a'forth, but the problem with apple is their idea of making it user friendly is to cut out options and create a walled garden of apple stuff. If you want or need to stray outside that garden - its a very unfriendly wilderness where apple will effective attack you for not staying inside their boundaries. I've got both, and OSX has had me tearing hair out trying to make it do what I needed it to do.

As for image manipulation being faster - not really true. Comparing boxes at the same price point, you not only get more for your money in PCs, you get to tailor the GPU to speed things up. That's no surprise, a Mac is essential the same hardware as a PC after all.