Bahtatboy

Just make sure you leave the OS there, though.

Boomhauer

Once you have got rid of unwanted programs, download the free utilities "CrapCleaner" and "Advanced SystemCare". Both these programs will delete redundant, useless and invalid registry entries .


I have had piss poor luck with Dell laptops. Owned 4 and all have given hardware issues. The Toshiba I had was decent. Never had issues with HP either. I prefer laptops with a pointing stick, cause the touchpad is just too bloody imprecise and being imprecise makes it slow to get things done.

Thankfully I got a custombuilt desktop with components I choose that is my main comp. so the Dell laptop I am on now is just something I use when travelling.

Paracletus

Good call. To that list, I'd just add 'decrappifier' as another possible alternative.

But to revert back to the original post..not sure what is 'standard' these days, but win 7 needs about 2 gig RAM. A total of 4gb of RAM should be fine for most users, in fact, a bit of an overkill. Anyway, if it is to be used for gaming at all, it should really have a dedicated graphics card, and not an integrated one.

Have you considered other brands or are you limited to these two? I find Sony bit overpriced (you pay for the brand), not too familiar with HP laptops. For that sort of a budget, I'd look at an Asus. Bought my ladyfriend a laptop this summer for just about that budget..Not in the ME mind you, but up here in arctic land albeit tax free.

www.asus.com

specs:
ASUS N73 series, it's also quite stylish looking and has a built in B&O sound system..I think its their current high end laptop..but serious overkill for your needs. They do have some other alternatives on their wbsite.

17.3" 16:9 HD
Intel® Core™ i7 2630QM -processor
Windows® 7 Home Basic
HD 750GB 7200rpm
Blu-Ray DVD Combo/Super-Multi DVD/Blue-ray Writer
16 gb RAM
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 540M 1GB DDR3 VRAM

It's a beast if that spec means nothing to you.

Tockalosh

Cheers mate, deal was done and got the Sony but will look at decrappifying lol.
This thing boots up faster than any laptop I have owned or used. Amazing. Will time it when back in Bahrain as it's a useful performance indicator for non techies

ctfc

I've had Sony Vaios at home for last 10-12 years and various sorts for work, HP, IBM/Lenovo, Toshiba etc but love the Vaios.

I wouldn't delete all the 'crap' some of it is quite cool. Incredibly reliable, we have one running at home almost 24/7 which I bought in 2006.

Autonomy

A little off topic, but the booting up time was what made me think (plus I need to travel light) anyone used / got an ultrabook (i.e. PC version of a Mac Air)?

Great battery, instant boot up as SSD... seriously considering getting one next year.... but also wonder on processing time using Photoshop CS5 etc

Paracletus

I'd love to get an SSD, but I don't think they are economical just yet..they will come down in price greatly. As for using photoshop..it really depends on what you do with it..I've had files that reach several 100 megs, they just drain everything. But for more average smaller files, you don't need much computing powers really..I was running it fine on a 7 year old machine with an early dual core processor, out dated graphics card with 256mb ram and 1gb of ram, running xp. This was a work computer..quite shameful really.

But no, never used an ultra book..or even heard of them to be honest. Might be worth if you don't go on already to check by this website: http://www.tomshardware.com/
Quite alot of articles, benchmarks, etc

Oh, and Tock...If you set up windows advaced system care, make sure to have a look at what is running at setup. It has an easy to use setting to control this, as this is what always slows pc's down when booting up. You could alternatively use the built in windows option to do this.