Laptop Choice?

Macbook Air, yay or nay? Or would you rather go for a iMac or a PC with 27" monitor?
I'm starting to swing towards Apple, like the idea of those flash drives in the Macbook Air and the "student" discount is a bonus as well.

It's really down down to whether you fancy it or not.

personally, I find them expensive and limiting (comparing to other 'netbook' that can act as a laptop replacment very well), but did like the look of the 11" one despite the price.

if you like paying extra for the branding then go ahead..

I need to get a new laptop for my girlfriend.
She wants to be able to play games on it, so I need something with a proper graphics processor and some decent speed. 15 inch screen max.
I'd like it to be durable as the Dell Inspiron 15 she had before (that has just fried its motherboard) was a fragile bucket of shite.
Light weight would be good too.

What would give me the best bang per buck for around £1000?
looking at Dell, Acer, HP, Toshiba and Apple

Dont get another Dell. I'm using Studio 15 and the fan sounds fucked.

The Inspiron was sucking fluff into the heatsink, which clogged both that and the fan and overheating, and required some keyhole surgery to get a fucking great wad of dust out of there which made it better.

I had an HP and falling off the arm of an armchair was enough to completely kill it.

So, choices down to Acer, Tosh or Macbook Pro/Air

I love mac, but the macbook air is diffuclt to get down to 1K I think, usually more expensive than that, probably best to go with a toshiba*

*no knowledge of their supeiority, just like them and would have got one as the travelling computer, except I got an asus cause it was cheaper and smaller..

acer and toshiba are both good. Just go for the one you can get the best spec with.

can someone please recommend a good netbook for about £200?

it's years since I've bought a computer

don't get a netbook

it's for my girlfriend, she wants to be able to carry it about easily

it's literally going to be for word processing and internet only

@BlueQuinn

I guess internet games...

plastic pedals, got an asus 10" machine that I just bought for 250 before xmas, yours for 200, have box, and cables, and slightly bent manual (not really a manual, more a poor excuse for four pages, which tell you how to turn it on and off. Glossy cover has a couple of marks, from scuffing, but nothign major. Worked for me as a portable workhorse, got me macbook over here so don't need it.
this one, but in black.
let me know

http://www.pcworld.co.uk/gbuk/asus-1005px-blu012s-blue-06764411-pdt.html

@BlueQuinn

You can put Windows on them and dual boot, you know.

I know, but why bother? If you're going to be using windows anyway why not just buy a straight up laptop which would give you more bang for your buck?

This is the only reason I need a new laptop:

Started off as a couple of dead pixels, and is now slowly but surely spreading from the corner outward.

The laptop is a Sony VGN-FE28B, dual core 1.66Ghz chip, Gig of Ram and a 160 Gig HDD with a 15" screen. It's too slow to run the version of XP that is on it- registry full of crap I think, but runs the latest version of Ubuntu nice and snappily.

So- upgrade will be driven by the screen pretty much.

I cannot make up my mind as to whether something with essentially a netbook specification (which my current laptop has) but with a big screen, or core i7 and 8 gig of RAM is the way forwards.

I know which option is cheaper!

I had an HP and falling off the arm of an armchair was enough to completely kill it.
We've dropped one of their business ones off the edge of the couch 3 times and it's still chugging along :)

Dammit, you know you can just buy a new screen and fit it yourself for maybe £50? Piece of piss usually.

I've been out of the laptop buying game for a bit, what do people recommend in the 13" range, small and light for around between the 5-800 pound range? I've always liked Lenovo hardware. Battery life is more important than processing power. Are thinkpad Edge series any good? Toshiba, HP? No dell, no sony.

cheers

Dammit, you know you can just buy a new screen and fit it yourself for maybe £50? Piece of piss usually.

Tell me more?

I did have a quick search but could not finjd a screen for much less than £100, so thought sod it I will get a new one.

I forgot- needs a new battery also.

BQ - look at IBM Lenovo thinkpads

Never had a problem with Acer laptops they always seem good for the money.

Also if you want a good all round laptop which will perform very well for games don't forget to look at this;

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/186615

My sister bought one before Uni and gets on great with it.

Tell me more?
I did have a quick search but could not finjd a screen for much less than £100, so thought sod it I will get a new one.
I forgot- needs a new battery also.

Well, I swapped my boss's screen after she dropped a white board on it. She ordered the replacement from ebay somewhere. Guess it depends on the model of your laptop as to final cost. Still, if your laptop is fine, £100 is better than buying a new one.

^looks good