Top 5 Best PCs and Laptops for Christmas 2009
5. Samsung N140 10.1-inch Netbook (Atom N270 1.6 GHz Processor, 1 GB RAM, 250 GB HDD, BT, Webcam, up to 10 Hour Battery Life, Windows 7 Starter, Black)
- This netbook is arguably the best netbook available in it's price range. For just under £300 you get a netbook which does in the real-world get 8 hours of battery life which is phenomenal. Although it runs Windows 7 starter, this allows you to do all the features you'll ever need to on a netbook. The 10.1" is nice and big and it allows for a very nice keyboard. It even has bluetooth and a 250GB hard drive for the price, as well as a webcam which is all very nice for a netbook. It only comes with a measly 1GB of RAM though so we would recommend that you buy an extra 1GB RAM stick and put it in. If you need a netbook for the holidays with amazing battery life, a nice keyboard and a nice big screen - this is the one for you.4. Acer Aspire 5536 15.6-inch Laptop (AMD Athlon X2 QL-64 2.1 GHz, 3 GB RAM, 500 GB HDD, Vista Home Premium)
- For under £380 this laptop is full of power! The processor is relatively old but this laptop will do most things you'll need it to, it'll play HD movies fine, it will browse the web and edit spreadsheets fantastically as well as running all the Office apps with no stress. The 500GB hard drive is nice and big and it would have been nice to have 4GB of RAM. Note that this computers runs Vista and not the new Windows 7. At this price however these are all minor gripes - especially when you could buy two of these and a netbook for the price of the Macbook Pro.
3. Compaq Presario CQ5231UK-m Desktop PC with Compaq CQ1859s 18.5 inch LCD Monitor and Intel Core 2 Duo Processor E7500, Windows 7 Home Premium, 3 GB DDR3, 500 GB SATA
- For under £500 (including a monitor) this desktop PC is so tempting!! It runs a Core 2 Duo processor which is great value for a sub £500 computer, it sports a big 18.5" LCD screen, 3GB of RAM and a 500GB drive. It runs the last Windows 7 Home Premium operating system which is a refreshing change to Vista. This computer will handle anythign you throw at it from web surfing, to document creating to watching videos. Gaming will suffer however due to its graphics card - although you can get a decent one for about £50-£70 which brings the total to £550 - bargain!
- For under £500 (including a monitor) this desktop PC is so tempting!! It runs a Core 2 Duo processor which is great value for a sub £500 computer, it sports a big 18.5" LCD screen, 3GB of RAM and a 500GB drive. It runs the last Windows 7 Home Premium operating system which is a refreshing change to Vista. This computer will handle anythign you throw at it from web surfing, to document creating to watching videos. Gaming will suffer however due to its graphics card - although you can get a decent one for about £50-£70 which brings the total to £550 - bargain!
2. MacBook Pro 13inch 2.26GHz/2GB/160GB/GeForce 9400M/SD
- Hands down the best laptop for students. 13" is the perfect size for a laptop, it has a backlit keyboard and auto screen dimming by using the iSight camera to measure the light around you. The hard drive and RAM are relatively small so I recommend you upgrade them yourself - don't let Apple do it as it'll cost a fortune. The OS is brilliant, the keyboard is the best ever for a laptop, the sound is great, the trackpad is fantastic and the multi-touch is extremely responsive. It is also great as a primary laptop as its processor is more than adequate even for handling HD video and you can even do some editing too!
- Hands down the best laptop for students. 13" is the perfect size for a laptop, it has a backlit keyboard and auto screen dimming by using the iSight camera to measure the light around you. The hard drive and RAM are relatively small so I recommend you upgrade them yourself - don't let Apple do it as it'll cost a fortune. The OS is brilliant, the keyboard is the best ever for a laptop, the sound is great, the trackpad is fantastic and the multi-touch is extremely responsive. It is also great as a primary laptop as its processor is more than adequate even for handling HD video and you can even do some editing too!
1. Apple iMac 21.5 - inch Desktop PC (3.06GHz, 2X2GB RAM, 500GB Hard Drive, 9400M-GBR)
- Macs has become increasingly affordable (despite being able to get a similarly specced PC for 2/3 of the price) and this iMac has taken computing to the next level. It uses a full 16:9 aspect ratio which means that TV programmes watched on it have no pillar-bars or letter-boxing at all and you know have a very, very big monitor in front of your eyes. Everyone knows that the iMac is an all-in-one computer. It now sports a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo processor which is very, very quick - although for this price you might have been expecting Quad Core. You do get the lovely Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system which is astounding as always. The Mac also comes witha half-terrabte driver and 4GB of RAM. The iLife suite is included as well as a wireless keyboard and the new "Magic Mouse" which we're not a big fan of.
- Macs has become increasingly affordable (despite being able to get a similarly specced PC for 2/3 of the price) and this iMac has taken computing to the next level. It uses a full 16:9 aspect ratio which means that TV programmes watched on it have no pillar-bars or letter-boxing at all and you know have a very, very big monitor in front of your eyes. Everyone knows that the iMac is an all-in-one computer. It now sports a 3.06GHz Core 2 Duo processor which is very, very quick - although for this price you might have been expecting Quad Core. You do get the lovely Mac OS X Snow Leopard operating system which is astounding as always. The Mac also comes witha half-terrabte driver and 4GB of RAM. The iLife suite is included as well as a wireless keyboard and the new "Magic Mouse" which we're not a big fan of.
