Advice on a new laptop? (details inside)?

Your needs are pretty simple & the Studio 15 (even the lowest configuration) does your job pretty well

Now you need to look at another angle, portabilty

that you mention " ... new laptop that I can carry round school and ...", this is a bit heavy if you need to routinely lug it around

please confirm that part

add:

is tv/movies the primary reason for getting the new laptop

how well does your present laptop cope with your other tasks., make & model will be appreciated

getting a decent 13" will be pretty expensive, cause these small ones are costlier than the 15" ones

... so you will need to do some balancing / trade-off's

let me tell you about self: i am using a 14.1" & it's a pain lugging it. i dream of a nice 13.3" one, but then i'm making do ... finances are important to me, and sure it can wait for now

add-2

the Studio 15 seems to be well priced, & the Intel GMA 4500MHD will serve you well on graphics front

and best of luck on that !

Just go with dell. It is better than other retail brands out there. for 400 pounds, i don't think you will find anything better than dell.

Most basic things to look for:

Processor - intel dual 2 core (2.0ghz)

RAM - 3gb+

Harddrive - The more the better (150gb+)

Screen size - depending on you really. 15" looks better but heavier, 13" lighter, but small

other stuff should be fairly standard, such as bluetooth, wifi, dvd rom. The above specifications listed are pretty basic. But still make sure whatever laptop you choose have them as the minimum.

If you want to save a few extra pounds, check out delloutlet.com and look for refurbished laptops. You get to save 20% off the retail prices, but the laptop are refurbished, so it turns some people off.

surely, neither of those has lots to do with the pictures card in any respect. For average velocity, you want a quickly processor. objective for Cor 2 Duo 2.2ghz or extra advantageous. For streaming video, it is fullyyt approximately your internet connection. call your ISP in case you experience such as you're having connection themes.

(hp) Hewlett Packard

You have to choose between vista and reliability.