Acer AS3694 Laptop

[Lankidoodles]

Im looking to buy the Acer AS3694 Laptop from Comet for �299 and im just wondering if the laptop i want to buy is a good laptop to have. Im a teenager so i like to download music, pictures and software so will this laptop have enough space for all this and is Windows Vista easy to use because it comes with that too.
Thanks to anyone who answers.
Catherine x

[Ethel]

How big is the hard drive?

My Acer laptop is over two years old and I would recommend them to anybody. No problems whatsoever.

Vista is fine if you don't have lots of old software you want to install that is not compatible. You may need to check your printer and other equipment is compatible too.

[ACtheTROLL]

give us more options ... that way you'll get more opinions;-)

the lappy you are looking at isn't bad for the money ....
it's not the ultimate ... but you know that

80Gb is sufficient ... as long as you don't hoarde video files.
there is a writer ... so save them to DVD

80Gb when formatted will actually give you about 72Gb
Vista will take about 8Gb ....
so how you use the rest is up to you
but you can always get an external disk later if you need to

don't go for the "extra" cover - it's not worth paying 1/3 again

the 512Mb of RAM could be a concern - your graphics will immediately "steal" almost half that

I'd strongly recomend asking them about increasing to 1Gb
as part of the deal
an extra 512 (costs about �16.00)

it's not clear if there is a spare slot for extra RAM - so get them to make it clear EXACTLY what's involved in the price they give you

[vehelpfulguy]

Just a bit more info to back up what ACtheTroll says.

Computers have RAM or main memory. For Windows XP then 512Mb is probably the minimum for it to work well.

Vista requires more and most people say 1Gb is required for Windows.

Now the problem is that most laptops come with "basic" graphics and have no extra graphics card. Normally a graphics card has it own special graphics memory.

But if you dont have an extra graphics card and just basic graphics there is no graphics memory, so it has to use some of the RAM.

A basic graphic card uses about 128Mb or 256Mb of memory which it "borrows" from the RAM.

So that means your 512Mb of memory is now down as low as about 256Mb.

And 256 Mb of memory was not enough to run Windows XP let alone Windows Vista. Try to do more than two things at once (play music and look and the internet) and the laptop will grind to a halt.

So I would advice AGAINST getting any PC with 512Mb of memory, either get the shop to put in more, or be prepared to buy some extra memory yourself.