New laptop advice needed

[brightspark567]

Hey, getting a new laptop, will be mainly used for university stuff, but with some image editing/ photoshopping. I would want the laptop to last me a good 5 years at least so looking for something that is reliable and will last. My budget can go up to about £650 however it looks like some brilliant deals can be had for the £500 mark.

So far ive been looking at these two:

Toshiba L505-144
Intel Core i5-430M processor (2.26 GHz, 3MB Cache)
Windows 7 Home Premium
4GB Memory DDR3 (I think 1066 speed)
320GB Hard drive 5400rpm
Up to 2 hours battery life
ATI Mobility Radeon 512mb graphics

I've seen this for £525ish

and the other is

ACER AS5740-523G32MN
Core i5-520M (2.4 GHz, 3MB Cache)
Win 7 Home premium
3GB DDR3 1066mhz
320gb harddrive 5400rpm
up to 4 hours battery life
no graphics card

ive seen this for £500

to me the acer seems to stand out because of the better processor, however the toshiba does have more ram and a graphics card, so which do people think is better for how I will use it? Ive seen around that photoshop barely uses the graphics card power for things like ACR any layermasks etc, does that mean that the graphics card will be of little benefit?

Also are there any other laptops that anyone knows of that are worth looking at?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

 

[madmackem]

You would probably get better advice in the pc section - but if its going to get carried about a bit I would look at build quality as well as spec, Acers in my opinion arent very strong, same as advent (pcworlds own brand).
You could try dell outlet (bit hitty missy for stock) http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/default.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dfo&
I got an XPS1530 for just over £400 last year.

 

[StevenFullerton]

HP or Dell simply for their support.
sites like ebuyer may seem cheaper but your in trouble if your laptop dies.

apple macbook is what u want though, especially for uni, daily abuse
£730 but definitely a good investment.

 

[brightspark567]

You would probably get better advice in the pc section - but if its going to get carried about a bit I would look at build quality as well as spec, Acers in my opinion arent very strong, same as advent (pcworlds own brand).
You could try dell outlet (bit hitty missy for stock) http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/default.aspx?c=uk&l=en&s=dfo&
I got an XPS1530 for just over £400 last year.

ahh never saw the pc section, if a mod or someone could move the thread that'd be great

Hmm well I was originally going to go with a dell as they have always been the cheapest for me in the past by quite a margin as well, but this time around they dont seem so good, just looked at the outlet section and there's nothing there really at the moment, funny you say that about acers as well because when i first saw the laptop i was unsure about quality but after googling around a bit they seem to get good reviews for build quality etc, i guess so long as your careful with the laptop you should be alright.

Support wise, my current laptop is a lenovo, and they basically gave no help whatsoever when my laptop went wrong several times so Ive become good at reinstalling windows and all my software in a day . More seriously though I think I'd rather save the £100 odd and try and sort stuff myself of anything were to go wrong (famous last words)

a macbook would be brilliant, so wonderfully great, shame one of comparable specs costs more than twice as much as a pc equivilant :/

Im hoping that with the back to school season coming up that dell prices will drop like they did last year when we got my dads laptop

thanks for the advice so far