Best cheap laptop for casual gaming, internet surfing, facebook and homework?

[Mark C]

Hi, I want to get a cheap(ish) laptop for my 14 year old daughter. Main uses will be for casual gaming (the likes of Sims3 etc.), internet surfing & facebook and running Office for homework etc. I figure Dell are always worth a look but would appreciate any other thoughts.Based in the UK.

[Anton]

It really does depend on how cheap (or how expensive) you want it to be.
as a general rule dont go for the overly cheap laptops (250-£350-new) as these wont be very good in the long run. if your budget is about 500 quid than a dell may be very good for your daughter-there is one below

the studio 15 is a very good laptop as it will do gaming as well as normal stuff. on the other hand it may be worth having a look at sony-more expenisve but also do good pcs and durable too
i would recommend getting something for at least £400 if you want it to last for a while (technology moves quickly and more demanding programs come out constantly)

anyway i will post a things to look for in a laptop
a good screen-you have to look at it really not just on the net.
at least 2gb of ram -4 is better as ram is cheap these days
a good processor -a dual core 1.6ghz or better (2.0ghz+). perhaps an intel i3/i5 if you can afford.
a good graphics card (ati or nvidia-not dedicated).
at least 250gb hdd (harddrives work best until they are 50% full-then start to slow down). if your daughter has lots of music /pics etc a 320gb hdd may be a good step forward.
i have attached a benchmarking site to compare different processors and graphics cards to see which one is best (look for big increases in score as only about 25% more will make a noticable difference).
if you click on list of cpus/gpus you can simply search for the models/makes.
also have a look at their after sale support-sony.dell hp are all good. toshibas,acers,compaqs etc are ok but dont expect miracles-they are the basic plastic boxes
hope this helped.