Laptop recommendation needed (vista business - downgraded)

[contink]

I've got a neighbour who opted to use PC world for their computing needs a few weeks back and after fighting yet another wireless connection I recommended they take their pristine unit back to PCworld for a refund and get something else.

Now I know they'd like to have this thing last quite a while so I was hoping someone would have a recommendation for a Vista Business pre-loaded laptop that would be downgradeable to WinXP as per the downgrade policy MS have offered.

Vaio's, Acers, etc... seem to be out in this respect because they've gone out of their way not to provide XP drivers but I've found Lenovo's seem to be properly supported...

So, any suggestions... and no waiting on SP1 for Vista is not an option... I'm not about to sit for 3 more hours trying to kick the wireless into gear because some M$ muppet decided not to test it properly.

[ninjabeaver]

Hi Contink,

Give Gary Hogg at NovaTech a call. The school has been using them for a few years. They still supply laptops with either XP or Vista. Lots of options. I also use them for personal use and supplying PC's and Laptops to friends etc.

www.novatech.co.uk and the number is 02392322535. That's Gary's direct line. If you do speak to him tell him them Simon from The Park High School recommended you.

Hope its what you need.

[beeswax]

I got one of these for my daughter a few months back. V. good. you can buy them with either XP or Vista installed.

[contink]

Originally Posted by ninjabeaver

Give Gary Hogg at NovaTech a call. The school has been using them for a few years. They still supply laptops with either XP or Vista. Lots of options. I also use them for personal use and supplying PC's and Laptops to friends etc.

Hmm... interesting... Are these their own brand of laptop then? Any ideas on reliability or if there's any reviews?

www.novatech.co.uk and the number is 02392322535. That's Gary's direct line. If you do speak to him tell him them Simon from The Park High School recommended you.

Thanks... I will do

[contink]

Thanks for the tips and especially NB... Gary was very helpful and got me more info' than I thought I'd need so it's all good.

Sounds like I've found a new supplier for a few things

[Scruff]

From my limited experiances with vista, I've found that Toshiba don't think XP drivers are very important (A100 series), I lost a lot of hardware functionality downgrading two of those and actually the VAIO's I bought recently (even though i'm not a great fan of sony) worked very well but I had those downgraded from the factory.

I gave the Toshibas a try because some of the HPs I was purchasing didn't allow me to ghost the drives as neither ghost nor RIS could work with the IDE adapter for some reason so I had to do their pre-installed routine for all of them and install the software manually which was a royal pain.

The toshiba's are now running Vista again unfortunatly and another of them even blue screens every time the XP installer loads both from CD and PXE, lush!

So now i'm buying VAIO's for a while as they have some decent hardware and their business models are quite competetivly priced which amazed me.

None of that will have been any help I'm sure

[contink]

Originally Posted by Scruff

So now i'm buying VAIO's for a while as they have some decent hardware and their business models are quite competetivly priced which amazed me.

None of that will have been any help I'm sure

Heh... well I have to say my experience of Vaio's went the other way... I've been less than impressed with their "XP? What's that?" approach to anything even remotely new so they're off my list... Still n'all that was for personal use but it hasn't been fun.

[western]

The Fujitsu-Siemens Laptops Vista Biz machines come with a twin boot DVD which contains a full downgrade install including all the drivers. They say that it installs the XP-Pro faster from this DVD than it takes the vista biz to install of the pre-install on the HDD!!

[Quackers]

Originally Posted by contink

Vaio's, Acers, etc... seem to be out in this respect because they've gone out of their way not to provide XP drivers but I've found Lenovo's seem to be properly supported...

I found Acer's responce quite poor when i phoned up and asked where the XP Drivers were for a new laptop

He asked "What model laptop is it"
i gave him the model
he replyed "we've never sold that model with XP only Vista so we do not supply XP Drivers, you'll have to note down the hardware and try and find them manually on the internet"

I did manage to find them, but it can not be difficult for acer to add them to there site.

[Scruff]

Originally Posted by contink

Heh... well I have to say my experience of Vaio's went the other way... I've been less than impressed with their "XP? What's that?" approach to anything even remotely new so they're off my list... Still n'all that was for personal use but it hasn't been fun.

I think it was the VGN-N38E/W model I was buying with XP pre-installed and all is well, it's not the most powerful lad on the block but it's a solid machine and XP works very well, you're probably buying better equipment than I have the budget for

I find the x-black displays a pleasure.

Although saying all that i'm lucky as I don't have a laptop so I don't care if they're all crap tbh. Windows Mobile 5 FTW!

[contink]

Originally Posted by Scruff

I think it was the VGN-N38E/W model I was buying with XP pre-installed and all is well, it's not the most powerful lad on the block but it's a solid machine and XP works very well, you're probably buying better equipment than I have the budget for

I don't suppose by any stretch of the imagination that you have a disk for that do you? I have the N-38N/W version and I had to ferret everything off the N11 downloads. You'd be saving my life if you do!.

I find the x-black displays a pleasure.

Oh it looks nice but the mousepad drives me potty... but I digress we're going off topic :P

[Scruff]

Originally Posted by contink

I don't suppose by any stretch of the imagination that you have a disk for that do you? I have the N-38N/W version and I had to ferret everything off the N11 downloads. You'd be saving my life if you do!.

I do indeed have one or two, Whats your favourite flavour ISO or Posted ?

[contink]

Originally Posted by Scruff

I do indeed have one or two, Whats your favourite flavour ISO or Posted ?

ISO would be just fine thanks... If you could PM an address that'd be much appreciated

[Scruff]

Originally Posted by contink

ISO would be just fine thanks... If you could PM an address that'd be much appreciated

Well I just went through the box and it appears there is no such disc, you have to create your own recovery media which has all the drivers and whatnot, which is 2 DVD-Rs worth of rubbish.

[contink]

Originally Posted by Scruff

Well I just went through the box and it appears there is no such disc, you have to create your own recovery media which has all the drivers and whatnot, which is 2 DVD-Rs worth of rubbish.

Ok... well thanks anyway, guess I'm going to need to make a phone call.