High Performance Laptop for only £500

I was recently asked by a customer to recommend a new laptop that would be able to cope with their heavy usage needs. My thoughts immediately turned to an Intel i5 or i7 powered laptop with 8GB of RAM. I am a big fan of Asus laptops as their build quality is superb.

Looking through the range I discovered that many of the i5 and i7 laptops were very expensive and did not represent good value for money. Many of the Intel i3 powered laptops start from around £300 and are supplied with 4GB RAM. The Asus X55C is a particularly good example.

I decided to upgrade the RAM from 4GB to 8GB, also increasing the RAM speed from 1333MHz to 1600MHz. I removed the supplied 320GB hard disk drive and replaced with a 128GB solid state drive that can deliver speeds up to 500MBs per second. I also loaded Windows 7 instead of Windows 8.

The result? A laptop that boots in only 15 seconds after pressing the power button! 

And the cost of all this? Only £500. A MacBook Air which boots in around 10-15 seconds, starts from £849 and for this you only get an 11" or 13" screen. The Asus is supplied with a 15.6" screen. A MacBook Pro with 15" screen retails at £1499 and isn't supplied with a solid state drive.

So if you want a truly high performance laptop for an excellent price then please get in touch!

3 Year Warranty on all new PCs

I am delighted to announce that all new PCs supplied by First 4 Computers will have a three (3) year warranty as standard.

The industry standard is typically only one (1) year with some retailers offering two (2).

A three (3) year warranty gives you added confidence in the product you are buying and the knowledge that you are getting great value for money.

Please visit http://www.first4computers.com/range.htm to see the current range of PCs.

All PCs can be customised to your requirements. Alternatively I can build a bespoke machine from scratch to suit your budget.

Want To Save Money? Try Linux!

Have you heard of Linux? Linux is a free, open source operating system. It is predominantly used in servers but thanks to the popular Ubuntu distribution it is becoming more popular with desktop and laptop users.

Windows by contrast is not free nor is it open source. Linux operating systems are considered to be more stable by many, i.e. they don't crash as much. Previously it has been the case that Linux versions haven't been very user friendly but thanks to Ubuntu among others this is no longer the case. You can also run the excellent and some would say more importantly free OpenOffice on Linux. OpenOffice is an superb rival to Microsoft's Office packages and it can open all your Microsoft Documents. Linux will also run Mozilla Firefox as well as many other applications.

So if you want to save money on your next PC purchase, then why not try a Linux operating system? At First4Computers we can install Linux on any PC in our range or custom builds.

New Range Of Home & Office PCs

First4Computers presents its new range of Home & Office PCs. Prices start at £420 up to £999.

All PCs are built-to-order and any components can be removed or added to meet your needs and specifications. As standard all PCs are supplied with:

• Onbard Network Port(s)
• 7.1 channel sound capability
• 4-8 USB2.0 (we can usually add more if you desire)
• High quality internal cabling
• High quality quiet power supply units
• High quality case cooling
• Front and rear-mounted audio and USB connectors
• 1 Year Return-To-Base Warranty

You can view our range of PCs at www.first4computers.com/range.htm

Additional: We are planning to produce an even cheaper PC, somewhere around the £200 price tag, please subscribe to our blog to keep updated.