I am thinking of buying a small laptop for home use. It doesn't have to be fancy, just internet and email and whatever I might need as a consequence (not sure, something to view photos, utube videos, maybe excel / word). And I hope to find something for less than 1000CHF...

Any recommendations?

buy an acer....u will get what you need in 700CHF

Thanks! I will check that out!

V 10.04 of the Ubuntu operating system is out at the end of the month, so if you don't feel like paying extra for all the Microsoft licences and Virus protection that goes along with Windows, you could upgrade to that. It's free, secure, and the last few releases have been incredibly easy to use.

And I'd second the Acer recommendation. They're not the absolute best laptop on the market, but they're very good quality for the price you pay.

lots of choice under 1000CHF, for example, look at http://www.digitec.ch/?mnr=364
Current offers at the bottom of the middle page or you can search on various criteria

Avoid Dell! I used to think they were good but now I have to totally change my mind. My friend paid 1500CHF for a Dell Studio 1537 in Decmeber 2008 and he has experienced lots of problems with it. Recently, the laptop totally died and Dell want to charge him 850CHF to diagnose, replace the motherboard, hard disk and DVD drive. Basically, it's falling apart and is a totally useless pile of sh*t!! Even the usb connectors just fell out!

Sorry to say, I'll never buy a Dell.

I can advise that last year I bought a HP Netbook with Windows XP, 160Gb Harddrive, wireless n, bluetooth, webcam and a host of other features for just 499CHF at Digitech. It has a 10.1 inch screen and works very well. For a cheap internet laptop, it's perfect and is surprisingly fast. It's even good at office applications and watching streaming video/movie files. My advice is go to the stores and try them out to see what you think. (I thought I would never own a netbook as they looked too small, probably slow etc. I was proven wrong and now I can't imagine not having it!)

Hope this helps.

Netbooks are funky but generally don't come with an optical drive to read CDs / DVDs. May be useful to know before purchase...

Generally, I'd go to a big shop with a lot of choice (MediaMarkt, Saturn, Migros Electronics, Interdiscount) where You can play around with different models. Lots of them look good with technical specifications, but You might get annoyed immediately when using them. Try to type something on the keyboard, use touchpad, open/close the screen etc.
Think also how much You will use it when travelling, how much You will need to carry it - then size and weight are extremely important. Check the screen resolution as well - cheap laptops have only lowest resolution and much worse screen quality.
And last but not least - there's no company which is always good or bad. Some models are better than others, so if a friend gives You a positive/negative recommendation, ask for a specific model.
Good luck!
Marcin

I second that! I am using one to write this and internet and email works fine. Use msconfig to stop the Acer software from starting up then uninstall all the Acer software you can and the Acer will be even better. If it dies after a year then you don't care because it was cheap.

I've been waiting for my current laptop to die, so I can get one of these bad boys:

ASUS UL80VT

Highly recommended...

P.S. You could also go for it's smaller, and cheaper cousin the ASUS UL30VT

I using a Dell Studio XPS as type this, my second dell laptop. Must say however that batteries for these guys are silly expensive; like almost 200 CHF each. Hear that http://www.lenovo.com (IBM) laptops are good. They represent the middle of the market.

Acer are the bottom end of the market; which in laptop terms means the hard disk, keyboard, mouse etc will fail faster then other makes. I did look at them; but to be honest unless your strapped for cash that not your best buy.

Apple are the top end; and depending on your budget and preferences are a good buy, a lot of EF devotees use them I hear. Might even consider their new device, although I am not sure it is available.

Lenovo have a range of models (can't remember the name now), which are about 13" (screen size) and are light. They come without any optical drive and a tiny hard-drive. The upside of using this range is that they come with a Docking station that contain a larger hard drive and an optical drive. Very useful for walking around the house, or as my wife does, at the University of Zurich (which has base stations in every building).

Here-s a discussion zou might want to look thru too.

Dell Laptops - Never again

Lenovo in the middle end of the market ? Don't think so, their top range is more expensive than Apple and they are generally very comparable to Apple pricewise (except their netbooks of course)

IBM X40, later Lenovo X400 I think, now X200s. X-Series, 12" or the newer 13". Ultra portable and sturdy built, great notebooks. ¨
I have the T400s with 256gb ssd, the portable version of the very performant T400, love it so far.

http://www.digitec.ch/ProdukteDetail...Artikel=183075

I can only recommend to stay away from Sony. Granted it's a small sample size, but all the people I know with them have problems with them breaking. Right now I've got a Toshiba (went for the cheapest) and it works fine.

As for an OS, I can also recommend Ubuntu, it starts, shuts down and runs much faster than the windows also installed on my laptops (dual boot home and work laptops). It's not full of crap, it does automatic updates much nicer than windows, I never worry about viruses or bank security, it's just so much nicer to run.