Buying a Laptop- Input needed.

[tibilicus]

In need of .org assistance badly. Out of the following three, which strikes people as the best value for money and the one most likely to match the qualities I desire?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

http://www.johnlewis.com/Shopping/Co...PiwBZjvU75NC2p

It's by no means between those three but the idea of which best suits me would give me an indication of where I should be looking. I basically want the following things from the Laptop:

• It will be used to complete asignments ect and will need to be mobile enough to be carried to lectures and other places.
• I want to be able to play some games on it. Most of my gaming now takes place on the 360 so FPS and other high demand games (Bioshock 2 for example) most likely wont be played on it. I'm a massive Civilization junkie so as long as I get speedy turns from that game I'll be happy.
• Preferably something which is as "future proof" as possible. Buying or thinking about computer hardware normally depresses the hell out of me because technology moves so fast you rarely get the worth of what you paid for. I'm hoping it can last between 3/4 years before I have to swap it out for a new one and begin the whole cycle all over again.

That's about it really. Any input would be hugely appreciated but responses along the lines of "they all suck", "buy a desktop", "here's a link to an obscure site where the price is cheaper" are not. The retailer in question is near and I don't mind spending a little more because I trust it as a reputable shop.

Tib

[Fragony]

If you want to spend some extra check out the new macbook, it's basicly a pro with a smaller screen. Powerful enough for last year's games and an excellent battery, 7/8 hours with light usage. Open-office appears to be a bit prone to crashing in OSX though and Apple as a company is of course a constant source of irritation with their guru-bull. Windows runs like a dream on it, wouldn't bother with OSX at all.

[Tellos Athenaios]

No contest really. Get the HP. That Dell and Acer are so deeply flawed you got to wonder why anyone would buy it.

[tibilicus]

Well I ended up going for neither and got a Sony Vaio. It offered the same as the HP pretty much but came with an extra 2GB of RAM and a built in blu-ray player and so seemed like a win win to me.

[Tellos Athenaios]

Guess for that kind of money, it does make sense.

[Xiahou]

My opinion? Trying to spend extra money to buy a "future proof" laptop is a waste. I'd just get the cheapest thing that will meet your needs. Laptops are a major ripoff on the price/performance scale.