Thanks Snorbs

flier, if you see here and click on the "jack pack (rear)" section you'll see it's got both the 15-pin PC connector plus the PC audio input you'd need.

So you'll just need to buy a 15-pin VGA cable and a 3.5mm stereo audio cable and you should be fine! You can get these cables in a number of places both online and in the high street. Avoid PC World, Dixons etc as they'll charge you a fortune. Try a big Sainsburys, Tesco, Asda or Argos. Basic VGA cables are fine up to about 2m in length, much more than that and you'll need to look at expensive ones otherwise the image quality suffers.

yes, and avg free. good stuff.

I've looked snorbs, and tried a couple of things, might just pay for a BC licence.

Thanks averyone again.

Snorbs My TV is an LG 19LH2000.

Lenin, I use meld on Linux for that sort of thing. Dunno about free Windows software to do it, though.

I used to be a Microsoft Office user. For the past 6 months I have been using Open Office instead and it meets my rather basic requirements. Did have one issue when opening an old Excel file... a formula I was using for datediff didn't work. Probably just my formula though maybe there are some differences between functions. I also use GoogleDocs a bit, so can edit things online from different locations.

I found my laptop came with a trial version of Office, so currently I have both Open Office and MS Office available, should I find things that don't work.

E-mail wise, I use GoogleMail so I can access my mail from different devices, from anywhere. I then use Thunderbird on my laptop for sending out an e-mail list, as I have a plug-in for Thunderbird to personalise messages.

SoundCards - Laptops will almost always come with Built In soundcard. If you are not doing professional music things (requiring MIDI In/Out etc), then it should be fine for majority of uses.

Most laptops will have a VGA out, which could be connected to an LCD screen (if it has a VGA in - may be labelled Computer In). Some Laptops have HDMI.

I've never used the gimp, will download it. Know anything like Beyond Compare that is free?

If you've got the choice between a Core2 Duo processor or a dual-core Pentium processor both running at the same speed (ie, the GHz bit) then the Core2 will be faster as it's a more recent design and is more highly tuned. There's not a lot of difference, though, so I wouldn't pay more than (say) £50 on top for the Core2.

The integrated sound card will be fine. You don't need an add-on Soundblaster.

Connecting laptops to TVs is a complicated subject as it depends on what connectors the TV's got. The Inspiron 15 only has a 15-pin VGA connector by the looks of the spec sheet. If your TV has a 15-pin connector (normally called a PC connector on a TV) then you'll be able to connect them together with a VGA cable. You would also need to connect a separate audio cable betweent the laptop and the TV to get the sound to come out of the TV's speakers. Most TVs that have a 15-pin VGA connector will also have a 3.5mm audio-in connector (looks like a headphone socket) to allow this, but not all will. If you post the make/model of TV it might help.

And AVG.