Dave wrote

Looking to buy an infrared thermometer without breaking the bank and also
without knowing exactly what I'm looking at - for instance, what is
"emissivity"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emissivity

and does it need to be adjustable?

Depends on what you want to used the IR thermometer for.

I'm sure that these are the sort of things that are bought for one purpose
but actually end up being used for dozens of things and I'm sure I'll
find loads of uses for it, but my main use at the moment would be to
monitor temperatures of GPUs and CPUs on laptop motherboards.

Then you don't need to have one that does adjustable emissivity.

But you are much better off using the inbuilt sensors to measure
the temps and monitor those with something like Everest.

I live about a mile away from CPC in Preston and have seen this one for
£43 inc VAT:

http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/level5/mo...ml&sku=IN05457

or http://tinyurl.com/bp2p5wd

Anyone have experience of them? Good? Bad? Anything better for absolutely
no more than £60, but preferably £50 or less?