Solved! 14" Stylish School Laptop

[street1030]

1. What is your budget?

Would like recommendations for both $600 & $800 price range.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

14" or less

3. What screen resolution do you want?

Doesn't matter as long as it looks good.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?

Portable all the way. Will be carrying it a lot.

5. How much battery life do you need?

5+

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?

Maybe a few shooters on very low graphics but probably not.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

Programming, Photoshop, Internet, Word Processing

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?

500g

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

Don't have any preferences as long as I get a good deal and a good product.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?

2 years.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

DVD burner

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.

Again, no preference.

13. What country do you live in?

U.S.A.

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

I was going to go for a 15.6" to use for school and gaming but i've decided the gaming aspect isn't that important. I just need a good looking & performing laptop
that won't break my back carrying all day. I'm a computer science major so will be doing a lot of programming on this laptop.

 

[WR2]

Something in a 13" model: Dell Vostro V131 Core i3 $600 / Core i5 $800.
Base model is $500 with a ULV Sandy Bridge Celeron 1.1Ghz CPU.

Dell Vostro V131 review excellent battery life and a 7200rpm HDD. USB 3.0, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 3.0 & HDMI output.

Vostro V131 Video Review

 

[burnley14]

If you need an optical drive, the Vostro 3450 is also an excellent choice. And it has the 14" screen you previously asked for.

 

[street1030]

How are dell computers these days? I always remember them having a horrible rep for their customer service. Not sure the quality of their machines. I was actually looking at the XPS 15z even though it's a 15" laptop it's pretty slim and the specs are pretty good.

 

[burnley14]

Dell's customer service is certainly not as good as it used to be, but it is adequate. The line of communication is much more difficult to maintain now as far as claim cases go, and they have shipped their operators overseas to somewhere outside the US (probably India judging by the accents) which means phone conversations and emails can be rather difficult to decipher with the broken English. Regardless, it still gets the job done, especially if you have a decent idea what you're doing to start.

As far as product quality goes, they have definitely improved over the last several years. Aluminum casing (on some laptops anyway) and more durable components all around.

If you are looking into the 15z but want something relatively similar in a 14" flavor, the 14z is good too.

 

[WR2]

If you get the business class products you can get access to better US based Dell Customer Support.
And the business line of Dell notebooks (Vostro, Latitude, Precision) have always been a better choice than the consumer Inspiron. Just as the XPS models are a cut above Inspiron.

Dell XPS 15z Review

 

[street1030]

Was looking around on the Lenova website and it seems they have some discounts going on ATM. Was wondering what you guys thought about

http/shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/builder.workflow:Enter?mtm-item=%3A000000F3%3A00004496%3A

Pretty beefed up IdeaPad Y470.

 

[WR2]

One of the forum regulars picked up the IdeaPad Y470 recently.
Checkout what he said in his review and see how it matches up with what you're looking for.

Lenovo IdeaPad Y470 - Laptop Review

 

[WR2]

Another review on another forum: Another Y470 review

Lenovo Y470 and Y570 Official Owners Thread

Lenovo IdeaPad Y470 14-inch "Sandy Bridge" Laptop price checking

 

[street1030]

I like it. This laptop has beastly specs and almost $700 off. Think I'm going to order it tomorrow.