$700-$800 Laptop, wait for sandybridge?

[tsiberious]

Hello all,
I need help with a recommendation for a new laptop for my father. Included below are the requirements. Would it benefit him to wait for the sata bugs to be fixed in sandybridge, or will sandybridge fall outside of his budget? I'm thinking this laptop budget would lean more toward processor and memory (over graphics, hdd, and "style"). Your recommendations are appreciated.

1. What is your budget?
$700-$800

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
14"-16" screen size, slim light design would be nice

3. What screen resolution do you want?
1024×768 - minimum

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

5. How much battery life do you need?
3 hours plus (normal usage, web surfing etc...)

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)?
No games

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

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
320GB

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Reputable places, otherwise it does not matter

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
4 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.
Any brand, but big brand names (dell, hp, etc...) are preferred for reliability and support

13. What country do you live in?
USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
OS preferred: Windows 7 Home Premium


Thank you for your help!

 

[Jim_L9]

Personally with that budget I would wait for the SB SATA II fix. You could get a nice one in that price range.

 

[buwish]

I agree. I'd take the wait and see attitude to see what else Intel comes out with in regard to future SB chips. They'll be a bit more expensive, but the performance increase will be worth it.

 

[RetiredChief]

From a practical view vs enthusiast.
(1) wait to see what Price SB notebooks are, if reasonable and within budget - go for it.

(2) From what you have indicated, a good core-2-dual will work. (not withstanding some future requirement.

(3) advantages of SB:
a - Much better igp, But playing a DVD seems to be the current preformance requirement. You indicated DVD playback - A T6400 will play a Blu-ray just as good as an i3, or SB laptop.
b Usb3 and sata III support. sata III will not help a mechanical HDD. However; it will benefit the Newest SSDs that are SATA 6 - But you could upgrade to a SATA 2 SSD cheaper, but still small (requires only SATA II included w/I3). So SATA III will only help if you Upgrade to SSD that is SATA 6 - bear in mind small size say 120 Gig and probably approx $250 upgrade where as a Sata II SSD will become cheaper and still blow the doors off a Mechanical HDD. USB3 support is a big advantage - BUT that depends on how offten he will use a thumbdrive, and in his case a USB2 (High performance) Thumbdrive would be fine.

Bottom Line a I3/I5 laptop would be great, But I would wait to see the cost differnetial.

 

[tsiberious]

Best answer selected by tsiberious.

 

[Maziar]

This topic has been closed by Maziar