Best 13 inch Laptop for $500 (Laptop FAQ included)

[ThomasPJones]

I’m looking for a portable, 13 inch-ish, laptop that will be used mostly for web-browsing and word processing in the $500 range. I’ll do some light gaming (browser games, Hearthstone, and the like) and coding. I have a desktop that covers true gaming and editing-type needs. I don’t really care if it has Windows 7 or 8, or if it is touchscreen or not.

I’d really prefer a 13 inch screen for the best value, but I'm having trouble finding stand out products. These are some examples of what I’ve been considering:

Lenovo ThinkPad Edge E540

HP ProBook

Thanks for any help! Here is my FAQ:

1. What is your budget?
Around $500

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

3. What screen resolution do you want?
n/a

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

5. How much battery life do you need?
As much as possible. Other considerations more important.

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)?
Light gaming with low graphics is fine.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Nothing important.

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

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Amazon, newegg, tiger direct, best buy… (USA)

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

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Not required.

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.
Lenovo, Asus, HP for brand quality reasons.

13. What country do you live in?
USA

 

[iBUYPOWER - Jason]

(http/www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=9086742&Sku=OCE-102502754) - $399.99. It's a great deal right now! The only downside is your RAM, which you can't upgrade. You're stuck at 4GB apparently (commentary from a reviewer). Other than that, it should handle basic computing tasks and gaming.

Here's another option from TigerDirect (http/www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8992868&Sku=LCU-102411216) - $499 It has a 8GBs of RAM and an A8 AMD Processor, which performs slightly worse than the i5 "U" Processor, but it has a better GPU performance because of its integrated Radeon GPU.