Budget Laptop for School

[warpedone]

I'm actually going to buy two - one for my son who will be a freshman in college and another for my daughter who is a junior in high school. My son has a nice desktop that we built that he plays games on so the laptop wouldn't be used for anything that requires a whole lot of beefiness.

1. What is your budget? ~$500 per

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
Larger than a netbook - anything around 15"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
No overly important - obviously, the best I can get for the money.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
No

5. How much battery life do you need?
As much as possible.

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

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Office products, watch movies, surf the internet

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
Doesn't really matter

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

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 ROM/Writer

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.
Something reliable

13. What country do you live in? USA

 

[schmurtz]

I got an asus laptop i3-370m and i sell it 350$

 

[hpfreak]

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834246484

 

[warpedone]

Any thoughts on this one? http/www.officedepot.com/a/products/336067/Toshiba-Satellite-C875D-S7225-Laptop-Computer/

Processor is close to an i5 and this one has more RAM and a larger hard drive than the one recommended by hpfreak.

Any idea what kind of quality Toshiba has?

 

[rillest]

I recommend going to HP/Dell's websites and customizing a laptop. You can always upgrade what you want and downgrade what you want through the websites. HP's are known to fall apart though.

 

[hpfreak]

I recommend going to HP/Dell's websites and customizing a laptop. You can always upgrade what you want and downgrade what you want through the websites. HP's are known to fall apart though.

lol then don't recommend it.

 

[hpfreak]

Any thoughts on this one? http/www.officedepot.com/a/products/336067/Toshiba-Satellite-C875D-S7225-Laptop-Computer/

Processor is close to an i5 and this one has more RAM and a larger hard drive than the one recommended by hpfreak.

Any idea what kind of quality Toshiba has?

I know a lot of people who really dislike Toshiba.. I've never had a problem with any of their laptops though.

The Core i5 is much better than the A6, there will be a significant difference in performance IMHO. Based on your answers to the FAQ list, I'd still recommend the Lenovo, if you were a gamer with a very low budget- then I'd recommend the Toshiba Satellite. You're not doing anything intensive enough to eat away at 4GB, I rarely do that... and I'm running Photoshop, Dreamweaver, multiple IE tabs,etc.. and don't need more. Also, I'd expect that the battery life on the Lenovo will be better, since the Screen/GPU on the Toshiba are a bit more power hungry.

The choice is your's.. this is just my 2 cents.