Fast laptop mainly for internet use

[akm360]

My dad uses a very old acer laptop which is showing signs of dying soon. His main uses are browsing the internet, very minimal applications and watching movies. I looked at some chromebooks but none seem to have HDD capacity. Is getting a chromebook + an external HDD the best option or is there another viable option for around 400-500$?

 

[boosted1g]

Chromebook only uses Chrome OS which your father might have difficulty using and does not support most windows applications.

At $400-500 you can easily find a good laptop.

This has a nice core i5 cpu, 8gb ram and 1tb hard drive, should be very nice for your father:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=34-318-436&utm_medium=Email&utm_source=GD070615&nm_mc=EMC-GD070615&cm_mmc=EMC-GD070615-_-index-_-Item-_-34-318-436

 

[Solandri]

Chromebooks are Google's baby, and they design them to get you to use Google Apps and Google Drive (i.e. store all your documents on Google). Depending on what your dad does with the computer, this may not actually be a bad thing, since it takes care of the backup problem for you. But Chromebook + external HDD usually does not work very well.

Decent laptops (i5, 1TB HDD, 1920x1080 IPS display) show up on sale for about $500 every 2-3 months. I'd suggest monitoring this site for any deals which might pop up in your price range.

http://slickdeals.net/deals/computers/

Avoid the Cowboom deals unless you like taking risks. Many of them are used/refurbished and in worse than stated condition. Manufacturer refurb are usually pretty safe, though the warranty may be shorter. Also avoid the 3200x1800 displays, as most of them use a pentile pixel arrangement that's not really pentile (RGBW instead of RGBG) and suffer from lower resolution, bad color reproduction, and high power consumption for a given brightness.

 

[jaguarskx]

I would get the following 15.6" Toshiba laptop for $449 (currently on sale). It has a 1080p touchscreen, core i5-5200u CPU and 500GB hard drive.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Toshiba-Satellite-S55t-B5152-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.314413400

 

[Solandri]

I would get the following 15.6" Toshiba laptop for $449 (currently on sale). It has a 1080p touchscreen, core i5-5200u CPU and 500GB hard drive.

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msusa/en_US/pdp/Toshiba-Satellite-S55t-B5152-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.314413400

If I remember right, that particular model Toshiba has been plagued with wifi problems. Maybe they've fixed it, but if you get it be sure to test the wifi connectivity thoroughly while you're still in the money-back return period.

 

[jaguarskx]

If I remember right, that particular model Toshiba has been plagued with wifi problems. Maybe they've fixed it, but if you get it be sure to test the wifi connectivity thoroughly while you're still in the money-back return period.

Hmmm....

I did a Google search regarding WiFi issues with that Toshiba laptop model (Toshiba Satellite S55t-B5152). I actually only found a few results. I found some wifi issues with older S55t models from 2011 - 2013, but this particular model was released this year. Like any new model laptops it likely takes some time before people start reporting problems.

One post I read where someone did have problems with the 2015 model stated that the WiFi problem he was having was solved after it was released that the WiFi card was not installed properly. No details were given, but since there is only one way which a WiFi card will fit into a PCI-e slot, I can only assume that the wires connecting the WiFi card to the laptop's antenna was crossed so it is only a matter of unscrewing the wire from the card, then swap their positions and screw them back in.

=============================================

Of the 32 reviews for that laptop (in the MS store) there were no complaints about WiFi.

The only complaint was that if you remove the hard drive and replace it with a SSD you no longer have Windows 8.1. Duh... because the operating system is installed on the hard drive.