Help: best laptop for the $$ for desired specs/purpose

[Plotnus]

Hello All,

My gf wanted help picking out a laptop that suited her needs and as always was a good deal for the money. I told her I would ask you all for help. So, we thank you

Here is what she told me
Usage: "for my music & pictures mainly, nothing fancy" I assume she would also use it to browse and write papers, (I'm thinking an open source word processor to save $$) Just basic computer use here.

Preferences:
"Lots of storage [for her pictures music, ect.]"
When i asked what size she said "Something medium. I don't want anything heavy or too wide."

Price range: $200-500. She didn't mention if she would go for used, but sometimes used is a good way to go after a proper "clean up".

Also if you could include some reasoning that would be fantastic. If not that is fine too.



Thank you all for the help. She appreciates it very much!

 

[Deus Gladiorum]

Hello All,

My gf wanted help picking out a laptop that suited her needs and as always was a good deal for the money. I told her I would ask you all for help. So, we thank you

Here is what she told me
Usage: "for my music & pictures mainly, nothing fancy" I assume she would also use it to browse and write papers, (I'm thinking an open source word processor to save $$) Just basic computer use here.

Preferences:
"Lots of storage [for her pictures music, ect.]"
When i asked what size she said "Something medium. I don't want anything heavy or too wide."

Price range: $200-500. She didn't mention if she would go for used, but sometimes used is a good way to go after a proper "clean up".

Also if you could include some reasoning that would be fantastic. If not that is fine too.



Thank you all for the help. She appreciates it very much!

Hey there. Here's the laptop I'd recommend:
http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834231074

It's really close to the end of your price range, but there's no shipping charges if you choose 4-7 day shipping (usually comes earlier anyway) and depending on your state, there's no tax so it should come out to $499.99 exactly.

For the price, it's a very reliable laptop. Plenty of Hard Drive space. There's a very nice budget laptop processor inside for quick performance in applications without annoying stutter issues, and the graphics card inside, while not great, will be more than enough for 720p movies and a few 1080p (scaled down) movies, so for simple photo viewing this is more than overqualified.

As for size, it's 15.6" which is pretty standard nowadays. 17.3" is what most would consider wide. In terms of weight, it's not listed but for the most part 15.6" laptops never exceed 5.5 lbs. I'd be surprised if this did, as there's very little reason I can think of for why it would.

UPDATE: The only downside might be that it's using Windows 8. It'll require a bit of relearning, but that's to be expected every few years.

 

[filippi]

Check this thin, light and touchscreen notebook for $490. My wife would like this one...

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312837

 

[Deus Gladiorum]

Check this thin, light and touchscreen notebook for $490. My wife would like this one...

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312837

Also not a bad computer. In exchange for the touch screen, you get a few trade offs though. Namely, there's a worse processor, a far worse graphics processing unit, and the lack of an optical drive (i.e. disk drive).

The worse processor isn't bad. It still fairs pretty well, so the difference shouldn't be too bad.

The method of rendering graphics is just about as low end as it gets nowadays. Intel HD Graphics (not to be confused with Intel HD 3000, 4000, etc) can handle displaying basic, static 2D images but that's about it. Photo viewing shouldn't be a problem, but watching movies at 720p could be a little too taxing for it. However if she doesn't watch a lot of movies on her laptop this shouldn't be a problem.

There's also the lack of an Optical Drive, or in other words, there's no disk drive. For me, this isn't a big deal. I rarely use disks anymore, and one of my custom desktop builds doesn't have a disk drive simply because I haven't had need for it. But of course, this is up to her and her habit of using disks.

On the plus, it does apparently have more battery life. 3.5 Hours vs 5 hours. Some people treat their laptops as desktops and only move it as far as the nearest outlet will allow it. Others actually have to be using it constantly and are constantly on the move with it. I usually make do with my laptop by charging in between classes, so my 3 hour max battery life sustains me pretty well. In addition, this laptop is smaller (14") and most likely more lightweight coming in at 4.6 lbs vs what I assume will be 5 or 5.5 lbs for the laptop I recommended. Of course, the biggest feature is the touch screen. Windows 8 is really designed around tablets or other touch screen devices (because Microsoft slowly wants to kill PCs) and from what I've heard from friends Windows 8 works pretty well in combination with their touch screen laptops.

 

[filippi]

enough said.