I need some opinions. Want to recommend me a laptop (possibly an ultrabook?)?

[heyhihello]

Ok, I need some serious laptop help. I am looking for a solid laptop for college. It needs to be windows, and It needs to be around $750 or less. Looking for all the standard stuff, like a long battery life, relatively decent display/sound, portability/lightweight. Here are some specs that I would LOVE for someone to help give me their opinion on. Im looking into ultrabooks right now. The one laptop i am most considering buying is the Asus Zenbook ux350 (there always seems to be more letters added on to the end, most of which I have no idea what the difference is between all of them, wish I did. Im looking at this one.-Zenbook-UX305FA-USM1.) My brother keeps telling me though, that $700 is a stupid price to pay for a laptop. He says you should either get a cheaper, maybe $400-500 one thatll do just as good as he claims the zenbook will do, without paying for all the extra specs I dont need, or go for one thats $900-1000 because thats where they start to get good. Does anyone want to refute that? Ive look at sooooo many reviews, and the zenbook seems to do pretty well. My problem is that I just cant find anything that seems to be a perfect fit for me. Everytime I want to buy the zenbook, I remind myself that I really need something that wont slow down when I have 30 tabs open on chrome, which I dont know if the zenbook can boast that feature. So, if someone wants to voice their opinion on whether its worth it to splurge for an okay ultrabook, or if its better to save the money and get a works-just-fine-itll-get-you-through-college $400-500 laptop, that would be great!

 

[hang-the-9]

Your brother is partially right about the price. For $500 you can get a nice laptop that will do basic things. For closer to $1,000 you can get a better one for games. For $700 you can get a laptop that can handle more games than the $500 and will be faster with things like video conversion and editing and can also give you some things like better case construction, faster hard-drive, better screen, maybe more reliability depending on the brand. You can get a sleeker laptop than you would in a cheaper price point.

If you don't care much about the design or gaming speed, you can get all the laptop you need for general use for $500. Asus and Lenovo are the top brands in that price range for reliability.

 

[heyhihello]

Your brother is partially right about the price. For $500 you can get a nice laptop that will do basic things. For closer to $1,000 you can get a better one for games. For $700 you can get a laptop that can handle more games than the $500 and will be faster with things like video conversion and editing and can also give you some things like better case construction, faster hard-drive, better screen, maybe more reliability depending on the brand. You can get a sleeker laptop than you would in a cheaper price point.

If you don't care much about the design or gaming speed, you can get all the laptop you need for general use for $500. Asus and Lenovo are the top brands in that price range for reliability.

Would you say, then, that the Asus Zenbook ux305 is worth it for the price? In terms of hard drive, memory, other features. ? Or are there cheaper options that are just as good?

 

[jaguarskx]

If you are looking for a relatively small and light laptop then consider the 14" ThinkPad E450 which weighs in at 4lbs and starts at $550. It comes with the 4th generation Core i3-4005u CPU (1.7GHz) which is more powerful than the Core M used in the Asus Zenbook UX305. But the 5th generation Core i3-5005u CPU (2.0GHz) is a free upgrade. But I recommend upgrading to the Core i5-5200u for $100. Also, upgrade the screen to a 1920x1080 screen for $80 which matches the resolution of the screen used in the Asus UX305. This brings the total price to $721.

http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/e-series/e450/

Apply the coupon code SAV20THINKPAD to bring down the price to $577. This coupon code expires on May 27th (tomorrow).

The laptop only comes with 4GB of RAM. Increasing it to 8GB will cost you $80. It is cheaper to purchase the following 4GB stick of DDR3L 1600 RAM for $28 and installing it yourself.

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820148813


The ThinkPad E450 may not be as light as the Asus UX305 (4lbs. vs 2.6lbs), but the Core i3 / Core i5 CPU is more powerful than the Core M CPU. The integrated Intel HD 5500 is also more powerful than than the Intel HD 5300 graphics core by a significant margin. The ThinkPad only has a standard 500GB hard drive, but that is something you can upgrade yourself later.

If you want something lighter than 4lbs, then your best bet is to go with the Asus UX305 unless you are willing to spend more money for a light ultrabook that has a Core i5 CPU.