Laptop for School/Work & General Use - Maybe Light Gaming, $1000 budget

[lilrayray69]

1. What is your budget?

About $1,000 max.

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

Probably 13" to 14" - don't want a heavy/bulky one, portability important.

3. What screen resolution do you want?

1080p

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

Portable, definitely not a desktop replacement

5. How much battery life do you need?

I'd like at least 8 hours, if not more.

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)?

Maybe, but not a high priority or anything. Maybe play WoW or Total War, low settings is fine.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)

Lots of Word/Excel/Publisher/Access, SPSS, EndNote, Photo editing, watching videos/movies

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

Unsure - 128gb of an SSD may be sufficient

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

N/A

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

I'd like it to be a solid laptop for 2-3 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?

Doesn't really matter.

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.

I honestly do not know much about laptop brands currently.

13. What country do you live in?

USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

I have been looking a lot at the Dell XPS 13 and I really like the way it is built. It's slim, lightweight, but seems to have a high build quality and a good screen. Without knowing much else about other laptops, that's probably the one I would go for.

Probably want an i5, unsure if I would need 4GB or 8GB of RAM.

 

[velo3100]

You could look at the asus ux302la or ux303la. I would get 8 gigs of ram for the image editing. The dell xps 13 is also a very good alternative.

 

[lilrayray69]

Yeah I saw the Zenbooks and pretty much think it's between the XPS and Zenbook - similar pricing, although the XPS is a bit more expensive but also seems built a little better.

Spec-wise the XPS 13 w/8gb of RAM is basically identical to the Zenbook UX303LA. The XPS 13 is $1,000 straight from Dell, the UX303LA is about $850.

So obviously, the Zenbook seems like the better deal.

The XPS 13 has a specified weight of 2.6 pounds while the Zenbook says 3.2 pounds. I think the XPS is also smaller while still fitting the same size 13.3" screen.

Anyone ever handle or have much experience with either to give input?