Solved! Looking for a simple laptop

bgreeley

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May 20, 2010
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Hey everyone,

I'm looking to pick up a laptop for my girlfriend. Not really looking to play games on it, but I'm looking for something that could play some HD video without any hiccups.

Here is my criteria:

1. What is your budget?
Prefer less than 700, but am flexible

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

3. What screen resolution do you want?


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

5. How much battery life do you need?
6 hours at least would be great

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)?
None

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Photo editing, watch movies (HD amazon video streams)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
500gb would be nice

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

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
4 years or so

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

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.

13. What country do you live in?
US

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
SD card slot and web cam
 

bgreeley

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May 20, 2010
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You might just wait for black friday and go with this HP 14" Laptop w/ Core i5 CPU just for 550 bucks. . Good specs, nice price. It might meeet your needs well.
http://tgi-black-friday.com/index.php?title=hp+i5&store=&keywords=&keyword_submit=submit=28902550

I'd love to wait, but I'm trying to pick one up in the next couple of days. Any brands I should look into or avoid?
 

raza715

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Oct 5, 2008
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yeah go with dell studio 1558, its the best which you can get if you want simple laptop, plus it can be customized later on if you want to add additional ram or if you want to add dedicated GPU (5470 i think)
 

bgreeley

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May 20, 2010
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Thanks for the advice on the Studio 15, but I can't find them in stock outside of Dell which I won't be able to get shipped until the end of the month.

Has anyone have any experience with ASUS laptops? I just started looking at the ASUS U45.
 

bgreeley

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May 20, 2010
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I ended up picking up a HP Pavilion DM4. The 14 inch screen is small enough where it still feels portable and the i5 it powerful enough to stream Netflix without any hiccups. It also has good battery life and pretty lightweight. Pretty happy so far with purchase.