Looking for Writing/Surfing Laptop for my Wife.

[c911darkwolf]

1. What is your budget? Around $500 (Give or take $100)

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 13-16"

3. What screen resolution do you want? Standard is fine

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

5. How much battery life do you need? Good Battery life or Option to buy a Larger Cell Battery down the road.

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? No

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? a laptop for Writing, Surfing the web, and watching movies. Often watching movies to one side while writing.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? 320GB is bare minumum prefer 500Gb+

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. Open to new sites, I normally order from Newegg.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? 2-3 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD Rom & SD Card Slot(would be nice but I have usb adapater)

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. Prefer it be a common name. ASUS, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, ect.... Not had much luck with Acer or HP, but if a good deal will consider them.

13. What country do you live in? U.S.

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

 

[boosted1g]

Anything above bottom end will be just fine for you. Lenovo and Asus are the two best quality makers right now. Dell and Toshiba would be the next 2, but they have declined quite a bit over the last several years, the only reason they are above HP is because HP is so hit or miss.

Don't get an AMD anything for a laptop. While some of their desktop CPUs are decent their laptop chips are awful.

For your wife's needs I would go with a Core i3 or Core i5. the i3 will be fully decent but no reason to pass up on an i5 if you find on at a good price.

Most anything should have a 500 gb drive in it.

Most laptops will either have 4gb or 6gb in it. The 6 is preferred just because it has 2 sticks in it and not one so it is utilizing the full memory bandwidth (difference of 15% performance). Now you can very easily just buy a 4gb ram stick for $25-30 and upgrade it from 4-8 gb.

 

[boosted1g]

Anything above bottom end will be just fine for you. Lenovo and Asus are the two best quality makers right now. Dell and Toshiba would be the next 2, but they have declined quite a bit over the last several years, the only reason they are above HP is because HP is so hit or miss.

Don't get an AMD anything for a laptop. While some of their desktop CPUs are decent their laptop chips are awful.

For your wife's needs I would go with a Core i3 or Core i5. the i3 will be fully decent but no reason to pass up on an i5 if you find on at a good price.

Most anything should have a 500 gb drive in it.

Most laptops will either have 4gb or 6gb in it. The 6 is preferred just because it has 2 sticks in it and not one so it is utilizing the full memory bandwidth (difference of 15% performance). Now you can very easily just buy a 4gb ram stick for $25-30 and upgrade it from 4-8 gb.

 

[c911darkwolf]

Because of where I work i get a 10% (i think) manufactures discount off dell products as a FYI.

I got my money in hand so i'm actively looking now.

Also we run mostly Linux OS's in our house so if it runs good on Linux thats a + : )

 

[boosted1g]

This is a better buy then from dell directly: http/www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8991879&CatId=4935

Now I have heard many people get a better deal calling dell or Lenovo directly then just browsing on the web.

 

[boosted1g]

There is also this if you were interested in the convertible touchscreen route: http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1CZ25B4602