Looking to buy laptop as gift - need advice

[mpavao81]

I am looking to a buy a laptop as a gift for my mother.
She currently has a 3 year old toshiba laptop. its a dual core but its one of the first dual core laptops and it was a very cheap one that having tons of problems, bad screen, bad nic, dieing touchpad. So i thought it would be nice to buy her a new one for christmas. Now i do get a discount from dell usually 10% to 15%
But i still need help on which to choose and what components to choose. And also i noticed on dells web site that you can get a i5 2.5ghz dual core or a i7 2.2ghz quad for the same price right now trying to figure out which would be the better choice.
Any advice would be appreciated, thanks

1. What is your budget? around $1400 Canadian

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 14" to 15"

3. What screen resolution do you want? 1920 x 1080

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

5. How much battery life do you need? 6 hours+

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)? probably not and if so not high end games

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) some photo shop , email, web browsing , facebook crap, "watching blue ray movies"

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? 500GB+

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

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

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? bluray reader/dvd burner (doesn't need to burn bluray)

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. Would like to stay away from Emachines & Acer would be open to other brands though. And I like Dell because i get a company discount with Dell purchases

13. What country do you live in? Canada

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.


To sum it up, need a laptop to play blu ray movies in HD (best possible screen quality), Storage space for movies & music, some minor photoshop, email, web browsing and facebook crap, and good wi fi (will be on the go alot using wi fi)

 

[WR2]

Hello mpavao81;

For 1920x1080 LCD you're only choice is 15" chassis and the XPS model. Sony Vaio Z has full HD in a smaller chassis but you're looking at $2K for that.

For those computer tasks you mention I think the 2nd Gen Core i3/Core i5 is plenty of CPU.
The standard RAM and HDD options are fine.
BluRay-DVD combo drive (ROM/burn) is a $100 add-on option.
1920x1080 LCD is a $150 add-on. Just to be clear - BluRay playback on a 720p screen is also an option - a very good one.

The standard $700 XPS 15 with BluRay & Bluetooth 3.0 = $820 would do just fine.
Core i3-2330M 2.20 GHz CPU, 6GB RAM, 500GB 7200rpm HDD, 15.6" 1366x768 (720p) w/ Nvidia GT 525 graphics.

Or about $970 with the Full HD screen. 1920x1080 pixels on a 15" screen makes for verrrry tiny text. You might need to adjust some things like text and icon size to make it comfortable for your mother.

By the time you've added the 'nice to have options' like a 2yr warranty, mouse, power protection, carry case (and maybe one of those Design Studio lid covers) and WiDi to TV Push2TV Adapters you're around $1340 with the 1080 screen.

The only think I couldn't find on Dell site was a nice headset/mic for listening to music or movies in private and maybe for the Skype calls back home.

Dell XPS 15 L502X (Sandy Bridge) Review
Dell XPS 15 L502x: Now with Sandy Bridge
Review Dell XPS 15 2011 Notebook

With Wifi running - about 4.5hrs with standard battery.

 

[mpavao81]

Thank you for advice i really appreciate it

 

[mpavao81]

Best answer selected by mpavao81.

 

[Maziar]

This topic has been closed by Maziar