Need help with studies/work laptop suggestions

[Lollies]

Hi! I'm trying to help my girlfriend get the best laptop possible to finish her studies and work. I'm aiming for the best possible hardware taking into account it will not be used for gaming, so no dedicated graphics are needed. I guess an i7 and 8gb of RAM would be the sweet spot, since she's going to be using it for statistics and office-like programs, but I want her to really be able to forget about lag or waiting so she can concentrate on her work. The sweet spot would be around 750 dollars since I'm going to order it to ship outside the US so the taxes are going to inflate the price quite a bit.

In my city's tech store they showed me a really nice looking (aluminium?) Toshiba Satellite with an i7, 1TB of disk space and 8gb of ram and it even had dedicated graphics, which, even if she won't use them, they're there, but I don't want to just take the first thing that comes to us, specially after I read that the battery isn't user-replaceable, that's why I need your help guys 🙂.

By the way, it doesn't necessarily have to be full HD since she isn't going to pay attention to that, she wants it for work, studies and for it to last around 4 years.

All help is appreciated!

tl;dr: Fast laptop, ~$750, i7 8gb ram = sweet spot.

 

[velo3100]

Look at the asus n series or look at barebone laptops as they can be customised to your liking.

 

[Saniya658]

Dedicated graphics on laptop are never recommended, they are harmful for the battery life in long run.

Have a look at this page: http/www.techkhoji.com/best-laptop-buying-guide-2015/

In $750 bucks, you can go for Lenovo series, they have some really sturdy laptops. If you are going to game on that laptop, make sure it has high battery capacity.

 

[jaguarskx]

I recommend the following Toshiba Satellite S55t-B5152 for $450. It has a Core i5-5200u, 1080p touchscreen, and 4GB of RAM.

http/www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Satellite-S55t-B5152-Touchscreen-Broadwell/dp/B00TP5AXMQ


The Core i5-5200u is only 300MHz slower than a Core i7-5500u so there is not that big of a difference in performance. Both are dual core CPUs. The 1080p screen actually will allow your girlfriend to see more information on the screen; for example when using Excel she will see more columns and rows on the screen compared to a 1366x768 resolution screen. I think a 1080p screen is pretty important for work. It only has 4GB of RAM, but you can always install another 4GB of RAM yourself like the following Crucial 4GB RAM stick for $28.

http/www.amazon.com/Crucial-Single-PC3-12800-204-Pin-CT4G3S160BM/dp/B008LTBM6S/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1438380258&sr=1-4&keywords=4gb+ddr3l+ram+crucial



If she absolutely needs a quad core i7 CPU because she is doing extremely heavy number crunching, then you can get her the following Toshiba Satellite for $630. It has the quad core i7-4710HQ, 1366x768 resolution screen and 8GB of RAM. The quad core i7 uses more power compared to a "u" model CPU like the i5-5200u in the above laptop so that will cut into battery life.

http/www.officedepot.com/a/products/473995/Toshiba-Satellite-Laptop-Computer-With-156/?cm_mmc=PLA-_-Google-_-Computers_Tablets-_-473995-VQ6-42102169076-VQ16-c-VQ17-pla-VQ18-online-VQ19-473995-VQ20-71569147196-VQ21-&gclid=CjwKEAjwueytBRCmpOyZ2L-xrG8SJADwH5c6fgGRMsQtMwCz_8v7yqhrqkACw8nrOJztKNHXByPnchoCCw_w_wcB#firstTab


A possible way to avoid paying import tax is to dress up the newly purchased laptop as a laptop that is already owned and has been used. When you get the laptop do the following steps.

1. Remove all stickers. Use alcohol to rub off any sticky residue.
2. Turn on the laptop and go through the process of actually setting up the laptop for use. Ask your girlfriend what user name she would like to be setup on the laptop.
3. To make things easy tell her your first name will be the password.
4. What the hell... put on some type of wallpaper or desktop theme you think she might like.
5. Ship the laptop in a typical brown box and don't forget to wrap the laptop with a decent amount of bubble wrap; the large bubble variety.


Your GF's story in the event she gets questioned by a customs agent is that she went to visit you and she accidentally left the laptop behind. She can prove that the laptop is not "new" by simply logging into the laptop.

EDIT....

Oh yeah, don't forget to ship the battery charger as well.