New Laptop Advice and Options

[tfahrnbruch]

Hello topic. My first post here. Located the site through some of my own research. Seems pretty active and I've learned a fair bit from browsing.

I'm going back to school and am looking for a laptop to replace my aging Toshiba Sattelite A205. It's lasted me longer than I would expect and I am happy with the brand I think.

I've got 400 dollars to Best Buy in gift cards so I'd like to purchase a computer from there. I'm considering Option 1 and Option 2

Both are slim and somewhat sleek which is something I am looking for. Both are not very user-friendly with respects to battery and swapping out hdd/sdd but I think I can live with it. Down the road I'm sure I can find some guides to replacing batteries. Samsung has no optical drive while Toshiba does so to me that's a plus. HDD/Ram/Graphics are all about the same. Toshiba is a haswell i5 (4200u) samsung is a 3rd gen i7 (3357u) I'm not sure which one I'd shoot for there. Toshiba is a 1080p led while samsung is a 1366 x 768 but with a matte screen.

My budget is a solid 650 before tax. Perhaps up to 750 if something is drastically better. Primary use for internet browsing and office applications. Lower-priced laptops fit the bill but I like the premium look and feel of thinner metal cases.

Ultimately I'm leaning towards the Toshiba. I'm looking to buy in the next few days but am open to any and all suggestions in choosing the samsung or toshiba or even a compeltey different rig. Any questions ask way. This post ended up longer than I intended but thanks for reading

 

[Alpha3031]

Primary use for internet browsing and office applications.

Go get a Chromebook or Transformerbook T100 or somthing

 

[tfahrnbruch]

Primary use for internet browsing and office applications.

Go get a Chromebook or Transformerbook T100 or somthing

I like the look of the chromebook but I don't want to be stuck with the chrome os. I will primarily use it for day to day work but I may need to run some programs store media on my computer at some point. I'm also not big fan of the 2 in 1's. They don''t seem durable and I'm not really interested in touch screen capabilities.

 

[vinaykumar5320]

If you're willing to spend around 800$ to get something drastically better, go with Lenovo Y-series:

Y410p (1st model):
http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/y410p/

Y510: (1st model):
http/shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/y-series/y510p/

i7 4700QM with NVIDIA GeForce GT755M Offers you great gaming performance. Also, excellent VFM.