New laptop under €600

[Thomas_89]

Hi guys! My girlfriend needs a new laptop and since I have ever only been interested in desktops I figured I could use some advice.
I thought I'd just fill in the form and see what you guys have to say!

1. What is your budget?
As the title suggests: €600
2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
17 inch screen would be good, 15 inch is considerable too
3. What screen resolution do you want?
If the budget allows it higher than 1368*768.
4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Desktop replacement, portability is definitely secondary. Lighter/cooler is better though
5. How much battery life do you need?
Battery life is also secondary. Obviously it's still nice if the battery lasts a while.
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)?
The Sims 3 and probably The Sims 4 in the near future. At least medium settings.
7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Watching movies, browsing, writing, listening to music etc.
8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
She has an external HDD so its not really important. Nevertheless 500 GB would be nice.
9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Dutch vendors only. We'll prbably buy from a store but use these sites as refference: www.azerty.nl, www.mycom.nl, www.coolblue.nl
Also www.tweakers.net has a very usefull pricewatch!
10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
At least until she graduates, that will be in 4 years.
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD-ROM
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.
I've heard from different sources that Acer build quality is below par. So preferable no Acer (if I've heard wrong, please enlighten me xD).
13. What country do you live in?
The Netherlands
14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I know haswell laptops are starting to come out so I think it's best to wait for that for the either the improved HD graphics or price drops on the Ivy's right?
Also, she can get free Windows through DreamSpark. So if a some money can be saved on the OS that would be great (do they even sell laptops without OS?)

I guess that's it! Thanks a lot in advance for your advice!

 

[JefferyD90]

I actually don't mind Acer's machines, I think they do very well.

Right now I would recommend starting here: http/www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C9W57AV?HP-ENVY-15z-j000-Notebook-PC (you can switch that to your country of choice) and start customizing from here. Not only is it sexy, but powerful, and it should fall in right at the price point you have made for yourself.

I would personally upgrade to the A10-5750M processor, and if you really want that *umph* in gaming get the 8750M Video card as well, which will run 95% of games out there very smoothly! Even with both upgrades its only $650 USD which I assume would be around 600 euro.

This will get OUTSTANDING battery life, it has great performance so heavy workloads will be fine, its also very light weight, and my personal fav selling point about this machine is its customizability. So if you don't want a video card, you can get the 1080p screen, or if you want xxx you can get that too!


PS: for the $15 I would go ahead and get the Bluetooth addon as well, as it comes in extremely helpful with syncing cellphones and using Bluetooth headsets on your PC

 

[Thomas_89]

Thank you for the advice, that indeed looks like a very nice laptop for the price! However, it seems it is not (yet) available in The Netherlands. It doesn't show up on the Dutch HP site and neither on the Tweakers.net price watch. Is it very new and should it be available soon? Also the Dutch HP site sadly doesn't seem to have such an excellent customization feature...

 

[JefferyD90]

Well, it SHOULD become available very soon, and it may BE available just using a slightly different name (you guys use a different electric grid and such so it might be a totally differnt model) so look on their site for something very simular tho. It is FAIRLY new here, like maybe 1-2 months old model. Also check amazon.com I know they will carry at least 1-2 of the different customizations of it.

 

[Thomas_89]

This is totally weird. The Dutch website doesn't even mention the ENVY 15 series whatsoever, same goes for the German site. The British can only get the 15t version, which is not bad in itself but where did the 15z go?

Amazon.com does have the 15z j000 but I they can't seem to ship it to my country.

I really like this laptop but unless it will become available soon I'm afraid I'll have to look further. Any other options?

 

[JefferyD90]

Personally I would wait it out at least a month. (if your able) usually models come to countries very quickly. Ill look up some other potential models as well.