Recommend a $400 laptop for a student please.

[Forde3654Eire]

1. What is your budget?
Max $500 / 2000 Saudi Riyals, maybe a little over but not by much.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
13.3 - 15.6 inches

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Doesn't matter, native resolution is fine (E.g 1366 x 768 for 15.6 inch).

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable, nothing heavier than 3kg.

5. How much battery life do you need?
4 hours or more.

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)?
Old games. Direct X9 and below. NFS Carbon, Most Wanted and Underground 2, Left 4 Dead 2, Diablo II etc. At least medium. Preferrably high settings.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
Photoshop, video-editing, screen capture (Fraps)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
320GB - 500GB

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
No specific sites

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
All my college years (4 - 6 years)

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD/CD (with writing capability)

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: ASUS, Toshiba: Quality build, good reliability, don't overheat.
Avoid: HP, Acer, Gateway: Cheap quality, overheats, bad reliability (please let me know if I'm wrong).

13. What country do you live in?
Saudi Arabia

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I can't purchase online, customs into Saudi Arabia is very strict and shipping fees are crazy. Recommend a laptop and I'll see if its available at the local stores.

 

[WR2]

Recommend a laptop and I'll see if its available at the local stores.

It works the otherway around. List the laptops you DO have available at your local stores and we'll help you sort them out.
This also prevents your dollar quoted budget from messing things up since what you suggested ($425) doesn't translate well into Riyals.

This saves us work and aggravation by not suggestion items not available or out of your budget.

 

[megamanx00]

I'd say something like this

http/www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834101253

 

[Forde3654Eire]

It works the otherway around. List the laptops you DO have available at your local stores and we'll help you sort them out.
This also prevents your dollar quoted budget from messing things up since what you suggested ($425) doesn't translate well into Riyals.

This saves us work and aggravation by not suggestion items not available or out of your budget.

Pretty good idea actually, thanks for pointing that out. Here are the links to 2 good local stores. The maximum I would pay for a laptop is around SR2000.

http/www.jarirbookstore.com/catalog/laptop.asp
http/www.extrastores.com/Site/ProductList.aspx?Page=Laptops&SubFamilyID=157

For your information, $1 = SR3.75.

 

[WR2]

It looks like your best bet is either:

Lenovo G470G SR 1799 page 28
i3-2310 CPU, 3GB RAM, 500GB HDD 14" 1366x768 w/ Intel HD 3000 Graphics

SR 1999 Asus A43 14" notebook on page 23
i3-2310 CPU, 3GB RAM, 320GB HDD 14" 1366x768 w/ Intel HD 3000 Graphics

That's about as good a balanced performance laptop you'll find in that price range.

 

[deicidechaos]

Shop around, compair the specs, not brands. The only real differences in brands are the cases and warrenties and prices and commissions made by the sales persons. Generally - but not always, the more you pay the higher the specs will be in the laptops but You can pick up a wide variety of nice laptops for under $400.

 

[Forde3654Eire]

It looks like your best bet is either:

Lenovo G470G SR 1799 page 28
i3-2310 CPU, 3GB RAM, 500GB HDD 14" 1366x768 w/ Intel HD 3000 Graphics

SR 1999 Asus A43 14" notebook on page 23
i3-2310 CPU, 3GB RAM, 320GB HDD 14" 1366x768 w/ Intel HD 3000 Graphics

That's about as good a balanced performance laptop you'll find in that price range.

Thanks for taking your time to go through this I also happened to be considering the ASUS A43 myself, now I'm set for it!

 

[WR2]

Let us know how it works out for you.

 

[Forde3654Eire]

Let us know how it works out for you.

I'll see about that, because now I'm pitting the laptop (portability) against a PC build I have in mind for the same price (performance).

Being quite a lover of PC gaming (even on a 5 year old bog-stock family laptop), I'd easily go for the PC build. However, I'd have to be sure that the inability to take it around in college isn't a big compromise.

I don't really see that it would be a problem... this ancient laptop I'm typing from currently has always been on the desk, plugged into the power supply. Any recommendations from college students?