What to buy?

[SuperDuper931]

So my wife's Dell laptop is going down the tube. The battery no longer retains a charge, the screen has many dead pixels and her HDD is about to give out according to some recent tests. Furthermore, her laptop is huge and unwieldy. She never takes it anywhere an instead opts to use my Lenovo X120E when she is mobile, such as our recent trip out of the country, leaving me without a laptop. Therefore, rather than wasting my time purchasing expensive parts for an outdated laptop, I intend to buy her a new one for her upcoming birthday. I am selling an arm and a leg (bass guitar and amp rather) to do this for her so my price range is up to $1,000. It would be great if someone could help me find a good, preferably cheap, laptop for her!

What my wife wants most for a new laptop are as follows:
1) Weight and size. She doesn't like anything less than 12" and she does not like larger than 15.6". 5lbs is the max weight.
2) Battery. She wants a laptop with at least 6hr of battery life.
3) Aesthetics.
4) Screen. Decent viewing angles and color. She prefers glossy.
5) Backlit Keyboard. I don't know why, but this is a very important feature to my wife, she has always had laptops with backlit keyboards.

I was thinking of either getting her the Dell XPS 14z, the Dell XPS 13, the HP Folio 13 or the Lenovo Ideapad U400 .

Any insight or help provided would be most appreciated!

 

[Brett928S2]

Hi

I own a lappy repair company and Computer shops in the UK....

6 hours battery life is a little ambitious to say the least...

When we sell a lappy...we tell the customer, divide the manufacturers battery time by 3, to get a realistic time ...plus a backlit keyboard wont help...

All the best Brett

 

[SuperDuper931]

All of the laptops I mentioned in my post claim to get up to six hour battery life. According to several reviews I have read on each laptop it appears that most of them, with the exception of the XPS 13, bench over six hours of battery life under average use. Even so, I normally deduct 20% of proposed battery life by the manufacturer to get a rough estimate of what the batteries true capabilities are. All of the aforementioned laptops utilize backlit keyboards except for the Lenovo Ideapad. Thanks for the advice though.

 

[SuperDuper931]

I would suggest the ATI 6870 as well, although it is only slightly faster than the GTX 560. I personally have 2GB 560ti that I love, but if I had the option I would purchase the 6870.

Here is some good info on the two cards http/www.hwcompare.com/11005/geforce-gtx-560-vs-radeon-hd-6870/

 

[SuperDuper931]

Still no reply, I guess I will try an bump this thread. Bump.

 

[Maziar]

Dell XPS 14z/HP Envy 14 get my vote.They're both great(though I prefer the Envy more)