Budget Laptop Holiday ‘19 recommendations (for dad)

[cbergerman1515]

Hello everyone. 
 

I’m looking for advice to purchase a budget laptop for my parents this holiday season. Specific model number would be most helpful.

 

My budget is no more than $400 dollars, and it will primarily be used for Office, browsing news and stock tips online, and for viewing pictures sent from their adult kids. No gaming besides card games, so no need for a dedicated GPU. Just looking for the best bang for the buck that will last multiple years.

 

The trackpad doesn’t have to be spectacular, as I assume they’ll be using a mouse. This laptop will live in their home, and seldom be more than 10 feet from a charger. 

 

Should I be looking at AMD now? Or does Intel still reign supreme even at the lowest end?

 

Lastly, if anyone has advice between leaving the bloatware on (for the most part) or installing a completely clean version of Windows, I’d appreciate the input.

 

Thanks in advance!

[rcmaehl]

Chromebook

[cbergerman1515]

2 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

Chromebook

Thanks for the suggestion but I need to stick with Windows for some other reasons not listed. Didn’t want to make a huge post

[rcmaehl]

8 minutes ago, cbergerman1515 said:

Thanks for the suggestion but I need to stick with Windows for some other reasons not listed. Didn’t want to make a huge post

I'd recommend checking out LTT's back to school video then. There's a few budget suggestions in there and the prices should be slightly decreased
 

 

[cbergerman1515]

13 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

I'd recommend checking out LTT's back to school video then. There's a few budget suggestions in there and the prices should be slightly decreased
 

 

Eh... thanks. 
 

Perhaps I should clarify. Just because my budget is small for them doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about electronics. I’m an electrical engineer and long time viewer of LTT. I have a great understanding of features on the market. I’m just looking for a nice conversation or suggestions around what models would fall in that range this time of year. 
 

I understand I’m looking for an SSD and 8ish GB of RAM. What I could use help on is determining the real world performance differences between AMD and Intel chips at that price point.
 

The part on the above video where they talk about the Acer’s Blender time for the i5 vs the Ryzen chip was the most helpful thing so far. Obviously I would prefer a quad core if I can find one at that price point, but determining the performance across all the different mobile product numbers is difficult for me. Perhaps there is no clear winner at that price point right now. 

[rcmaehl]

1 minute ago, cbergerman1515 said:

Perhaps I should clarify. Just because my budget is small for them doesn’t mean I don’t know anything about electronics. I’m an electrical engineer and long time viewer of LTT. I have a great understanding of features on the market. I’m just looking for a nice conversation or suggestions around what models would fall in that range this time of year. 

Ah okay. 

 

When it comes down to it. AMD is extremely competitive in pretty much all tiers, low-end through high-end, especially with their 3000 series. However, as far as I've seen intel is still the king at Performance Per Watt... just not Performance Per Clock. Whether or not this will make a major difference when it comes to Higher Wattage, shorter time VS Lower Wattage, longer time I've yet to see.

[cbergerman1515]

7 minutes ago, rcmaehl said:

When it comes down to it. AMD is extremely competitive in pretty much all tiers, low-end through high-end, especially with their 3000 series. However, as far as I've seen intel is still the king at Performance Per Watt... just not Performance Per Clock. Whether or not this will make a major difference when it comes to Higher Wattage, shorter time VS Lower Wattage, longer time I've yet to see.

Thank you! I’ll take a look at some models tomorrow and maybe start a new thread if I need some clarifications. Something like an A/B test for a couple of models. I’m not going to stress much over it as my parents won’t know the difference. It just gives me peace of mind knowing I’m getting something of value for them. 
 

Happy Holidays

[genexis_x]

14 hours ago, cbergerman1515 said:

no more than $400 dollars

I don't think you can get a decent model for that price, maybe a Tongfang like this