New Laptop for my other half, US$700 budget

[thewelshbrummie]

After suggestions for a new laptop for my other half. Budget is $700.

 

She has/had an Asus Q302L, purchased 5/6 years ago from Best Buy with:

• Broadwell or Skylake era CPU. It's either i3 or i5 CPU (either way, it's a dual core CPU)
• 500GB HDD (no SSD)
• 8GB RAM
• 13" 768p display
• 3.75lb

I think this Amazon listing is accurate

 

I was going to replace the HDD for an SSD but that became academic yesterday morning, coffee was spilt on it and it shut down about 20 seconds after and now refuses to boot (there is power but nothing happens). Tipping it upside down and getting liquid coming out from under the keyboard makes me think the liquid damage is too severe to resurrect it, so I'm calling it deceased.

 

Also, for at least the last 4 years it's life it's had a massive crack diagonally across the display (pretty much from corner to opposite corner) which also damaged the touch digitiser. While she wasn't bothered by that after I disabled the touch driver in the device manager, it makes repairing it pointless.

 

For the time being she's getting my spare October 2015 Spectre x360 but she now needs a new laptop of her own as it's also a convertable which shes doesn't want, and the Skylake i7 CPU is still only dual core. 768p vs 1440 is no contest but it's both overkill and had issues of its own (broken power connector, while that was repaired and currently it's OK, I'm not confident it will last).

 

It's therefore new laptop time.

 

I'm thinking of getting with the mid-range Surface Laptop Go, subject to reviews (particularly on the webcam). 128GB SSD would be plenty (she was using well under 70GB on the HDD and obviously it's far faster). It matches the 8GB RAM. It's also a pound lighter (which is a request if possible). The USB sockets aren't an issue as she only ever uses for a dvd drive, so only one socket is needed (and I've got usb-A to USB-C adapters if one is needed).

 

I also get 5% off at the Microsoft store so I can get it for $665 rather than $700.

 

I'm just wondering if anyone has any suggestions of a similar spec laptop that comes in at a similar price with the following minimum specs:

• 128GB SSD (Sata or NVME)
• 8GB RAM
• sub 3lb weight
• $700 max
• no touchscreen required but not an issue if one is included.
• Proper laptop preferred. The Asus is a 360 degree convertable (as is my HP Spectre) which is ideally avoided. Also no tablets (she's not interested in my Surface Go which is smaller and lighter but too unstable for her)

I've seen some suggestions of the Dell XPS 13 coming close but I don't think it really justifies the increase based on how she uses it (even the Inspiron 13 at $800 doesn't justify the extra $135).

 

Suggestions?

[Random_Person1234]

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Octa-Core-Graphics-Fingerprint-SF314-42-R9YN/dp/B086KKKT15/ref=asc_df_B086KKKT15/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=439339234557&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1048838657026983628&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9061255&hvtargid=pla-915422451777&psc=1&tag=&ref=&adgrpid=101477186585&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvadid=439339234557&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=1048838657026983628&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9061255&hvtargid=pla-915422451777

For performance, this would be the best laptop under $700. It features a Ryzen 7 4700U with 8c/16t, a 512 GB NVME SSD, and 8 GB of RAM. The main downside of this laptop is it's display, which is not the brightest.