Laptop tips for a non-gamer girlfriend?

[Sebastian]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm in the market to replace my girlfriend's aging laptop, which I'm fairly certain is approaching the end of its life. Fortunately, she's not into gaming, so we can save a bit of money there. She mainly uses her computer for very light applications: mainly Word, Powerpoint, and internet browsing.

 

Some things I'd like to see in the new laptop (in no particular order):

 

- I'm aiming for around the $500 mark, though if something with particularly good bang for the buck comes up, I'll go up to around $700

- 15.6" screen

- 1080p resolution. I'm shocked by how prevalent 1366p resolution still is... 1080p should really be a standard these days, considering the state of the standalone monitor market...

- Long battery life

- 250 GB storage minimum, and I'd like either a hybrid drive, or if I'm lucky, an SSD.

- 8 GB of memory minimum

- I'd like to have 802.11ac support, since my home network supports it, plus all the 2.4 GHz channels are constantly congested (we live in an apartment building full of students).

 

Given her typical computer usage, a dedicated GPU is unnecessary, and would in fact be a negative when considering the extra drain on the battery. I'd basically like the computer to be as zippy as possible, because her current computer takes a minute or more to start up, 20 seconds or more to open an internet browser or Word, etc. It's truly painful to witness. Hence the importance of a hybrid drive or SSD. Obviously, this also makes the choice of CPU pretty important as well. Unfortunately, I don't have a good feel for the different mobile processor models, especially when it comes to AMD processors. 

 

I've spent some time browsing Intel's ARK site, and some questions have come up. I've been comparing the i5 4210U, i5  5200U, i5 5300U, and i7 5500U, and the differences seem very minimal. The clock speeds vary slightly (the turbo clocks less so), the Haswell chip has an older generation of integrated graphics, and the i7 has 4 MB of cache memory vs 3 MB for the others. Otherwise, they all seem to be pretty much the same. Is there some big difference between the 4th and 5th generation chips, or between the i5s and i7s that I'm not seeing?

 

So is there anyone out there that has had hands-on experience with a number of laptops in this price range? Have any of you recently made a similar purchase, and if so, what did you go for? Are there any particular brands which you'd specifically recommend or avoid? Why?

 

Thanks in advance for any tips!

 

[Dzzope]

My first question is what does she have now?

 

Would it be worth a fresh install of windows without bloat or any addons etc she has installed or possibly dropping in an SSD and maybe ram for a speed boost?

 

One good thing a smaller (less resolution) display has over a larger one is that it consumes MUCH less power. Just something to consider.

 

Other than this.. maybe a chromebook would be up her street? (not actually used one but it should do office stuffs and web)

 

Ohh, and follow your own topics.

 

 

Snip

[kristaps552]

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-14-Inch-Touchscreen-Laptop-59418273/dp/B00K6ZIKWO/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1431515836&sr=1-4

 

One thing though, the SSD in this is 128GB, which might not be enough...

Or get a laptop with HDD within the budget, and then replace the HDD with a SSD of your choice.

[ThE_MarD]

Heyyo,

Sadly I'm in Canada and have no idea what notebook prices are in Sweeden, sorry dude... so I'll just make guestimates.

Now, you mentioned a dollar value so I'm guessing you meant in USD?

If you have a known online retailer for notebooks in Sweden we could try to find a notebook in your native currency.

Here's what I could find on amazon since I guess Newegg's selection sucks right now lol...

Acer Aspire V 15 V3-572G-543S 15.6-Inch Full HD Laptop (Platinum Silver) = $663.00 USD

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V3-572G-543S-15-6-Inch-Platinum/dp/B00R45UG3K/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1431529596&sr=1-1

Intel Core i5-5200U Processor (2.2 GHz)

8 GB DDR3L SDRAM

1 TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive

15.6-Inch Screen, NVIDIA GeForce 840M

Windows 8.1, 7-hour battery life

802.11AC WiFi featuring MIMO technology (Dual-Band 2.4GHz and 5GHz)

This meets your CPU, RAM, Screen Size & Resolution requirements. It does meet your Storage size but not the speed... but for under $700 USD? You'll be hard pressed to find a lot for your specifications. Lowering the resolution requirement would get you a little more battery life as the system wouldn't need as many resources to push each screen render much like the current smartphone battle of FHD resolution Vs QHD.

The CPU is the latest generation of Intel CPU and sports a decent clock speed too so it'll be able to handle anything she throws at it with ease. She'll multi-task very efficiently for you whilst maintaining a decent battery life. It's also on 14nm fabrication and has a TDP of 15 W which is seriously awesome! She won't generate much heat or sap the battery that much at all. The only other processors other than Intel's that are on 14nm is the Samsung Exynos 7420 used on the new Galaxy S6 series so she's state of the art fabrication.

8GB of RAM, it's overkill for what she needs tbh but hey, it's kind of like a bonus for the price range.

5400 RPM hard drives are the normal for notebooks and it's on this one. It's definitely not an SSD but it won't be that much of a slouch either. Unless she's editing videos with Adobe Premier or such? It won't make that big of a difference for hard drive speeds tbh. Storage speeds will probably not rank that high on what your goals are for this notebook.

That NVIDIA Geforce GPU will actually remain off unless you launch a graphically-intensive game. NVIDIA's Prime technology uses the Intel integrated GPU for the majority of tasks and when the notebook detects that there's a game launched? It then switches to the discrete GPU. It's actually quite useless on this notebook tbh since it's a slow GPU that outperforms the Intel HD only by a small margin and wouldn't even consider gaming on it unless it's a free to play game.

802.11AC WiFi featuring MIMO technology (Dual-Band 2.4GHz and 5GHz)... there ya have it! 5GHz! Screw them other WiFi Networks! 5GHz is rarely used so if you connect her notebook to it with this? BAM! She'll run great.

Brand? Well, Acer make darn solid notebooks all around. My favorite brands are Asus and MSI due to their outstanding warranty but Acer's are still plenty reliable. They make some really killer desktop monitors too so they are a good brand.

Price? At $663.00 it is pretty close to your budget limit... but in order to meet your expectations? It's pretty much impossible at your minimum $500 USD price unless you're willing to buy a refurbished unit or find a used one.

[Sebastian]

My first question is what does she have now?

 

Would it be worth a fresh install of windows without bloat or any addons etc she has installed or possibly dropping in an SSD and maybe ram for a speed boost?

 

...

 

Ohh, and follow your own topics.

 

 

At the moment, she has an HP 630: http://www.cnet.com/products/hp-630-15-6-p-p6200-windows-7-home-premium-64-bit-4-gb-ram-320-gb-hdd-series/specs/

 

It would probably help considerably to do a fresh install of windows or putting in an SSD, but to be honest, I'd rather just replace it altogether. Oh, and thanks for the tip to follow my own topic .

 

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-14-Inch-Touchscreen-Laptop-59418273/dp/B00K6ZIKWO/ref=sr_1_4?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1431515836&sr=1-4

 

One thing though, the SSD in this is 128GB, which might not be enough...

Or get a laptop with HDD within the budget, and then replace the HDD with a SSD of your choice.

 

I hadn't looked into their flex series yet, but that looks potentially quite promising. She seemed to light up a bit when I mentioned that they had touch screens, so that one's definitely going on the list of possibilities, given the other specs. I'd still prefer that it comes with a hybrid drive or SSD, since buying an SSD separately will just boost the cost on its own. Still, if that turns out to be cheaper than buying one of the more expensive Flex models, then I will (and just throw the extra 128 GB SSD in my desktop for extra game storage ). Either way, I'll probably just keep an eye out for Flex models when local sellers are having sales.

 

Heyyo,

...

Acer Aspire V 15 V3-572G-543S 15.6-Inch Full HD Laptop (Platinum Silver) = $663.00 USD

http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V3-572G-543S-15-6-Inch-Platinum/dp/B00R45UG3K/ref=sr_1_1?s=pc&ie=UTF8&qid=1431529596&sr=1-1

Intel Core i5-5200U Processor (2.2 GHz)

8 GB DDR3L SDRAM

1 TB 5400 rpm Hard Drive

15.6-Inch Screen, NVIDIA GeForce 840M

Windows 8.1, 7-hour battery life

802.11AC WiFi featuring MIMO technology (Dual-Band 2.4GHz and 5GHz)

...

Brand? Well, Acer make darn solid notebooks all around. My favorite brands are Asus and MSI due to their outstanding warranty but Acer's are still plenty reliable. They make some really killer desktop monitors too so they are a good brand.

Price? At $663.00 it is pretty close to your budget limit... but in order to meet your expectations? It's pretty much impossible at your minimum $500 USD price unless you're willing to buy a refurbished unit or find a used one.

 

I've been looking at a lot at the Aspire series as well actually. I just wish there were an option to drop the 840M and put in a faster storage alternative, since as you say, it doesn't really serve its intended purpose very well anyway. At any rate, this is also on my list, and I might just consider buying an SSD separately and throwing that in. 

 

My strategy for buying generally involves picking a few models that I like, and then waiting until I see one of them on a decent sale. If I'm lucky, I can get a hold of an $800 Flex or Aspire model for under my $700 limit.

 

Is anyone else aware of any other models that are similar in price and specs to the aforementioned Flex and Aspire models?

[kristaps552]

SNIP

Try this, you can get something decent for a good price.

http://www.toshiba.com/us/customizable_laptops?src=MAKP&cm_mmc=TAI-_-Home-_-TopNav-_-BTO#+25+216+371%7E10%7E0%7Ep_Featured

[flowalex]

Here is a Dell laptop, I have an older version of this, and it has been really reliable, it has gotten really abused. Also this is from the US http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-17-5749-laptop/pd?oc=fndoh2434s&model_id=inspiron-17-5749-laptop

[PaulKolby]

http://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Z50-15-6-Inch-Laptop-80EC0087US/dp/B00NNQFNV4/ref=sr_1_5?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1429753730&sr=1-5&keywords=lenovo+a10