Help my GF pick a laptop!

[acercon]

Hi, we have decided to spend $1000 Canadian on a laptop.

We do some light gaming from time to time like portal2, league of legends and overcooked,(steam games like that) nothing too GPU intensive but I definitely want to have a GPU on her laptop.

She is going to use her mostly for school-related purposes(so no gaming look please)  like research, coding, writing documents, and movies (nice display preferred).

 

I am looking at Lenovo Ideapad 720S 15 or ASUS ZenBook 13 UX331UN-WS51T 

 

Any good suggestions? 

 

Thanks!

[TheWiseGuy]

Kinda of a Gamer look if she likes red. https://www.amazon.com/Dell-Inspiron-15-Gaming-Laptop/dp/B07824QJZC/ref=sr_1_6?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1531179198&sr=1-6&keywords=gtx+1060+laptop

[TheWiseGuy]

Sorry forgot you were in Canada https://www.amazon.ca/Dell-Inspiron-15-Gaming-Laptop/dp/B07824QJZC/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1531179274&sr=8-1&keywords=2018+Flagship+Dell+Inspiron+15+5000+Gaming+Edition+5577+Laptop+(15.6+Inch+FHD+Display%2C+Intel+Core+i5-7300HQ+2.5GHz%2C+8GB+RAM%2C+128GB+SSD+%2B+1TB+HDD%2C+NVIDIA+GTX+1050+4GB+Graphics%2C+Windows+10)

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

Anything that's a Nvidia GT Series card is trash. Just keep that in mind. You either don't need a GPU or go for at least a GTX 1050m.

[kirashi]

27 minutes ago, acercon said:

Hi, we have decided to spend $1000 Canadian on a laptop.

We do some light gaming from time to time like portal2, league of legends and overcooked,(steam games like that) nothing too GPU intensive but I definitely want to have a GPU on her laptop.

She is going to use her mostly for school-related purposes(so no gaming look please)  like research, coding, writing documents, and movies (nice display preferred).

 

I am looking at Lenovo Ideapad 720S 15 or ASUS ZenBook 13 UX331UN-WS51T 

 

Any good suggestions? 

 

Thanks!

My suggestion around the $1000 CAD price point is Dell's nearly unmatched Inspiron 15 7000 "gaming" series. There are a couple of machines that do come close, such as Acer's Nitro lineup, as even in Canada I've seen them on sale on Amazon for around $950 with an SSD, i5 CPU, and GPU. But really, there's not a lot of options that tick all of the boxes in Canada because our ruble dollar is poop.

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Acer-AN515-53-5400-Notebook-i5-8300H-Memory/dp/B07CWGZGFL/

8th Generation Intel Core i5-8300H Processor (Up to 4.0GHz)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 with 4 GB of dedicated GDDR5 VRAM

15.6" Full HD (1920 x 1080) widescreen LED-backlit IPS Display

24GB Total Memory (HAHAHA MARKETING DEPARTMENTS AM I RIGHT? ahem sorry)

8GB 2400MHz DDR4 RAM Memory

16GB Intel Optane Memory

1TB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive (potato, even with the Optane module, replace with SSD)

$1049 at time of post

 

https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/deals/new-dell-g5-15-gaming/spd/g-series-15-5587-laptop/ni155587_ftsb_s628e

Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti with 4GB GDDR5 graphics memory

Processor: 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-8300H Processor (Quad-Core, 8MB Cache, up to 4.0GHz w/ Turbo Boost)

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit English

Memory: 8GB, 1x8GB, DDR4, 2666MHz

Hard Drive: 256GB Solid State Drive

Display: 15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display

Case Color: Matte Black

Wireless: 802.11ac + Bluetooth 5.0, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, MU-MIMO/160Mhz, 2x2

Primary Battery: 56 Whr, 4-Cell Battery (Integrated)

Price (at time of posting): $1099 CAD

[acercon]

33 minutes ago, kirashi said:

My suggestion around the $1000 CAD price point is Dell's nearly unmatched Inspiron 15 7000 "gaming" series. There are a couple of machines that do come close, such as Acer's Nitro lineup, as even in Canada I've seen them on sale on Amazon for around $950 with an SSD, i5 CPU, and GPU. But really, there's not a lot of options that tick all of the boxes in Canada because our ruble dollar is poop.

 

https://www.amazon.ca/Acer-AN515-53-5400-Notebook-i5-8300H-Memory/dp/B07CWGZGFL/

8th Generation Intel Core i5-8300H Processor (Up to 4.0GHz)

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 with 4 GB of dedicated GDDR5 VRAM

15.6" Full HD (1920 x 1080) widescreen LED-backlit IPS Display

24GB Total Memory (HAHAHA MARKETING DEPARTMENTS AM I RIGHT? ahem sorry)

8GB 2400MHz DDR4 RAM Memory

16GB Intel Optane Memory

1TB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive (potato, even with the Optane module, replace with SSD)

$1049 at time of post

 

https://www.dell.com/en-ca/shop/deals/new-dell-g5-15-gaming/spd/g-series-15-5587-laptop/ni155587_ftsb_s628e

Video Card: NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 1050 Ti with 4GB GDDR5 graphics memory

Processor: 8th Generation Intel® Core™ i5-8300H Processor (Quad-Core, 8MB Cache, up to 4.0GHz w/ Turbo Boost)

Operating System: Windows 10 Home 64-bit English

Memory: 8GB, 1x8GB, DDR4, 2666MHz

Hard Drive: 256GB Solid State Drive

Display: 15.6-inch FHD (1920 x 1080) IPS Anti-Glare LED-Backlit Display

Case Color: Matte Black

Wireless: 802.11ac + Bluetooth 5.0, Dual Band 2.4&5 GHz, MU-MIMO/160Mhz, 2x2

Primary Battery: 56 Whr, 4-Cell Battery (Integrated)

Price (at time of posting): $1099 CAD

Thank you! Let's say we don't care about GPU performance as much and we would rather value better display, looks and battery. What would you recommend? I am looking at the hp spectre 

[kirashi]

10 minutes ago, acercon said:

Thank you! Let's say we don't care about GPU performance as much and we would rather value better display, looks and battery. What would you recommend? I am looking at the hp spectre 

If that's the case, then either a Dell XPS 13 or Inspiron 5000 series (14 or 15 inch) or something with a good IPS display such as the Spectre would be a good choice. Lenovo makes decent machines too for the price, but I'm not really a fan because they don't publish service manuals for their laptops, making self-repair and maintenance difficult if you've never opened a laptop before. However, if I had to choose one, I would indeed go with a customized version of the 720S because I feel like it's the most portable Ultrabook they make at the best price to performance ratio, in Canada at least. (I was actually deciding between the older 710S and my XPS 15 last summer.)

[genexis_x]

Preferred display size and weight? How many hours of battery life?

[acercon]

16 hours ago, ZM Fong said:

Preferred display size and weight? How many hours of battery life?

display size is 15 inches and weight doesn't really matter however, battery life perf 6+hours

Primary use is going to be for school so we value that over GPU performance, *Not gaming focused

I am looking into some 2 in 1s Zenbooks 

[acercon]

19 hours ago, kirashi said:

If that's the case, then either a Dell XPS 13 or Inspiron 5000 series (14 or 15 inch) or something with a good IPS display such as the Spectre would be a good choice. Lenovo makes decent machines too for the price, but I'm not really a fan because they don't publish service manuals for their laptops, making self-repair and maintenance difficult if you've never opened a laptop before. However, if I had to choose one, I would indeed go with a customized version of the 720S because I feel like it's the most portable Ultrabook they make at the best price to performance ratio, in Canada at least. (I was actually deciding between the older 710S and my XPS 15 last summer.)

Lenovo seems to fit into the price range pretty well with the specs, any recommendations? 

[Boomwebsearch]

I would recommend this specific model of laptop computer primarily because this laptop has fantastic specifications (1TB hard drive and 265GB SSD, 16GB of RAM, and sufficient CPU and GPU performance) and the unit only weighs around 4 pounds and is less than an inch in thickness.

 

link to the Acer A51541GF3FL at Best Buy:   https://www.bestbuy.com/site/acer-15-6-laptop-amd-fx-16gb-memory-amd-radeon-rx-540-1tb-hard-drive-256gb-solid-state-drive-obsidian-black/6264510.p?skuId=6264510

[genexis_x]

5 hours ago, acercon said:

display size is 15 inches and weight doesn't really matter however, battery life perf 6+hours

Primary use is going to be for school so we value that over GPU performance, *Not gaming focused

I am looking into some 2 in 1s Zenbooks 

Your budget is a bit low (since it's CAD) - Acer Aspire 5 17 with FHD IPS panel (high sRGB)

 

Both options you mentioned above are out of your budget, right?