Thread: Need Laptop Recommendation

A friend needs a laptop. She has odd requirements:

Larger screen (1440 by 900 -ish)
Lighter weight
Less money rather than more (as usual)

No need for optical drive
No need for CPU lifting power - an i3 is fine.

Needs to run some version of Windows 7
She wants it to be super portable - but needs more than a net-book-sized monitor.

My sense of it is that she wants the PC version of a 13" MacBook Air. I know next to nothing of this market segment.

Suggestions?

Cheers,


AetheLove

Originally Posted by DJ Mr. White

I know she wants Windows 7, but has she considered the Chrome book?

No.

More info:

She's a little old lady with more energy and curiosity than most people 20 years her junior.

She has a 17" MacBook Pro. She's very happy with it.

She lives in the country and is always on the go - most days into town (or the other town), and for two day or two month trips to other states or across the country.

The MacBook Pro isn't portable enough for day trips. She wants something lighter and cheaper. She'd also like smaller, but here's the quirk:

She is a day trader, and uses Fidelity's Active Trader Pro. It's a windows-only app (.NET, I think). It demands a lot of screen space - windows and lists and charts, etc. She will also use a browser. On the MacBook Pro, she runs Windows in a VM. It works great.

She is unlikely to observe the care that you or I might find normal for a computer. This machine will get banged around more than most. It will be in freezing temperatures. It will be around food and drink. If it dies an early death, it needs to be something she can shrug her shoulders about. This needs to be a no-tears machine.

That's what drives the spec:

Larger screen
Light weight
Cheap

I think an i3 is a minimum. The machine needs to never be sluggish (she won't understand that behaviour, or what to do about it other than reboot). 4 Gig RAM is probably enough, though 6 isn't too much. For the screen, 1440 x 900 seems about right. It's the vertical space that is limiting, so 1600 x 900 isn't that much better. I'm willing to be persuaded if you think my specs are off.

She doesn't need an optical drive. She doesn't need an SSD. She doesn't need a large hard drive. She doesn't need 3D graphics. None of those things are a problem to have, but they aren't necessary. An SSD as a substitute for an HDD is fine (it'll certainly perform better), but not if it boosts the price significantly.

A MacBook Air is too expensive ($1300 for the 13"), and she'd still need to buy another Windows license. The Zenbook you linked too would work, but it's almost as much as the Air. She was thinking there might be some post-holiday deals.

Even though price is a driving factor here, I hesitate to recommend a true piece of shit. But she's asked me for help and I'd like to give her a reasonable suggestion - assuming such a thing exists.

Cheers,


AetheLove

If it is going to get banged up a lot and seems like it will be for business purposes, I have to recommend a Thinkpad with an extended battery. Any business-class laptop would probably work, but Thinkpads are known for being business work horses. Durable, relatively light, good battery life, and warranties/support. Also have the best keyboards in the business. They run a little more expensive than similarly specced machines, though.

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by kibner

If it is going to get banged up a lot and seems like it will be for business purposes, I have to recommend a Thinkpad with an extended battery. Any business-class laptop would probably work, but Thinkpads are known for being business work horses. Durable, relatively light, good battery life, and warranties/support. Also have the best keyboards in the business. They run a little more expensive than similarly specced machines, though.

Yeah. Have been a fan of the ThinkPad for a long time (was even a little sad IBM sold to Lenovo). Bought a T-Series a couple years ago.

Looked at the IdeaPads, but it seems that all Lenovo's Ultrabooks are 1366 x 768. In fact, from what I could see, almost all laptops in this category are 768 pix tall no matter how many "inches" the screen is. The one exception seems to be Asus' UX31E.

[and as an aside, can I get a little love over inches being a completely FUCKED UP measure for a monitor? Even when everything was 4x3 aspect it was stupid. Now it's completely useless.]

Maybe the smaller screens would work, but I'd have to see it in-person.

Originally Posted by DJ Mr. White

That being said, maybe this: Newegg.com - ASUS Zenbook UX31E-DH52 Ultrabook Intel Core i5 2557M(1.70GHz) 13.3" 4GB Memory DDR3 128GB SSD HDD Intel HD Graphics

It's got the screen she's looking for and is light weight. It's i7, but the only i5/i3s I could find were either Macbooks or had too small screens.

Seems that's an i5. The budget isn't as tight as I thought, so it might be ok.

Doing a little looking, it seems that the i3 isn't even an option for intel's Ultrabook spec - i5 and i7 only. An i5 works for this.

So now I need to know: does anyone have anything to say about Asus laptops?

Also: what's the easiest way to judge shitty SSDs from good ones?

Cheers,


AetheLove

I haven't heard much about Asus laptops other than they have powerful hardware for the price. I *think* they normally are heavy and have poor battery life, but may be wrong. Not sure about their durability.

For SSDs, unless things have changed in a year or so, Intel makes the best if you have the money and Corsair (iirc) is a clear second but offers better value.

Sent from my DROID3 using Tapatalk

Originally Posted by kibner

I haven't heard much about Asus laptops other than they have powerful hardware for the price. I *think* they normally are heavy and have poor battery life, but may be wrong. Not sure about their durability.

For SSDs, unless things have changed in a year or so, Intel makes the best if you have the money and Corsair (iirc) is a clear second but offers better value.

Thanks. For SSDs, I'm not so much looking to get the best. I'm more interested in avoiding the worst. So if I know that a particular SSD is shit, and the Asus comes with it, that would be a disqualification.

Cheers,


AetheLove