Laptop recommendation: Windows 10 & SSD?

[Jumpem]

All I have found for a reasonable price so far is a Toshiba Satellite customized from their site with Windows 10, i5-5200U, 8 GB RAM, and a 128 GB SSD for $620.

The budget for this is $700.

 

[Commodus]

All I have found for a reasonable price so far is a Toshiba Satellite customized from their site with Windows 10, i5-5200U, 8 GB RAM, and a 128 GB SSD for $620.

The budget for this is $700.

What kind of performance do you need? A Surface 3 with a keyboard could fit the bill, but you'd be using an Atom chip.

I'd be tempted to see if you could get a refurb or sale-price Dell XPS 13. It's just above your budget at $799 when brand new, but it'd be my pick for a Windows laptop in that general price range. Also, if you're a student, check for educational pricing -- that might put the XPS 13 (and other vendors' laptops) within reach.

 

[Jumpem]

What kind of performance do you need? A Surface 3 with a keyboard could fit the bill, but you'd be using an Atom chip.

I'd be tempted to see if you could get a refurb or sale-price Dell XPS 13. It's just above your budget at $799 when brand new, but it'd be my pick for a Windows laptop in that general price range. Also, if you're a student, check for educational pricing -- that might put the XPS 13 (and other vendors' laptops) within reach.

It is for my sister. She only needs it for browsing and other light usage. Is 4 GB of RAM enough? The price shoots up to $1,049 for the version with an i5 and 8 GB.

 

[fire400]

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/toshiba...etal/6561111.p?id=1219663241756&skuId=6561111

recommendation, might as well get something nice if you're spending that much.
replace the HDD with a cheap $50 Sandisk SSD.

the toshiba Radius with the i5 has an IPS-like display, far superior screen than Lenovo and Dell offerings for the same price.

 

[ringtail]

Plain truth = your budget is too small.

since a few years ago, laptops have increased in price. By a LOT.

Now same bang for buck is say maybe 1:3 or 1:4 to what you could buy 3-5 years ago.

You need more $ to buy ummmpbh

We're HAPPY as all get out with a few of these just bought:
obviously it's necessary to have them replace the hdd with a large-capacity SSD.

Yes you could do SLIGHTLY better on video, but at cost of killing battery life, so then your laptop stoooopidly dies in the important business meeting or airplane flight or class session. Therefore this compromise is an excellent WIN!!!!

 

[corkyg]

OP's sister does not need a gaming laptop. For what she needs, the budget is OK.

"It is for my sister. She only needs it for browsing and other light usage."

 

[Commodus]

It is for my sister. She only needs it for browsing and other light usage. Is 4 GB of RAM enough? The price shoots up to $1,049 for the version with an i5 and 8 GB.

For her uses? Yeah, 4GB is fine. More RAM and a faster processor would be nice, but the overall design is why I'm recommending the XPS 13.

 

[harshbarj]

If it's only going to be used for browsing the web and other light use, nearly any laptop will do. I still use p4 mobiles and core 2 duos for most of my basic web browsing and even for gaming (I still keep an old 1GHz Pentium 3 IBM desktop running and find it works fine for more than 90% of what I do in a day, other than gaming.). As long as you get at least 4 gigs of ram and have an SSD you'll be fine. I'd look at other specs at that price point like quality of keyboard and screen. You could even look at some of the $400-$500 laptops and replace the hard drive with your own SSD. 64GB ones anymore are dirt cheep and even 128GB ones are not bad. Even the fast Samsung evo 850 series is now getting inexpensive as under $180 for a 500GB version. So a $500 laptop (which newegg has a lot of) and that samsung evo drive would easily come in under your budget.

 

[pete6032]

Plain truth = your budget is too small.

since a few years ago, laptops have increased in price. By a LOT.

Now same bang for buck is say maybe 1:3 or 1:4 to what you could buy 3-5 years ago.

You need more $ to buy ummmpbh

We're HAPPY as all get out with a few of these just bought:
obviously it's necessary to have them replace the hdd with a large-capacity SSD.

Yes you could do SLIGHTLY better on video, but at cost of killing battery life, so then your laptop stoooopidly dies in the important business meeting or airplane flight or class session. Therefore this compromise is an excellent WIN!!!!

What? Are you serious? OP needs a laptop for his sister to use for browsing and light usage. I have an i5-2467M laptop with 4GB of RAM and an SSD and it runs windows 10 like a champ.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Plain truth = your budget is too small.

since a few years ago, laptops have increased in price. By a LOT.

Now same bang for buck is say maybe 1:3 or 1:4 to what you could buy 3-5 years ago.

You need more $ to buy ummmpbh

We're HAPPY as all get out with a few of these just bought:
obviously it's necessary to have them replace the hdd with a large-capacity SSD.

Yes you could do SLIGHTLY better on video, but at cost of killing battery life, so then your laptop stoooopidly dies in the important business meeting or airplane flight or class session. Therefore this compromise is an excellent WIN!!!!

For some reason, I don't think any game OP's sis will ever play requires more than an iGPU.

 

[xgsound]

YMMV
I enjoy fixing laptops and evidently I am also much cheaper that you. I would currently look at a Dell latitude E-6520 with DDR3 on e-bay. An I5-2520m with Win7 and 4 to 8GB goes for $200 to $300 then add a SSD for that snappy performance.

I got 2 Dell E-6500s last year with much lesser cpus and they perform well even with a 5400 RPM disk. The boy added a SSD to his and went with Win10 and is very happy.

Jim

 

[holden j caufield]

$700 is too much to spend on a laptop for just browsing the web.

 

[jaydee]

$749 right now:

ASUS Zenbook UX305LA 13.3-Inch Laptop (Intel Core i5, 8GB, 256 GB SSD, Titanium Gold) with Windows 10

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B013KKANTE

Certainly, you could get by with less, but this should last you a very long time.

 

[Commodus]

$700 is too much to spend on a laptop for just browsing the web.

I'd disagree. By that reasoning, why buy a PC at all?

A lot of the truly cheap laptops (typically $600 and below) are... not very pleasant. I wouldn't want to spend a few years using a shoddy keyboard and trackpad, a 768p display or battery that lasts just a few hours. While there are rational limits to buying a light-use laptop (don't go splurging on a MacBook Pro), you do get something for your money.

 

[s44]

$749 right now:

ASUS Zenbook UX305LA 13.3-Inch Laptop (Intel Core i5, 8GB, 256 GB SSD, Titanium Gold) with Windows 10

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B013KKANTE

Certainly, you could get by with less, but this should last you a very long time.

Nope. For her, the $600 Core M version of it is a better choice:

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store...-Signature-Edition-Laptop/productID.320751400

It keeps going in and out of stock, but that's because it's absolutely the ideal device and price for light use.

 

[sm625]

You might be hamstringing yourself by specifically looking for a windows 10 machine this soon. Previous versions can be upgraded for free so it is not that big of a deal as long as the hardware is supported. Also, there are off lease business class notebooks with 256GB SSDs you can find for $270 or less, without coupon codes. They are older but have better build quality than what you can buy new for $600.