Need help finding a suitable laptop

[Bobsy]

Hi,

My brother's mother-in-law is looking for a laptop to replace her ageing desktop computer. She has only one special criterion for it: the built-in keyboard must have a numeric keypad. Her price limit is about $750. To these two requirements, I had my own special one: the laptop must either come with SSD Cache (Intel SRT) or have an SSD as its main drive. I would prefer the SSD cache solution because it would provide more storage space.

Only three criteria, but so far I have been unable to find anything suitable. The keypad requirement seems to be only fulfilled when a laptop has a 17.3" display - fair enough. The SSD cache seems to come only with third-generation Ivy Bridge laptops, which are often more expensive than $750. Dell laptops are what comes closest to what I'm looking for, but I have been unable to find a single laptop that has everything. Can you point me to anything that would work?

My last resort would be to purchase a "normal" laptop and replace the mechanical HDD with an SDD. However, I would prefer to avoid having to do that. I don't want to become tech support for life.

Thanks for your advice and regards.

 

[Ken g6]

Those requirements do seem to have painted you into a corner. Would an external numeric keypad work? Edit: cheaper Canadian version from NCIX

 

[Puppies04]

You are going to get hit in the wallet hard by any manufacturer that fits either an OS SSD or SSD cache drive to a laptop. Your best option is to buy the cheapest laptop that meets your criteria and fit a 120GB SSD yourself. A fresh install of windows on the SSD will remove all the crappy bloatware that you don't want or need on there aswell so you get a double benefit doing it this way.

 

[lakedude]

You are going to get hit in the wallet hard by any manufacturer that fits either an OS SSD or SSD cache drive to a laptop. Your best option is to buy the cheapest laptop that meets your criteria and fit a 120GB SSD yourself. A fresh install of windows on the SSD will remove all the crappy bloatware that you don't want or need on there aswell so you get a double benefit doing it this way.

this

 

[mfenn]

Agree with the other posters, you can have any two of your three requirements, but the last one puts you into an untenable situation. The only semi-reasonable laptop with an SSD is going to be an Ivy Bridge ultrabook, and those are all going to be sub-15".

So, I guess you have a decision to make: either give up on the SSD or resign yourself to putting your own in. If you opt for the latter choice, check out this Acer with a Sandy Bridge i3 and 6GB of RAM for $550. Then add a Crucial M4 128GB for $110 and you're set.

 

[Ken g6]

There seems to be a problem with the forum's redirect.anandtech.com linking system. If you copy/paste this url:

http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215526CVF

Then you should be able to see the laptop Mfenn linked to.