Wife promised notebook to nephew h.s. grad...?

[bupkus]

She asked me to help her choose something <$500 and I'm really bummed.
Last year we got his sister a starter Acer w/ a sandybridge processor. We were excited about getting this TimelineX for his sister but this year seems harder with all the talk of really poor displays on <$800 notebooks.

I don't want to be the guy who okays a junky notebook. His sister doesn't take hers to school but keeps it at home. By the sound of things, if he's the kind of kid that shoves it into his back pack and takes it to class every day I don't know if the build quality will take it.

I would like to let him in on the decision making. Maybe he'd like a tablet with a bluetooth keyboard and mouse. Wife wants it to be a surprise although I'm sure he knows and is expecting it. Wish we could get him a nice ASUS.

This post is a kind of "hail Marry" throw into the end zone.

 

[Fayd]

might be able to find an x220 IPS for 700 used... if not, you'll get a better deal going with the student discount.

for actual use, a real laptop is necessary. a tablet is fine for some things, but it's in addition to, not in lieu of, a real computer.

 

[dma0991]

I'm an owner of an Acer laptop and although many claimed that its quality is sub par, it has served me well. Don't let the plastic exterior fool you into thinking that it is inferior in terms of quality. Metal exterior gives a luxury feel to it but without adequate protection, it will scuff and hairline scratches will appear even with good care.

As for the display, the 16:9 aspect ratio screen these days aren't as good as 16:10 screens of the past IMHO but it is usable. You could speculate till manufacturers shift to a newer 1080P standard that would take years but I doubt this isn't something that you could wait. I don't think its fair to compare a $800 laptop with a $500 one, you got what you've paid for.

 

[Puddle Jumper]

As for the display, the 16:9 aspect ratio screen these days aren't as good as 16:10 screens of the past IMHO but it is usable. You could speculate till manufacturers shift to a newer 1080P standard that would take years but I doubt this isn't something that you could wait. I don't think its fair to compare a $800 laptop with a $500 one, you got what you've paid for.

16:9 isn't the real problem with mobile displays, panel quality is. My Thinkpad x220 has a 1366x768 IPS display that blows away all of the 16:10 Dells we have at work.

The x220 is the cheapest laptop I know of with a truly good display but it's possible that you might be able to stumble across one that is at least good enough.

One thing I would check for is Dell outlet coupons, the optional 1080p panels on the XPS 15 and XPS 15z are very good and while it isn't as good as some of the other options out there the display on the XPS 13 is still a noticeable step up from the panels in most notebooks.

If he doesn't need windows a Asus Transformer TF300 + keyboard dock would be close to the right price and would get you an ips panel.

 

[corkyg]

Why not get Mrs. Gotrocks to agree on a dollar figure and give that to the nephew. Let him then buy his own, and that choice will not be on you.

Are there other neices and nephews? What kind of precedent are you setting?

 

[bupkus]

As long as her sister doesn't have any more kids, this is it.

Okay, just pulled the trigger on an Acer Aspire AS4830T-6678 Notebook Intel Core i3 2370M(2.40GHz) 14" 4GB Memory DDR3 1066 320GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super.

It's just like the one we got for his sister but one inch smaller, which is what I would have preferred for him. It's under 5 lbs (4.88 lbs) so that's kinda okay.
If he wants to he can add an SSD to kick it up some. We may do that for him since I know how and give him a clean install instead of all the bloatware Acer and others are known for.

His sister is happy with hers but she is an appreciative girl probably wouldn't complain if there were a problem.

Used my American Express card so I think I get a 1 year extension on the warranty. We needed to use it twice with my wife's Dell Vostro 1500. Won't ever buy Dell again. Just too many build issues for just one notebook.

In case you're interested what broke on the Dell, first the little locking slide broke for locking the lid to the body, then one of the hinges failed. The repair shop didn't have a matching black lid replacement so we took a pink/burgundy instead. Wife liked it more. Sold it to a friend of hers last year. Friend and her kids have named it Pinky.

 

[dma0991]

16:9 isn't the real problem with mobile displays, panel quality is. My Thinkpad x220 has a 1366x768 IPS display that blows away all of the 16:10 Dells we have at work.

The x220 is the cheapest laptop I know of with a truly good display but it's possible that you might be able to stumble across one that is at least good enough.

One thing I would check for is Dell outlet coupons, the optional 1080p panels on the XPS 15 and XPS 15z are very good and while it isn't as good as some of the other options out there the display on the XPS 13 is still a noticeable step up from the panels in most notebooks.

If he doesn't need windows a Asus Transformer TF300 + keyboard dock would be close to the right price and would get you an ips panel.

The 16:9 aspect ratio is only part of the problem. While I would like to highlight the advantages of IPS display(I'm using a Dell U2311H) but I could do with more resolution and viewing space than color quality on a laptop. Dell XPS M1730 probably has one of the best displays on a laptop that I've ever used. Hits all the right buttons for a 17", 1900x1050 IPS display. Irrelevant to the discussion as it weighs a ton and obsolete.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I just picked up an Acer Aspire One 11.6" Notebook/Netbook, with a C-60 dual-core, 4GB RAM, 250GB HD, for $202 + tax on clearance at my local target.

Unless the student needs to be running Spice simulations, or doing 3D modeling, something like this is ideal, IMHO, because of the portability and battery life.

I'm ecstatic about mine.

 

[ninaholic37]

I just picked up an Acer Aspire One 11.6" Notebook/Netbook, with a C-60 dual-core, 4GB RAM, 250GB HD, for $202 + tax on clearance at my local target.

Sounds like a good deal for the price. They're still selling that one here for $329-$349 at Future Shop (haven't seen a much better deal yet). I have the 10" Acer with C-50 and it's been able to do pretty much everything I need pretty smoothly. I haven't tried video editing yet on it though...this will be an interesting experiment...

 

[Fayd]

Sounds like a good deal for the price. They're still selling that one here for $329-$349 at Future Shop (haven't seen a much better deal yet). I have the 10" Acer with C-50 and it's been able to do pretty much everything I need pretty smoothly. I haven't tried video editing yet on it though...this will be an interesting experiment...

yeah, uh, that's gonna be a no-go.

the reason the c-50 works well is because of the outstanding graphics (and offloading of HD video decoding). that ain't gonna work for CPU intensive tasks like editing and encoding.

i have a c-50 acer and it does everything i want it to do, and everything the atom POS it replaced wouldn't do. (except, i still can't play heroes of newerth on it)

 

[ninaholic37]

the reason the c-50 works well is because of the outstanding graphics (and offloading of HD video decoding). that ain't gonna work for CPU intensive tasks like editing and encoding.

i have a c-50 acer and it does everything i want it to do, and everything the atom POS it replaced wouldn't do. (except, i still can't play heroes of newerth on it)

Yup. Using MikuMikuDance DX9, I get about 6fps rendering the models/stage of the 'sample(AllStar).ppm' video to the screen in real-time on my C-50. Much smoother than the 2fps on my Atom N2600 (and <1fps on N570)... but my dad's i3-2350M/HD3000 can do it at 43fps! Nice difference there.