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Notebooks Questions & Answers

Help selecting a new laptop

Posted by Renk81 on Jan 05, 2012

I am trying to help a friend pick out a new laptop for school/future-work. They plan to do a lot with MS Office and maybe a little photo editing. Price cap of $1000, looking to get the most bang for the buck, but need quality most of all.

What would you recommend?
What would you advise avoiding? Why?

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1 I.P.K. on Jan 05, 2012
Level 7 As usual I will recommend Dell XPS. Great build quality, very nice hardware and it costs around $900. Avoid Acer, Asus, Toshiba.....for under $1000 you can't get anything good from these manufacturers. Their build quality is mildly bad, and often have defects...look around some forums. Good luck with the purchase :)
 
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3 Dexter on Jan 06, 2012
Level 5 ThinkPad is what I would get for school/work. Durable, good build quality, thought of as mobile computer, not one that would stand on the desk all the time. My suggestion would be Edge E420s. 14", core i3, intel HD 3000, 4GB RAM, $900. Your friend will be left with about $100 for some accessories, too. Basically, I'd bet on quality-proven manufacturer and choose a model within middle-to-high class. I haven't researched for your budget, but Sony VAIO and some HP EliteBook models also look like something worth checking out.

ThinkPad Edge: http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILib​rary/controller/e/web/LenovoPo​rtal/en_US/catalog.workflow:ca​tegory.details?current-catalog-id=12F0696583E04D86B9B79B0FEC0​1C087¤t-category-id=882E5BEF01940B69A2DA45E4D34​05DDB&action=init

HP EliteBook: http://www.shopping.hp.com/sto​re/product/product_detail/XU05​7UT%2523ABA?

As per what not to get, there are a lot of low-to-middle class notebooks from variety of manufacturers, all looking pretty good on paper specs-wise, but build quality isn't what you want, and some little annoying things occur from time to time. You'll find the keyboard not exactly great, unresponsive touchpad, and other minor issues that actually ruin the experience.
 
not rated
4 Smoky on Jan 06, 2012
Level 2 Get some 14" Lenovo notebook. Their notebooks are above as well. Nice design, lightweight and good hardware for your needs.
 

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