laptop hunt

[BuzzKillington]

My gf's dad offered to buy her a laptop though she doesn't know what she wants. Though I wish she'd say a gaming machine, I know what she'd really like is a long lasting battery and a thin platform. I've been out of the loop here lately with new laptops/computer components so maybe someone here can recommend a few laptops that are thin, sexy, (hopefully not mac) have a decent battery life and can posssssibly get its game on if need be.

My first choice was the Dell Adamo but it's a little outdated.

[Fuganater]

IDK about thin but I buy Dell laptops for the warranty. They have the best I have ever seen.

[RogueOpportunist]

For portability, battery life and "gaming" power combined nothing is really goig to compare to the Alienware M11X (Check the trade forum for a good price on one)

The M11X is smaller than a laptop though and more along the lines of a Netbook on steroids... As far as a more "macbook-esque" machine that isn't a mac you have things like the HP Envy series or Asus has their "U" series notebooks that all seem to get pretty favorable reviews.

It all depends on what kind of specs and size you are looking for, more power and bigger screens generally mean less battery life so for an "all-day" computing platform you are going to be looking at models with ULV processors, most of which will likely use onboard video too.

First thing I would get her to do before even looking at laptops is to sit down and make a list of things she "needs" it to have and a list of things she "wants" it to have... Other things to consider besides hardware are...

1) Eyesight is important, how good are her eyes? Smaller screens can be difficult for people with bad eyesight to use but at the same time bigger screens often have larger resolutions and can be just as hard to read at their native res and get all blurry if you use a non-native res.

2) How and what is this thing going to be used for? Will there be a lot of typing? To reduce the threat of things like carpel tunnel syndrome it's worth considering exactly how much the keyboard is going to be used as smaller notebooks have smaller keyboards which can add to wrist strain, also is she going to need to enter a large volume of numbers? Larger format laptops can have numpads on them, smaller ones either don't or have them worked into the other keys using the function button.

3) How much travelling is she going to have to do with this thing? Lugging around a 17 inch laptop is a much bigger pain in the butt than lugging around an 11" netbook, is she going to want something that needs a backpack to be carried or would she prefer something that could just slide into a large purse.

Those are the things I would address first, then once you have an idea of the "style" of machine you are looking at to best suit her needs you can then start figuring out what specs are available and at what cost.

[BuzzKillington]

I don't believe cost is an issue. She made it clear she doesn't want anything bigger than a 15". She literally only uses the computer for google and youtube videos... it's more of my idea for it to have some gaming capabilities so I can make her join me in some light gaming.
I bought her a Dell Inspiron a couple years back but it's making a buzzing noise then once it's unplugged the buzzing gets much louder. It's probably getting close to dying.
I know her pretty well and I know she'd initially love a 11-12" screen but eventually end up bitching about it. I'm thinking 13-14" or a thin 15" would be ideal.
Her eyesight is beyond bad @ -6.50 so regardless of size, she wouldn't be able to use it without glasses/contacts. lol

You made some good points though. I'll do a little digging and see what's out there. Thanks for the suggestions! I miss you guys.

[dr.walrus]

Samsung series 9:

Pant-wettingly beautiful.

13.3", core i5, 128GB SSD, Long life battery, a little bit lighter than a macbook air and almost as slim, what more could a girl or guy want?

[dr.walrus]

Oh yeah, it's a bargain, only $1600!

[Fuganater]

Oh yeah, it's a bargain, only $1600!

LOL. Nice bargain! I got my XPS 17 for 1400 and alot more hardware. This just proves that you pay ALOT for mobility.

[SXRguyinMA]

and a name

[AmEv]

OR, you could sacrifice a little mobility and build your own lappy!
We are modders, are we not

Or eBay.....

[LiTHiUM0XiD3]

get a mac.. its worth the xtra bucks