Buying a new laptop

Mikesta

Hi guys,

So I'm looking to buy a new laptop, as my gaming rig has pretty much died. I need it for work reasons, but I don't have much money. I'm tending toward the ~$400 range, and I don't need any gaming functionality or anything fancy like that. Mostly I just need a laptop that can do word processing and other office-like things, and the ability to browse the internet/stream video would be nice.

I may be willing to go above that price point, but for now I'm looking for something cheap and functional.

What features should I prioritize? What brands are best? I'm thinking Windows-based for now, but Apple fans are free to make suggestions too.

Here are several computers I saw on Newegg, do any of these look competent?

Around $400 or less

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314007

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312242

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230587

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312429

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834256485

Mid-price (around $600-$700)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215678

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312433

Thanks for any help you guys can offer!

Great Scott

I think your first link is excellent for non-gaming uses.

I had a wonderful long post written, but that link trumps it. If you don't need good display quality or long battery life it's going to be hard to beat that.

Jasconius

You won't find an Apple worth a shit in your price range.

I know this is a radical concept, but you are probably best off by just going to a... store... and looking at them in person.

If you don't care about gaming, you are really just shopping for the following

1) A screen that isn't a piece of shit
2) Overall build quality

Things that you cannot learn about on the interwebs.

because at that price everything is an i3/i5 with a 5400RPM drive and 4 gigs of RAM


I bought a Samsung about 3 weeks ago, and even though the WiFi card burnt out and I have to RMA it, everything else about it was great, and the screen was particularly impressive. So I would check them out.

Also make sure you get one with Windows 8, because Windows 8 actually does a decent job with slow crappy laptop harddrives

Mikesta

Cool, thanks for your comments. I was a little nervous about going to a store because I figured they'd try to rip me off, but it sounds like I should head to Fry's Electronics and see what they've got.

What should I look for in terms of screen quality? What sort of battery life is considered decent?

LaPuzza

This is a very small sample size, but I've recently purchased 2 $400ish HP laptops that meet your needs. Both 17". Both had major hardware issues.

zepherin

I recomended my mom buy this one
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834312712

I would like to bust out some haterade for Dell and HP though. Especially their product support.

Essee

Yeah, I absolutely do not recommend HP's laptops. Haven't known anyone with one in the last 5 years or more who hasn't had massive, stupid issues with them. I also wouldn't recommend low-end Dells (so most stuff in your price range), but they're probably not as bad as HP at least.

ASUS tends to be a really good brand for price (especially) and reliability in recent times. Regardless of what you're looking for, note that you can save massive amounts of cash buying refurbished/open-box laptops (and if you care about specs at all, you can potentially get a better machine out of it too). Also, if you care a little bit about gaming, anything with one of AMD's new processors with integrated graphics will be the cheapest way to get something that might potentially play some games (anything with just integrated Intel graphics is still not going to cut it, although at least if it's a 4000 it's not a complete joke anymore). If you really want to game, you'll need to shell out for something with a dedicated card, but in your price range, even with a refurb/open-box machine, you're not going to find anything truly amazing for gaming.

(Also, may I recommend looking around at B&H Photo and Video instead of/in addition to Newegg? I've heard Newegg's customer service has been going down the tubes lately, and I've been personally dealing with said customer service trying to get a refund on-- yes-- a laptop I ordered from them a couple MONTHS ago. B&H has a surprising amount of laptops even though they deal mostly in cameras, and they've been very good to me and my family both over the years, so I'd rather direct business to them since Newegg is reeeally on my bad side at this point.)