Looking for a laptop for my daughter for high school...

digitalwanderer

digitalwanderer

wandering
Legend
...how does this one look?

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8667869&CatId=4935

I've been looking for a smallish one with great battery life and a quick & decent sized hard drive. Not intending it to be a gamer, and windows 7 preferred. I'm really having trouble comparing/finding what I want, and I'm running into a time limit. (She starts school this coming Thursday)

Any help is greatly appreciated, oh and HI EVERYBODY!!! MISSED YOU, BIG HUGS!!!!!!!!
 
I'd never get a laptop with a 15.6" TN display in 1366×768, but hey, maybe that's me. In my opinion the display is the single most important part of a computer: it is, after all, the only component you'll be making intensive use of 100% of the time.

By the way, has high school changed so much since I was there that you need a laptop for it?
 
Children use laptops these days? I would have thought they were all pushing for tablets / tablet-hybrids. Laptops seem so passe.
 
This is the first year the high school is going all digital instead of traditional books, my son is a senior and he doesn't have or need one. My daughter is gonna be a freshman and they're giving all the freshmen (or renting; not sure, not interested) chromebooks or asking them to supply their own equivalent laptop.

They're laptop "requirements" are XP or better, but mine are a bit pickier. I really want something she can carry around easily, and has disgustingly long battery life...but I also want it to be fast and cheap. <sigh> Yeah, I can dream can't I?!?!? </sigh>

Any advice is welcome, I haven't looked at laptops in ages so I'm feeling very clueless right now. I'd like to keep the budget under $400 if possible, I have a funny feeling this is going to be broke within a year or two.

Why would you want a tablet when you could have something with a real hard drive on it? :p

Thanks Alexko & BRiT, 'preciate the replies. :)
 
Hmm, if portability is an important factor, you probably want to look at 13" models. An SSD would help with battery life and weight, but within a $400 budget that might be tricky. Maybe the standard Chromebook offer isn't such a bad idea, depending on the specific model.

(To be clear I think the "all-digital" high school thing is a bad idea to begin with, but within those constraints, Chromebooks make some sense.)
 
Why would you want a hard drive on it when you can have Flash/SSD? Why would you want something bulky and cumbersome when you have have thin and elegant?

Taking a laptop over tablet/tablet-hybrid is like picking a desktop over a laptop.
 
My personal view is that if you were to list the things that make a laptop suck, a laptop hard-drive (2.5", 5400rpm) would be the top of the list. And probably second and third on the list too. Doubly so if you're running Windows.

If you want a fast laptop - as in a laptop that feels fast when you're doing normal desktop stuff - then an SSD is the best thing you can spend your money on. Even a Celeron or Pentium-level CPU with a SSD will feel faster than an i5/i7 with a laptop HDD.
 
I would still look for something that is thin light and underperforms. If you want her to actually do work on it I would be tempted by somethings as crazy as the surface RT which has to be super cheap now. It has all the office junk and since no one has developed apps for it really then she cannot waste all her time playing flappy bird etc :) I would otherwise want a newer surface, yoga pad, asus transformer or something like that.

Can't you find me a laptop bag now Digi
 
What style bag Sxotty? I'm partial to messenger ones lately, or them cool one sling ones.

I'm agreeing with all the "smaller, LESS IS MORE!" arguments. Now looking at 11" jobbies with 2Gb of memory and 32GB ssds and such and thinking they don't look that bad.

Still looking, my wife is getting in on the fun and I'm annoying the hell out of her by shooting down everything she suggests. (I can't help it! I've been studying the last day or so and playing "spot the deal breaker!" on every laptop I look at! <sigh>)
 
Hybrids may be tempting but if the goal is to do real work, I think a real keyboard is important. Then again it's high school: Digi's daughter will probably be focusing on finding creative ways not to do any work. :D
 
One other thing to keep in mind, this likely also serves as a fashion and status symbol as well. Don't pick too oddball of an item that your daughter might be ridiculed because of it. So that means no Digi, you can't use duct-tape to hook up an external drive to the laptop lid. ;)
 
Digi, I wouldn't give your daughter that. The first netbook I bought to occasionally use at Uni years ago had similar specs (small screen, slow 5.400rpm disk) and it just doesn't work. It's just too slow and uncomfortable if you have to work on it for a couple of hours a day.

Will she be needing the laptop for a couple of years? Will she use it at home as well? In that case I would seriously consider going for maybe a cheaper ultrabook'ish model with a 13/14'' screen and a ssd/hybrid driver. I know it will cost at least twice as much but your daughter will be eternally grateful.

An other option would be the Panasonic Let's note series. I've got one at work and these things are pretty amazing. i5, ssd, high res screen etc but it's pretty light and the battery lasts forever. Also it's made for people traveling so it can take some abuse better than most laptops. Though I'm not sure if it's available in the US and it's a 1000 bucks or so.
 
Digi, how about something like this?

Acer Ultrabook 435 dollar (i3, 2.6 pounds, 13.3'', according to the comments you'll easily get 6 hours of battery life)
http://www.amazon.com/Acer-S3-391-6...UTF8&qid=1408243018&sr=1-2&keywords=ultrabook

Though it has a 5400rpm disk so it will still feel slow as hell.

You could put in a 256GB ssd for 60 bucks more and you'll have a pretty snappy system.
http://www.amazon.com/Adata-Technol...TF8&qid=1408243719&sr=1-34&keywords=256gb+ssd

I would really really urge you to consider to spend at least around the 500 dollar level and get something light, with a decent screensize and decent speed. If your daughter has to work on it all day every day I think it's only fair you consider something that is actually up to the task because a laptop like the one you linked will only get her frustrated.
 
I think anyone who has to have books on the computer needs to consider some sort of convertible device so it is easier to read. If you look at research about reading on digital devices it highlights how important screen quality is for LCDs to avoid headaches and so forth. Keep that in mind.
 
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