My friend is starting university this year and she needs a new laptop to take with her. She's asked me for help but I know next to nothing about laptops and their performance. She's said she needs it for general use and uni work (She's doing some sort of Geography so I doubt there'd be any need for it to use things like photoshop or do 3D modelling and stuff). Her budget is a massive £1000 though that is the absolute upper limit, obviously the lower the better. What sort of laptop would that get? She also needs a good amount of storage as she takes a hell of a lot of photos. I was thinking go for one about £600ish and just replace the HDD in it with an SSD and put the HDD in a case and use it as an external drive.
I don't want to get shouted at but if she has that amount of money to spend I'd consider a Macbook (I believe they do discounts to university students) and an external HD.
For a grand I'd be pointing her in the ultrabook direction. Style over substance they may be, but dayum they're desirable!
HP Probooks (or elitebooks), the upper end of the range are tremendous. mine cost me about a grande 3 years ago - i've used it every day since for 8 - 10 hours and I still get about 1.5 - 2hours on the battery. it's always chucked in my bag and manhandled around sites so it's not lived a terribly charmed existence, but it's still going strong and I imagine will easily last me through the next year up until new laptop time.
I'll hold back from shouting... However I should have mentioned she doesn't like OSX. They might be pretty but I think I'd prefer to recommend something with more value/money. I'll have a look at those now, thanks
As an alternative to HP, Lenovo makes some pretty good business grade laptops (think those old indestructible ThinkPads but now with a lot more style).
Shall have a look. How does anybody rate PCSpecialist's custom laptops? http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/custom-built-laptops/
I would be pushing her toward a macbook too with a WD passport style external HDD. Is her dislike of OSX an irrational one or does she have a specific problem with it.
