I've been looking around at a few laptops for my sister, but I thought I'd ask for some last minute opinions and suggestions before I give her the shortlist. It doesn't need to be anything powerful, mainly for web browsing, e-mails, that sort of thing. The ability to play back HD content smoothly would probably be a bonus as well. However, it will need to last for few years at least, so I'm not interested in already outdated hardware (therefore mostly looking at i3 minimum). The best ones I've found so far are: 15.6": Samsung R530 (i3 330M, 3GB DDR3, £480) Novatech i3 (i3 330M, 3GB DDR3, £490) 13.3": Asus UL30A (SU7300, 4GB DDR3, No ODD, £530) Samsung Q330 (i3 350M, 3GB DDR3, ODD, £570) Anyone got any thoughts on those above? I don't have any experience with Samsung laptops, so I was wondering how good the build quality was. Or perhaps some other suggestions? Smaller size would be preferable, but as you can see above, you generally have to pay a premium for it. Absolute max budget is £600, but lower would be much more preferable.
The Dell Inspiron 15R, i3 370M, 3GB RAM, 15.6" screen, Intel GMA HD, 320GB HD, Windows HP 64bit all for £499 (on their website). You might even be able to negotiate a deal as well. Worth a look.
The Asus UL30 is a CULV laptop; Which means that it has a long battery life, but sacrfices performance. However, it's one of the best performing CULV laptops you can get. I've read that it can run HD videos without much trouble. Buy it if you want long battery life. If you don't though, you should stick to the i3's.
Yeah, that certainly does look good for the price, I'll add it to the list. TBH it'll probably be plugged in most of the time, so it's not that important. I just included it as an outside suggestion as I'd seen some really good reviews on it, and was quite well priced as far as small laptops go. I know the i3 will be much quicker and is probably the more sensible option though.
I would highly recommend Dell. I've had two of their laptops in the past. Both have been extremely well built, fast bits of kit. I dropped the first one from waist height several times, and I even stood on it while I was pissed and left a massive crater in the keyboard. It still works even to this day. I'm still using my current one that I got in 2006 and while not the fastest laptop going, it's stood the test of time well and is still going strong. My MacBook by comparison broke after 10 days of being on a desk.
Good buy, we have been buying the Vostro (SMB equivalent to Inspiron) good performing machines, easy to get parts if needed, good build quality we still have dell laptops at work not in use now, but working after 8 years.
