Notebooks New laptop for the girlfriend!

Hey guys,

Most of you will probably have just seen my thread in the market place but thats for second hand ones etc.

Ideally wanted to know the best <£500 laptop I can get for the girlfriend before we both go to university. Also its her birthday soon so looking for something to get her

Rough specs ideally:
i3/i5 processer
3-4GB RAM if not more.
320GB HDD +
~15" screen could be slightly less but ideally no bigger than 15.6"
Graphics are not a huge issue as normally just used for web browsing (iplayer etc) and uni work.

Normally sway to dell, but looking on their site they are getting more expensive and less customisable by the week.

Any help is appreciated as you guys always seem to be spot on!

Matt

 

My old man got an hp i3, 6gb, and 500gb for 419 from currys. It is available in red, blue or pink.
There was a lenovo for 460 odd with an i5 too, 4gb and 640gb from memory.

 

Ohhh Currys, good shout, might take a trip down and see what they have instore.

Cheers

 

If she's anything like the woman in my life then she will care significantly more about looks than you would personally. My girlfriend is constantly trying to get me to downgrade the Lenovo I purchased her for a Sony. She likes the diamond textured white/pink one. She doesn't care that it has less RAM, less speed, etc.

Long story short I'm constantly worried about her 'accidentally' spilling something on her Lenovo (haha joke is on her-spill resistant keyboard) just so that she would have a reason to get the Sony.

Knowing all this, when I recommended a laptop for my older sister I just recommended the Sony and pointed her to a page where she could choose from a bunch of colors... I told her, "You're paying about $160 extra for looks." She went with a lime green one and babies the laptop and still uses it regularly about two years later. Considering the rate at which she burned through computers before and her destructive nature towards them I'd say it was worth it for her to have something she took a little pride in.

*edit* The Sony brand didn't really have anything to do with it - just the colors/looks. I am in no way advocating one atrocious pink/green/rainbow-spotted/leapord-printed laptop over another.

 

No worries, they are not usually somewhere I would recommend, but I had a really good experience with them on this occasion, they went over sla with a laptop repair for my dad, so gave him a full refund no quibble, the sales representative didn't try to upsell too much either. And as mentioned it comes in pink, which is usually all women care about. Well my fiancée anyway.

 

Of course there's this (if you aren't aware):


Source

ASUS is my first recommendation, then Toshiba, then Lenovo, then Sony. Lenovo makes the list in spite of being middle-of-the-road in my book because they are generally very well made and a joy to use. My Lenovo Edge 420 is treating me really well still at Uni and was under $500. I was able to throw a second hard drive (SSD) into the Edge as well, it's great.

 

***###"!!%%"§ pretty laptops
Get a real Lenovo (ie Thinkpad with the curser nipple)
Then if needed slap you fav Fashon laptop skin on it done, dusted, best of both worlds.


*there's a rant in there im sure.....