Under $1000, Word, Browsing, Video, Photos

[Insidiouz]

Hey everyone, I've been asked to pick out a laptop for my teacher as I'm a relatively tech savvy student. Anyways, I know quite a lot about gaming laptops and GPUs and CPUs and such. However, those are obviously running upwards of a $1000. To the point, she needs a laptop with around a 15 inch screen and plenty of battery life. I haven't asked her specifics about build quality, brands, screen resolution, etc. However, given that she is going to be typing a lot (English teacher), I figure she will need a very sturdy and nicely backlit keyboard. I like build quality as I'm a Macbook Pro fan (too much money obviously) so I figured the Samsung Series 7 Chronos from last year. It comes in at about $950 at some websites but I'd like some more options. Like I said, I don't know if she cares so much about screen quality but I'd like to get her a laptop with a good screen resolution and good contrast/overall quality of the display.

Also, the further under $1000, the better. I'm slightly hesitant with simply saying "buy this $950 laptop". So, if you have good alternatives around $800 or so that would be great, thanks everyone.

[Koomdin]

Have you looked at Asus? The Asus U56E-BAL7 is a $650 computer with a 15" screen and over 8 hours of battery life and it looks really good and is only about an inch thick. It has an i5 and 6Gb Ram. Not too much on the way of graphics, but from the sounds of it, she won't need too much.

[pepper_john]

Thinkpad T420 is another option

[Kuroi-Tsubasa]

Typing a lot? Long battery life? Something that's pretty durable (assuming that the teacher cares about that)? You absolutely don't need anything fancy, and whatever the default hardware is on the lapto you finally choose will be plenty of power for this use.

Thinkpad X220, T420, or T520, depending on the teacher's preferred notebook size (12.5", 14", 15.6", respectively). If you get the X220, buy it with the IPS display, the T420 should have the 900p display, or the T520 should have either 900p or 1080p (1080p is a beautiful display; it's the same as my W520's 1080p). I know from personal experience that the T520 will get about 7-8 hours of battery life on a single charge on the 9-cell, and about 6-7 on the 6-cell. I'm sure the T420 and X220 will have similar times.

Should find any of these for $800 or less. If not, use the BN discount in my sig and haggle over the laptop (read "Laptop Ordering Advice").

[Greg]

Some of the Dell Latitude and Vostro notebooks might be an option but I'm not too happy with the prices once you start upgrading the warranty, screen, and battery. Might want to configure two equivalent Lenovo and Dell notebooks to see which price is better.