PC Guys, which laptop? (1 Viewer)

[glvsav37]

Dad asked me to find a laptop for my mom for christmas. I'm a mac guy, so I don't really know the landscape. Gave me about a $500 budget

Don't need a super computer, just something for her to do emails, surf web and Skype with my brother's family out of state.

Reliability and easy to use b/c they are NOT tech savvy...both in their late 60s

500mb > 1TB HD b/c my mom takes a lot of photos of the grand kids and needs storage. I have a carbonate cloud subscription for them but that only duplicates the drive, not archives anything.

15in screen.

So I found these 4. Any one better then the other, not really looking for a deal, just a good, simple machine.  

Lenovo

HP or HP

Acer

thx

 

[glvsav37]

petty bump?

 

[Thorpe]

Do you want a touchscreen?  Do you want a DVD drive? 

Does your mother use internet email (like gmail) or a client like Outlook?  If the first, you could consider a Chromebook which would probably be more reliable than Windows and about as easy to use.  

TBH, I don't think there is a lot of difference between different models of laptop, especially in this price range.  Comes down to the feel of the keyboard and the mousepad,  which is a lot of personal preference...

 

[glvsav37]

@Thorpe thx

I offered them a Chromebook solution but the lack of hard drive space and having to work on the cloud card them. Don't ask....I know .....but they are old and not comfortable with technology.  

touchscreen is not mandatory but it seems common now. DVD drive i guess

 

[pollardsvision]

I'm no tech guy, but I've come to believe in the refurbished business grade laptop route. For years, I'd spend a few hundred bucks on consumer grade laptops and end up highly disappointed. Slow, cheaply made, don't last. They suck, but I'm also not dropping a grand on a laptop.

Then, I got a refurbished Thinkpad (T420) for about $250 and put an SSD & extra RAM in it (easy, and I'd never done it before). It's built like a damn tank. Fast as hell, incredible keyboard, boots up in 10 seconds, super easy to replace parts if need be, and runs as good as the day I got it used years ago. Thinkpads and Dell Latitudes are cranked out in high volume every year, then as businesses upgrade, boatloads of perfectly good laptops hit the market for a great price.

Anyway, a route to consider. Unlike consumer grade laptops, business grades are made to last and $400-500 will get you a far better product.