Best bang for the buck Laptop $800. price range

[Toro 45]

My son needs a new laptop, primary use would be music producing, editing with "Reason" and similar programs. He uses an AKAI keyboard and just picked up some turntables he said. We'll call him advanced hobbyist if you will. Needs the laptop just to be more portable from time to time

He uses an i5 Haswell quadcore(3.4ghz i think) , 8GB ram. Win7 desktop now and it runs everything well. He's looking for something with similar power in a laptop. He loves The Mac book pro but cant swing the price.

He's looking to spend around $700-$800, 15" screen, 6-8gb ram, not to concerned about hard drive since it's easy to swap out later if need be. Mostly concerned about the cpu, I'm just not up to speed on the lappy cpu's. He'll buy from newegg, Dell or local Best Buy whoever has the best deal. Also he's never been one to get caught up in screen resolution, just basic res would be fine.

 

[fralexandr]

fyi, not all music producing software takes advantage of multiple cores, so it'd be a good idea to check.

basically you should be looking for an i7 3xxxqm/4xxxmq
the i7 4700mq is the most common haswell mobile quadcore and turbos up to 3.4GHz
http://ark.intel.com/products/75117
just be careful, since there are a few i7 mobile parts that are 2 core 4 thread (missing the Q designation, i guess?)

the i5 haswell (3.4GHz) that you have is likely the 4670/4670k which turbos up to 3.8

dealnews is an easy place to check for laptop deals
http://dealnews.com/c49/Computers/Laptops/
currently lots of consumer lenovos


the y510 is currently on sale for $789 w/ i7 4700mq, 8gb ram, 1tb hdd 15" 1366x768 (also has nvidia 750m if he games)
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops...15C=1929812937

It might be nice to get a higher res screen though.

there's the y410 for $819 w/ i7 4700mq, 8gb ram, 24gb ssd cache + 1tb hdd, 14" 1600x900 (also has nvidia 755m if he games)
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops...03960000006769

g700 $659 i7 3612qm, 8gb ram, 1tb hdd, 17" 1600x900 (integrated hd4000)
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops...03960000006769

 

[timoseewho]

i can't help but notice that that Y510p deal is a steal, wow

 

[Toro 45]

Wow, thanks for the links we really hadn't looked at the Lenovo laptops and I see that would have been a big oversight. The y510p look like really good deals! I'll show him these when he gets home tonight.