Help picking a laptop $550

[elitejp]

First off thanks to everyone for the help.

My family told me today that they wanted to buy me a laptop as a gift for me. I'm not quite sure what I want but from using some older laptops I do know that I want something that is snappy. In all honesty my main use will be for internet,storing data, and viewing pictures. I do like to play around with photoshop or gimp but I highly doubt that I would use a laptop for this purpose. I would suspect that just about anything new should easily be able to handle my day to day uses. So im considering an intel sec gen i5 but also am considering maybe an amd a6 series.

So my question is with a budget of around 500-600 dollars what good deals are currently available for laptops?

I dont need anything really special but I do want everything to be nice and fast.

 

[gmaster456]

Decent bang for buck. You won't find anything much better in your price range. Half decent CPU, great GPU, 7200rpm HDD, great brand.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834230098

 

[elitejp]

^Thanks for the link but reading the review it seems like this would be a good gaming laptop, I probably wont be doing any gaming.

Supposedly Best Buy has a...
ASUS K53TA-BBR6 Laptop: AMD Quad-Core A6-3400M 1.4GHz APU, 15.6" LED, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6650, HDMI, WiFi-N, 6-cell, Win 7 Prem 64-bit - $450

which I think looks pretty good. (sfter re reading this post it looks to me to be the same somputer basically)

I guess im mainly confused about whether I should go for the sec gen intel i5 route or go with the amd route? Its really the cpu's that are confusing me.

 

[Sunburn74]

I actually just bought a manufacturer recertified HP envy on ebay for 639 from an HP distributor. Feedback is impeccable, daily deals in HP products, etc etc. I haven't received it yet but the price is right and I don't think I'll be disappointed (feedback again is impeccable)

Comes with a 2.66ghz i5-560m and a 14in 1600x something screen. We'll wait and see... wait and see...

 

[Ultralight]

Check out Lenovo's Thinkpad Edge series.

 

[elitejp]

Ya refurbished doesnt bother me one bit
:thumbsup:

 

[gmaster456]

^Thanks for the link but reading the review it seems like this would be a good gaming laptop, I probably wont be doing any gaming.

Supposedly Best Buy has a...
ASUS K53TA-BBR6 Laptop: AMD Quad-Core A6-3400M 1.4GHz APU, 15.6" LED, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, 1GB AMD Radeon HD 6650, HDMI, WiFi-N, 6-cell, Win 7 Prem 64-bit - $450

which I think looks pretty good. (sfter re reading this post it looks to me to be the same somputer basically)

I guess im mainly confused about whether I should go for the sec gen intel i5 route or go with the amd route? Its really the cpu's that are confusing me.

For what you want to do it won't matter either way. If you can get that laptop for $450, I'd go for it. Pocket the extra $150 for a rainy day. As someone else mentioned the thinkpad edge series is also a good choice.

 

[Sunburn74]

Yeah I just got my HP envy yesterday (took 3 days to ship). I didn't get to play with it yesterday due to being an a self induced vodka coma (I got zero sleep the night before due to a project and had to catch up on my rest). I am impressed so far. One its a recertified HP envy but its practically brand new. Came in all original sealed HP packaging and appears to be straight from an HP facility. Processor screams (i5-560 at 2.66 with 2 cores 4 threads), screen is gorgeous, keyboard is backlit, the mouse pad is nice and smooth. Very happy so far. The port selection is amazing by the way ( 2 headphone jacks, esata, number of usb 2.0s, hdmi out).

And it comes with a free copy of adobe photoshop?! Not that I edit photos, but I might start!

Anyway I won't have time to delete all the bloat right now, but I will later today. SO far thrilled. For $639 total price I am definitely winning.

 

[Schadenfreude]

Not to deflate your purchase (I've heard only great things about the Envy 14, esp. w/ the updated display) but are you sure you didn't receive Adobe Photoshop Essentials?

One costs almost as much as the laptop itself, the other is $100 and is a fairly standard bundle . . ..

 

[Sunburn74]

Dunno... says Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0.

I'm not a photoshop guy and know nothing about pic editing, but its something Imay play with more and more. Also comes with premiere elements as well...

Actually the best thing I like about the laptop is the freaking mouse pad. its really easy to manipulate

 

[Schadenfreude]

Dunno... says Adobe Photoshop Elements 8.0.

I'm not a photoshop guy and know nothing about pic editing, but its something Imay play with more and more. Also comes with premiere elements as well...

Actually the best thing I like about the laptop is the freaking mouse pad. its really easy to manipulate

Ah, Elements; that's the $100 version - it's fairly decent still (from what I hear; I still use the Macromedia stuff) so give it a whirl.

 

[gmaster456]

Elements is still decent budget software, and if it came free, there's nothing to lose.