Stymied: 15.6" Laptop for $400, or so?

C

c3k

2[H]4U
Joined
Sep 8, 2007
Messages
2,330
Folks,

My wife is looking to me to find her a laptop. Her requirements are 15.6" screen, (lo- res is okay), removable/replaceable battery. She'll use a wireless mouse, so touchpad is not a buying feature. The purpose will be web browsing, email, and documents.

Battery life should be decently long. 4-6 hours under light usage.

Screen brightness good enough to use near bright windows.

Touch-screen is a drawback, not a feature. ;)

I'd think this could be easy to find, especially with an i3. The hold up has been trying to ensure the battery is removable/replaceable.

My newegg and amazon searches leave me with thousands to choose from, but none that give me the specs I'm searching for.

Price is flexible. I can go up.

Thank you for the help.

Ken
 
What is the laptop used for? Simple productivity like e-mails, maybe spreadsheets, surfing, "Youtubing", etc...? Here is a 15.6" Toshiba Satellite from BestBuy for $300. It seems to be a model that they carry in stock... at least where I live.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/toshiba...p?id=1219060352357&skuId=1689182#tab=overview

It does not have a Core i3 CPU, it has a Pentium 2020m which is based on the 3rd generation Ivy Bridge core. The two main differences between the Pentium 2020m and a Ivy Bridge Core i3 are:

1. No Hyper Threading (HT) - This is not a big deal for most people since most people do not use programs that can take advantage of HT. Probably the most common program with HT support that man people use are compression programs like WinZip or WinRar.

2. Intel HD Graphics Core (Ivy Bridge generation - no model #) - All Ivy Bridge generation Core i3/i5/i7 CPUs have an Intel HD 4000 operating at slightly different frequencies. The Intel HD Graphics Core is the lowest performing iGPU (integrated graphics), but it is still powerful enough to playback 1080p video. It is even capable of playing back 4k video resolution which is the next HD standard. The Ivy Bridge generation Intel HD Graphics Core is more powerful than the older Sandy Bridge generation Intel HD Graphics Core. It can be confusing though since there is no model #.
 
Another "non Core i3" laptop...

Lenovo ThinkPad E545 for $439 base model. It comes with a dual core AMD A6-5350m APU with the integrated Radeon HD 8450g. I recommend the $20 upgrade to a quad core AMD A8-5550m with the intregrated Radeon HD 8550g.

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/e-series/e545/


AMD CPU cores are not as powerful as Intel CPU cores. I would say at the same clockspeed mobile Intel Haswell generation CPU core is about 30% - 35% more powerful than the CPU core in a Richland generation AMD APU. However, the higher clockspeed of the AMD CPU compensates for that performance difference. Additionally, the A8 APU has 4 CPU cores vs only 2 for the Core i3 CPU.

Lastly, the integrated Radeon HD 8550g is more powerful than the Intel HD 4400 / HD 4600 graphics core found in Haswell generation mobile CPUs. Meaning it is more capable of playing games should the need arise.

Since this is a business laptop you will deal with Lenovo corporate tech support instead of the normal "rabble" tech support for the average consumers.
 
Get em while you still can LOL
Toshiba Satellite C55-A5384 $260 + tax shipped

Specs

Intel Core i3 3120M 2.5GHz
4GB DDR3
500GB HDD
15.6" 1366x768 LED
SuperMulti DVD Drive
WiFi N
6-cell battery
Windows 8
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top