Help me find a 13" laptop - size and weight important

[LigTasm]

Hey guys, I'm looking to pick up a laptop for my elderly grandma. Her physical condition is pretty bad, but she enjoys looking through facebook a lot and playing some very light games (windows store stuff, basically mobile games).

Her requirements were these:

- Light and easy to move
- No number pad
- Fits in her travel bag ~13" max screen size

Unfortunately most of these specs fit into the ultrabook category and quite frankly it would be a waste to pay $1200-1500 for a Dell XPS or something of that nature because she simply doesn't need that much performance. 1366x768 screen is fine. What other options are out there? I'm not looking for dirt cheap $300 units but something reasonable given the usage would be nice. It must be windows based so the chromebooks are out, and I won't touch the low end flash storage laptops with a 10' pole.

Who else has models like this? Asus zenbook? Trying to search for this stuff leads to 11 billion different things that have nothing in common with what I need or a macbook which while it would be ideal simply won't work because she doesn't want to learn a new OS.

 

[LigTasm]

OK so I've been doing a lot of reading, and I'm thinking of going with the LG Gram 13. Its very light and has good battery life. Does anyone have one of these and can comment on it? How is the trackpad?

 

[Archaea]

What about a chrome book?

Less support potentially because locked down OS is less vulnerable and targeted. Does everything the casual person needs. $300ish.

 

[LigTasm]

What about a chrome book?

Less support potentially because locked down OS is less vulnerable and targeted. Does everything the casual person needs. $300ish.

Performance is garbage, and Windows is a must. I ended up buying a new last years model Asus Zenbook. We'll see how it goes when it gets here.

 

[Archaea]

Performance is garbage, and Windows is a must. I ended up buying a new last years model Asus Zenbook. We'll see how it goes when it gets here.

You may have forgot your audience, but good luck with the machine you picked out.

 

[LigTasm]

You may have forgot your audience, but good luck with the machine you picked out.

Sorry, I should have been more specific. What gets bought now will have to last at least as long as the old one, which was new in 2006. A chromebook is likely not going to do that with barebones specs and eMMC flash storage. Also, she specified no OS changes (or "I don't want anything to look different"), otherwise I would have just gone with a MacBook air which checks all the boxes plus is pretty user friendly.

Getting into the high end ultrabooks is a waste of specs even for longevity so I was looking for something under a grand. This one was on sale for $699 so I think it cuts a happy medium. Reviews are generally positive on it, but I'll be testing it out for a few days to see if it feels good to use before I bring it to her.

 

[LigTasm]

Well I received the machine last night and opened up the box today, I apparently got the 2018 gold model UX331UA-AS51 instead of the older one.

My personal first impressions are that this is a very slick little laptop. Screen is very crisp and clear, touchpad feels nice and the keyboard is quite good as well for the small size and the aluminum chassis has a good solid feel to it. I like the fingerprint reader as well. It has an i5 8250U and 8GB of LPDDR3 with a 256GB SSD, and everything is extremely snappy and fast. So far I'm very pleased with it, hopefully she likes it and I can be done with this search.

 

[YeuEmMaiMai]

I have a Dell Latitude 5175 with the attachable battery keyboard. run time is 9+ hours and is small but has some heft