Looking for Laptops in all the Wrong Places

[DrakonSan]

I have a teacher friend in need of a new work from home laptop. I know the AMD based laptops are routinely hobbled by one spec or another and Lenovo has been doing some shady things with preloads. Dell, Lenovo, HP, are all asking over $750 for 4th gen i3s. Who manufactures the $/perf laptops now, or am I out of touch?

Looking for:
i3/i5 performance to last 5ish years.
8gb RAM for poor tab and desktop management
SSD for impatience
15"+ screen for poor eyesight
Max budget $700 for teacher's pay

 

[FrEaKy]

Lenovo is fine as long as your removing all the junk with Rovio or or something.....

 

[cyclone3d]

Dell Precision M4600 (from Ebay)

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Dell-Precision-M4600-i7-QuadCore-2-3GHz-16GB-RAM-256GB-SSD-2GB-GPU-Gaming-Laptop-/301758180978?hash=item4642306e72

$525 shipped.

Not going to get anything close to this if you buy new.

 

[DrakonSan]

http://www.staples.com/product_1752479

Is the best new deal I can find.
HDD is likely the slower 5400rpm variety, might be able to score a SSD for under $100 which would finish the kit nicely

Refurb probably isn't going to sit well, especially not banged up..