budget laptops

[Lassr]

My daughter is in need of a new laptop for school.

Something like this at Amazon. My wife has this one and she seems to like it except for Windows 10 but that is not a computer problem.

Game with the highest specs requirements she would play on it would be Sims 3. Most of the time she watches Netflix or is doing school work. I am looking at the $350-$425 range.

She currently has a toshiba AMD and it is a little over 2 years old. A couple of the USB ports are messed up, there is something rattling inside and it was upgraded to Win 10 from 8 and has had stability issues. I would probably avoid Toshiba this time although a lot of people seem to have good experience with them, but I have not. Dell has always been good to me. Owned several.

Any other suggestion or comments on the one listed above?

[Kraken]

Dells are good solid workhorses and that's a good price. I paid $600 for basically the same machine two years ago. It's...adequate. I would like it better if I'd only paid $400 for it. At $600 I feel mildly ripped-off.

We've been a Dell family for ages. Wife broke the pattern with this Toshiba Satellite this year and she loves that machine. It outperforms any Dell we've ever owned by a long shot. But I read somewhere that Toshiba is selling their laptop division to the Chinese, so IDK if they will be an option the next time I need to upgrade and the prospects for support are sketchy, if support is a concern.

If I were buying a new machine today I'd want that Toshiba. Wife got hers for about $400 by stacking the $650 sale price with a trade-in (worth $150) and opening a Staples charge card ($50 instant rebate) plus some other $50 credit that I don't remember...maybe because it had Win7 installed.

Dell is always a safe choice, just not always the best value.

[Lassr]

My "computer guy" recommends Toshiba and that is why I got one as my daughters first laptop, maybe I just got a dud. Performance wise it has been great until the Win 10 upgrade but the physical part of the computer is where the problems are occurring. The screws that hold the case together will not even stay tightened, she has lost two of those already.

[Moliere]

HP ProBook 6565b LAPTOP AMD QUAD 1.60GHz - 8GB DDR3 - 250GB - DVDRW - 15.6" - Windows 10 Home 64bit
$280

[Kraken]

My "computer guy" recommends Toshiba and that is why I got one as my daughters first laptop, maybe I just got a dud. Performance wise it has been great until the Win 10 upgrade but the physical part of the computer is where the problems are occurring. The screws that hold the case together will not even stay tightened, she has lost two of those already.

Wife is usually hard on laptops but the Toshiba has been a domestic machine. It leaves the house occasionally but not daily, so durability hasn't been an issue. Ask me again when she dumps a diet coke on it.

Back in the day Dells would survive the apocalypse. They don't build them like that anymore but they're still very solid.

[hitbyambulance]

have anything against refurbs? you could get a whole lot more machine for less money, but you have
to jump through a hoop or two.

http://www.cnet.com/news/how-to-save-mo ... b-laptops/

http://outlet.lenovo.com/outlet_us/laptops
http://dellrefurbished.com/laptops
http://eshop.asus.com/en-GB/outlet/refu ... ed-laptops
http://www.shopfujitsu.com/store/outletstore.do
http://www.apple.com/shop/browse/home/specialdeals

[Smoove_B]

My wife needed a new laptop so I picked up a refurb - this one a few months ago. She said it works great; no problems. Not sure how it would run The Sims but for web surfing or Netflix it seems to be a solid machine. Not sure if there was a bad batch (some recent poor customer reviews) but for the price I think it's working quite well. I just had to make sure to install all kinds of script and ad blockers as I think that's what killer her last laptop.

[Jeff V]

Last year, my wife got a Surface 3 for school. Light weight, usable as a tablet, and while she doesn't play games on it, it might handle something like The Sims.

[Anonymous Bosch]

For gaming laptops, I've always preferred ASUS. Their build-quality is typically top-notch.

While it's above your price range, here's a decent 8GB Skylake ASUS laptop with an SSD that's currently $549 on Amazon (although, FWIW, they were very recently offering it for $517).

The only real downside is that it doesn't have a dedicated graphics card, but if Sims 3 is the high bar of your daughter's gaming, the integrated Intel HD 520 graphics will be more than adequate for her needs. For school work and streaming Netflix and the like, it would be a blazing fast upgrade over what she's used to.

[hitbyambulance]

My wife needed a new laptop so I picked up a refurb - this one a few months ago.

that's very close to the specs on the HP i picked out for the parents in an after-xmas closeout sale at Staples a few years back - about the same price as well. they are very happy with it. it certainly serves their needs, but i think it feels flimsy and cheap, and i hate the touchpad (tho they use an external mouse). i like Apple MBPs and the old business-class IBM/Lenovo ThinkPads. the older higher-end Dell Inspirons used to be pretty good, as well - nice screens and keyboards.

[Lassr]

thanks guys, I'll start looking through these options. Last day of school was today so we have a few months to decide.

[Giles Habibula]

... Performance wise it has been great until the Win 10 upgrade but the physical part of the computer is where the problems are occurring. The screws that hold the case together will not even stay tightened, she has lost two of those already.

Ah, ha. The upgrade to Win10 was too big for your laptop to handle, resulting in excessive internal pressure, which is forcing the screws out. When all of the screws eventually fall out, be careful! You could end up with excessive Windows 10 goo all over the place. It is an awful mess. Even Norton cannot remove the stains.

[TheMix]

"Screws fall out all the time, the world is an imperfect place."