laptop purchase with i7

Hello. Just asking here as I trust the folks here. Not wanting to turn this into a battle, just want an opinion.
Wife is starting a 3 yr Phd in nursing, online. (at home) I'm going to buy her a new laptop and have decided on a i7 processor. Just unsure if it really needs to be dual or quad. Just need the speed for getting between apps. Will not be gaming and so-forth. Next question, which machine then to get? Doesn't need to be touch screen either. Really only interested in better keyboard and battery life. I bought her this little Toshiba Sattelite with i3 processor 3 yrs ago for her BSN and is still alive. Just fast and reliable. Thank you DM

Unlikely you would need the power of an i7. An upper level i5 is very strong.

If the i7 is in your budget range, go ahead on.

Get a quad core. I'm not sure off hand if there are dual-core i5s anyway.

If at all possible, get one with an SSD (solid state drive). She'll appreciate it every operating moment, whereas she might never appreciate an i7.

Most laptops will have only one hard drive, so presumably you'd get one with maybe a 250 or 500 GB SSD. If you buy one that has two hard drives, you'd likely have Windows on the SSD and use the standard hard drive for storage.

I'd say the better way to go would be to get a machine with one hard drive--an SSD, and then use an external hard drive for backup and/or more storage if needed.

You can always get an add-on keyboard to bypass the laptop's keyboard.

Battery life: read reviews for info on that. The harder you work the machine, the lower the battery life, but there have been a lot of improvements in that area in the last few years.

As for specific recommendations, I can't make any as I don't use laptops. The usual suspects would be Dell, HP, Lenovo, and maybe Toshiba. Maybe Asus? I'd avoid Acer due to horror stories about customer service. I wouldn't expect stellar customer service for any of them--just hope you don't need to use it.

Find a few prospective machines in your price range and post links to them so we can have a look.

Here's some i5 laptops with SSD:

Computer Parts, Laptops, Electronics, and More - Newegg.com


Here's some i7 laptops with SSD:

Computer Parts, Laptops, Electronics, and More - Newegg.com

Maybe should start with this. My wife's Toshiba Sattelite A505-S6005 which is about 5 yrs old, had a i3 m330 @ 2.13 GHz. Ram 4gb. Unsure of what type of drive. What she is experiencing is slow response time. It just isn't quick enuf for her likings. It never really has been. Being that our DSL speed is slow doesn't help the fact, but that isn't the issue. She wants blink-of-the-eye responses, and we're just talking with working in and out of windows based programs and so-forth. I have defraged current pc and is clean. Maybe this info will help paint a better picture of current dilemma, and what to get in a new laptop to avoid current "slowness". Thx dm

I will try a sshd. Did some reading after what was wrote here. Should make a huge difference. Thx for pointing this out!

It just isn't quick enuf for her likings

That's the bane of Notebooks versus Desktops, Notebooks just don't quite have the same performance unless one wants to get into the gaming models at greater expense such as Dell's Alienware. [Don't actually need to play games.]
I have Windows Notebooks with i5 CPUs and a MacBook Pro with an i7, all work pretty good but a lot has to do with the programs being used. As for dual or quad, most programs won't need more than 1 or 2 cores. Desktops can be had with CPU speeds above 3.0GHz but not many Notebooks get over 2.5GHz, the cheaper ones may not do better than 1.3-1.5GHz, just have to shop the CPU brand and CPU model number. Another thing is to go ahead and maximize the RAM, never hurts and that's what I do and haven't had a memory issue since.

I prefer something light, portable and great battery life. There's no need for an i7 quad since there are only very few programs that use more than 2 cores. Also adding an i7 quad will significantly increase weight and laptop thickness because you will need a huge fan and heatsink to cool down an i7 quad where as you can have an i5 ULV dual core laptop that's pencil thin with great keyboard, ips screen (non-touch) and m.2 SSD. I'm pretty sure she'll love that laptop and it won't slow her down as long as Windows is properly maintained and updated.

I'm suggesting Dell XPS 13 2015 with Core i5-5200U @ 2.2 GHz, 8 GB RAM and 256GB SSD. Look at the images on the net and reviews (I recommend the ars technica review) and see if she'll love it. I'm sure she will though.