What's Best Laptop for my Wife

[Dallas 7]

My wife needs a good reliable laptop, general purpose, no gaming other than the W7 games.
I do need to get W7 on it, one way or another.
What brand would you most recommend? Toshiba? Asus? Or.....?

 

[AmericanPharaoh]

HP Envy

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Lenovo. I just bought one of these. I just picked it up today from my mail service; I haven't even opened the box yet. Lenovo also makes a similar model sold by Amazon that is less expensive.

I have another lower tier Lenovo that has been chugging along just fine for over a year and a half, 8 months of that being my only computer.

 

[indianacarnie]

Toshiba or Asus gets my vote. Toshiba for the excellent customer service (I personally have never seen better), Asus for the robustness. My poor old Asus G74SX has survived and thrived on the road, more bangs ,bumps,shakes and just plain hard usage than most laptops are subjected to with nary a hardware problem. Toshiba is very generous with the bloatware I must admit, but the one time I had a real problem with my Toshiba machine their tech/support people stayed on the phone with me for hours till it was right. (After offering me a new machine if I so desired I might add) I offer no model numbers for either company, but from MY PERSONAL experience you couldn't go wrong with either make.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

One thing I like about my current Lenovo is it was extremely light on bloatware.

 

[Computer0304]

But it seems that Lenovo does not care to put in SSDs in the lower end systems. HP Envy may be too overpowered for needs. Maybe HP Pavilion? Newegg.com - HP Pavilion 13-p110nr x2 Notebook Intel Core i3 4020Y (1.5GHz) 4GB Memory 128GB SSD Intel HD Graphics 4400 13.3" Touchscreen Windows 8.1

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

It's not difficult to replace the HDD with a SSD; that's what I did with my first Lenovo.

 

[Dallas 7]

One thing I like about my current Lenovo is it was extremely light on bloatware.

That's a plus.

 

[Computer0304]

True HP PCs are heavily filled with BLOATWARE. But those are pretty easy to uninstall, the hardest part is to decide what is useless and what is useful. But you can just Google that.

 

[whs]

But it seems that Lenovo does not care to put in SSDs in the lower end systems. HP Envy may be too overpowered for needs. Maybe HP Pavilion? Newegg.com - HP Pavilion 13-p110nr x2 Notebook Intel Core i3 4020Y (1.5GHz) 4GB Memory 128GB SSD Intel HD Graphics 4400 13.3" Touchscreen Windows 8.1

This is really a tablet in disguise. I bought this one for my wife for half the money. That thing works great, has a SSD and with the quad CPU it is very fast. Office is also included. Can't kick the price. I paid $329.

It is 8.1 though which was no problem for my wife who uses it for travel - her other PCs are Vista and Windows 7. Weighs only 2 pounds.

 

[Computer0304]

But that only has Atom processors sadly, which may not work for her needs.

 

[whs]

But that only has Atom processors sadly, which may not work for her needs.

That is a great quad CPU that does everything my Toshiba 15" laptop with an i5 does. And nearly at the same speed. This is not your grandfathers Atom CPU. And it uses only 2 Watts. The battery lasts for 12 hours.

 

[Computer0304]

Oh maybe I was underestimating the power of Atom processors. Now that I think about it, they are better than my Pentium processor on my laptop. (New Pentium not Pentium I in case you were wondering)

 

[whs]

I am sure it beats a Pentium hands down - and with a lot less power consumption. That in combination with the SSD makes for a great little rig. My wife loves it. She only had to get used to the small keyboard. She is a power typist. For me it does not make any difference. I still type with 2 fingers, LOL.

 

[Computer0304]

Me too LOL.

 

[Lady Fitzgerald]

Me three.

 

[Dallas 7]

Thanks for your input all, appreciate it.
The store's "In Stock" supply of W7 laptops was somewhat limited, I ended up buying her a Toshiba. Had W7 Home Premium 64 bit, 15.6" screen, 4G Ram and 500G HD, and a 2.4G Intel Processor, cost $429.
I didn't think that sounded too bad. The next step up in stock would've been another $250.
The wife didn't want to spend more so I got off easy!

 

[Computer0304]

Is it the T135? The specs sound exactly like mine.

 

[Dallas 7]

Is it the T135? The specs sound exactly like mine.

Satellite C55

 

[gregrocker]

Here's one to try with a nice price and fast Core i3, also more RAM than usual on these $399 specials: Toshiba C55-A5100 Laptop, Internet Security Software, Sleeve, Mouse & Flash Drive Package

The benefit of buying from Best Buy is that you get to trial it for 15 days with no-questions-asked money back guarantee. I tried a dozen over two years until I found the Lenovo G500 core i5 also $399 which lacked any fatal flaw. So testing them first is a good idea to get the one which suits you best.