I need a laptop.
Price range $500 at most.
Need laptop, want your input on my purchase. Hate Dell/ HP.
What kind of processor should I get?
Is Chrome book okay to get?
Amd or Intel processor?
Needed for Low end graphics gaming like fallout series and Dota 2, and college shit, like programming and typing.
Will you be carrying it around a lot? How long do you need the battery to last? will you be connecting external screens or projectors to it? (because VGA port...). Does the weight matter? Do aesthetics matter? Does the screen quality matter? Do you want a touchscreen implemented?
There are loads of such questions you have to ask yourself before buying a laptop.
I can say that Asus has some "entry level" ultrabooks that are rather nice and might even fit your price range, but don't think you will be gaming pleasantly on one of those for 500$ :D
If I was going back to college (to do anything other then the arts), I would get a IBM thinkpad due to them being so customisable to the specs you need, and keeping a resale value.
I got this one a few months back http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V3-551G-X419-15-6-Inch-Midnight/dp/B00AYT8H3Y/ref=pd_cp_pc_1
I think it's on bandh.com for like... $450, and it's really been great so far, but make sure to clean it of all the junk that comes pre-installed.
Seeing that the one I've previously recommended is out of stock on bandh, and it's also too expensive on Amazon, I think this one might be good too.
http://www.amazon.com/ASUS-K55N-DB81-15-6-Inch-Laptop-Black/dp/B00COR29XI/ref=pd_cp_pc_3
I'd avoid Acer, toshiba and HP. None of them make good budget laptops. Toshiba tend to be really easy to damage and are made from soft plastic and Acer till you start getting to around $700 mark have really unresponsive keyboards that tend to have a lot of flex to them and keys tend not to activate upon pressing. Would not buy a HP till after the Model has been on the market for awhile as they tend to put out a lot of faulty designs and have a really high rate of the motherboards failing. I hate dell but If I was going to go with anything it would be a Thinkpad, Asus or Dell. I've just had too repair to many other peoples laptops.
I hope this is a joke...
Oh, and just to let you know, Asus has/had some serious problems with their power sockets. Most laptops with broken power sockets were Asus. Not saying all Asus laptops have this issue, but just putting it out there.
So please, don't abuse your power cable and power plug of your future laptop, take good care of it, love it :)
P.S. Every laptop will serve you well and wont break if properly taken care of! Except for Dell and HP
He never jokes...
Sir, I beg to differ with you on Acer laptops. They do use cheaper plastic, and maybe the screens are not as good, but that is done to keep the price low while using more expensive/powerful components. It is expected from the user to take those facts into consideration and refrain from abusing the laptop to the point of breaking it. For instance Samsung entry level laptops have even worse plastic and are notoriously known for chipping, cracking, and breaking of front bezels which leads to broken screens.
So cheap brittle plastic is not specific to Acer only, It is specific to Low-end laptops.
I'm in a similar situation to you, I haven't bought it yet but I plan on buying the Asus Transformer T100. Anandtech did a review on it a while back and its gotten generally positive reviews.
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7428/asus-transformer-book-t100-review
When I got my Acer laptop I had to return it twice due to it having problems with power connection. I advise Dell to people only because if you don't abuse them they tend to work even if you can cook on them and they tend to have less issues than HP. I have to keep replacing the outside of Toshiba laptops no matter how people treat them, they tend to have a solid feel to them but the plastic tends to be a bit on the brittle side. And for some unknown reason I keep getting Acers and recommending them to people even though I've been having non-stop problems with them since the mid 90's. On the other hand I have never had a problem with Lenovo or IBM at all since the 80's. Don't so much have a problem with acer as I do in being everyone tech support when Acer falls through.
Well, maybe its the difference between countries. I work in a computer service and can say that HP is nr. 1 repaired brand then, surprisingly, goes dell, then fujitsu, then samsungs, acers and ofc laptops with little to no issues- ibm/lenovo (unless you spill drinks on new lenovo ultrabooks... magic smoke... Motherboard replacement- 70% of the laptop price :D)
I have the exact same model...Own it, and I HATE OPTIMUS, Ie, Dont install Ubuntu on it, it doesnt work properly, Otherwise its a Great "ultrabook" just prey it doesnt break because Acer suck for fixing things
A note about that Acer laptop, They use a dumb propiatry adapter cable for Ethernet and vga out, On the better note, Wifi is strong and the HDMI works flawlessly, just too bad about the piss poor controlls for the hd3000 gfx card
Correction about my earlier statement I actually have the v5 571g, pretty much the same laptop as far as i can tell though