help finding the right laptop for a family member

[zeropeorth]

My father is looking to get a decent laptop to replace his aging PC. He doesn't do much but stream videos online and play simple games like jewel quest.

I have a tendency to over build, so I came for help to keep me reasonable, to keep it affordable. I know he doesn't want it to be slow/lag, as some of the cheap tablets he's messed with seem to do (ex: one of them almost freezes if multiple youtube tabs are open when the kids play with it). He wants it to last 5 or so years. He is going to take it on a trip, but after that, mostly hooked up to a 1080 tv watching stuff in his room or browsing sites. No productivity or spreadsheets or anything like that.

So, will the built in graphics on an i5 be good enough to not get bogged down in daily use? Will 2 cores be plenty? 4 GB ram? What is the recommended core speed for todays silverlight/java/flash pages? I'm pretty strong on having a small ssd for boot and basic programs. He doesn't have a ton of pictures or videos stored up, so thinking a 128-256 GB would be enough, and if he ended up needing more at some point, point him at a cheap external TB hdd.

The cheaper the better I'd suppose, the bigger the screen the better, but cheap and big screen don't go well together I know. His eyesight isn't perfect, but if its hooked up to the tv outside his few week trip, it just needs to be big enough to be usable during that time as the majority of the rest of the time it will be hooked to the tv.

Thanks for any help in advance. Trying not to suggest the 6-800 models I gravitate to that have an i5 6300HQ and a dedicated gpu like a 960m like this or a similar asus one for a similar price. I'll keep looking, if you find something that works and link it, that would be great. Explanations on how little power he needs as well might help ease my mind that he won't be purchasing something that will be frustrating/slow with his tasks (those tablets have really jaded my idea of what is needed). Thanks again for any time dedicated to assisting me with this

[Kagthul]

Honestly, what you're describing sounds like Chromebook territory.

[mikejohn]

Get this one by Acer Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575-33BM it comes with i3-7100u processor, 8gb ram,1tb hdd, windows 10, 15.6 inch full hd display

[ovm33]

This seems to be about the best deal I could find with the SSD. Seems adding that to a laptop increases it's price a bit.

Core i5
8 Gb Ram
256Gb SSD
940mx Graphics card

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-E...n%3A9521908011

That being said for what your father is doing the below would be enough:

4Gb of ram
i3 processor
On board graphics

But after a cursory search I couldn't find that with an SSD that wouldn't take you above the price of the one I listed.

[Nellah]

Honestly, what you're describing sounds like Chromebook territory.

I'm with this, if his games are Facebook games - not sure what Jewel Quest is, but it sounds Facebook-y - then getting a Chromebook with an x86 processor (some have ARM CPUs which can be dog slow) will do perfectly. I bought my dad a Chromebook with a Haswell Celeron 2955U (1.40GHz, Acer C720) and it does everything he wants - 1080p video to his TV through HDMI, web browsing, basic browser games - just perfectly, and it only cost me $150 refurbished.

If you're thinking of a 960M for web surfing and Facebook games, then you sure as hell do like to overbuild!

[Thunderboots]

Yea, have to agree with these lads. 960m is an overkill for Facebook games. Chromebook with 15 inch+ screen will do.

[yurano]

But after a cursory search I couldn't find that with an SSD that wouldn't take you above the price of the one I listed.

He could always buy one with a HDD and swap it out for an SSD. Its a bit of a hassle, but you avoid the weight and heat of discrete graphics.

Personally I would avoid switching OSes to a Chromebook. Sometimes, people have random software that doesn't run on Chrome. Its not worth the loss of flexibility to save $50.

[Alantor]

He doesn't do much but stream videos online and play simple games like jewel quest.

Enjoy. Or you can wait a little (weeks?) for the Samsung Chromebook Pro.

[draynay]

I'm on a c302ca right now and I LOVE IT. I took it over the samsung for the backlit keyboard. Only trouble is google play not on stable mode.You can go back and forth between 1536x864 for web browsing and 1080p for streaming.

[Gaidax]

The no.1 question is what budget you are aiming for, OP.

My suggestion is to get a good quality non-chromebook laptop to ensure you won't run in compatibility problems - you don't want to deal with this shit, trust me. Your dad indicates he wants this laptop to last 5 years, so target should be a standard dualcore i5/I7 laptop with 8GB ram, good 1080p screen (read reviews, a lot of cheaper laptops cheap out and give real shitty screens here, resolution is not the only metric) and it should have at least 256GB SSD - if you got an extra penny I suggest 512GB because the space tends to get filled with trash eventually if it is not maintained well, it will just save a headache in future - do not take HDD laptop - this is by far the biggest performance degradation you can have in laptops really.

Choose a light ultrabook with a decent battery life for trips, with these specs you can have a very nice laptop for relatively tame price.

For example Asus Zenbook UX330 or Lenovo Yoga line hit the spot really well with sleek designs, decent specs that match your use case and sane price.


Basically, the aim here is to give your dad best experience for a long run, while not having to be his maintenance guy 24/7 and all that for sane cost. I think those two examples set the bar you should align to.

And really, don't buy those HQ monstrosities, if you get it cheap - you will end up with a frikkin' mammoth machine... I am a strong believer that in 2017 any laptop which weights more than like 1.7kg or is thicker than 20mm is simply no go and those are pushing it really too.

[zeropeorth]

thank you all for the suggestions and tips;

So in summary,

i5 dual core
8 GB ram
quality screen
256+ GB ssd
respectable battery life

This would be enough to stream his videos with capability of sending it to a tv as well, fart around on some browser games, and general website surfage for the next several years without bogging down because a few tabs were open or other things like general increase in load of web pages and services have over time.

I'll keep looking for good deals, because as long as it can handle those things and the build quality is decent, the cheaper the better. Once found, I get the fun of cleaning out his old computer and making good enough for my 4 year old to play minecraft on ... hoping just a small cheap ssd to throw a clean install of windows on is sufficient I'm weary of the cpu and quantity of ram, haven't check it out, I know it was a store bought model from about 6 years ago, hp I think.

- - - Updated - - -

This is one that he is looking at right now Dell Inspiron

i5 6200U dual core 2.3 GHz boosts to 2.8
8GB ram
128GB SSD
(manufacturer hyped) 'truelife' led screen 15.6" @ 1366x768
backlit keyboard, wifi, bluetooth, 1xhdmi, etc etc
5 hr avg battery life (removable 40WHr)
integrated HD 520 graphics

Going to keep looking, but seems like a decent price compared to others with similar specs, they seem to trend around the 6-800 range.

He really doesn't use any storage; I think he hasn't filled up an 80GB ssd with the os on it, would have to double check on that. I have 4 old HDD not in a PC next to me right now that totals about 2.25 TB in total if he really needed some back up storage, though the two 1 TB are better off recycled at 3 and 4 power on hours instead of being put in an external drive case, the 750 and 500 have less than 200 and 300 days respectively.


If this example is a problem or bad value, let me know, and any alternatives would be appreciated.

p.s. I'll talk to him about chromebooks again, but he didn't seem too interested in 'learning a new os' last time I mentioned it; couldn't argue because I know nothing about it

[Nellah]

If at all possible get something with a better display, 1366x768 is Dell's favorite terrible LCD. The one I got with my last Dell (roughly the same price range) was so bad I ended up installing a replacement panel to fix the image quality.

[Gaidax]

i5 6200U dual core 2.3 GHz boosts to 2.8
8GB ram
128GB SSD
(manufacturer hyped) 'truelife' led screen 15.6" @ 1366x768
backlit keyboard, wifi, bluetooth, 1xhdmi, etc etc
5 hr avg battery life (removable 40WHr)
integrated HD 520 graphics

No, just no, seriously.

It's 2017 and you are buying this for media purposes - get FHD screen and really at least 256GB SSD, 128 is nothing - it will get filled with trash in no time and you are the one who will be hearing about it.