Hey all you tech savy people,

I need help buying a new laptop. Looking for a good reliable Laptop for under 600 dollars. We will use it for browsing the web, homework assignments, some gaming, watching video's, and maybe streaming movies. All I know about this stuff is to make sure it has at least 4gb of ram which can be up graded to 8 and at least 500 gb hard drive. Is this correct? What kind of processor should I be looking at and will that be determined by price?

 

HELP!

Lenovo are very good. I have a PC at home myself, if you look at most retailers and heavy duty PC/laptop users these are being used, affordable and reliable.

These were brought to my attention when I worked at a large engineering firm, we tested their 3D work station for Autocad Civil 3D and it was awesome, far better than the dells we used. However it was more expensive and they stuck with the dells, upgrading to their version of the 3D work station which were ok.

 

http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:CompareByNeed?current-category-id=653343E0DE54435882FABC3CE1BC569A

 

I picked my computer up at the outlet website, the only this wrong was the box had been scratched, and I saved about $200 on the price.

 

HP are about the worst you can buy with the worst customer service.

Apple are expensive and propritary

Asus are pretty good from what I have heard but never really used them.

I just bought an Asus, so far it has been excellent. Hardest part is getting used to Windows 8 but it is not that bad.

 

I would suggest spending as much as you can, as fast as things develope in the computer industry a cheaper laptop can become obsolete rather quickly.

 

I would try to stick with the Intel I series of processors. And you are correct, as much memory as possible is one of the best things you can do for performance.

This is somewhat obsolete, having been written five months ago.

 

http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-3121_7-57501214-220/best-laptops-for-under-$600/

You definately want to get 8gb of ram the newer operating system don't handle very well on 4, don't bother with the upgrading unless they will do it in store same day. Look for the biggest chipset you can afford. These days I is difficult to find anything that isn't dual or quad core. These are rated in MHz the bigger number is faster. Sometimes it will be a faster machine with fewer cores. AMD make some good proccessors and are typically cheaper for the same or better processing speed. If you are looking to do any light gaming you probably don't want an integrated graphic proccessor, both amd and nvidia make good units.

Tigerdirect.com and Newegg.com have great selection and good prices.

You might also look at refurbished machines.

Avoid HP, Gateway, and IMO dell.

Let me know if you have any questions.

I bought an Asus laptop for my wife, spent around $400, fits her needs perfectly and performs well.  As with any computer keeping it healthy is the key to performance and longevity.