Originally Posted by Chris23

No dells, and definitely no hp!

I agree with the latter but not the former. I've had only good experiences with Dell laptops and PCs.

I havent had a dell in a while, so maybe things have changed, but for HP, nothing but bad things can be said. In less than a year, my old HP's battery life had deteriorated to 20 mins on its best day, The screen flashed to white randomly and often resulted in the need for a restart, just a lot of problems that shouldnt be happening prior to completing one year of use.

My dell is still good but I overpaid, and there are better technologies out there right now. I even upgraded to the 9cell battery from the standard 6cell, and it was good for a while, but by second term second year it couldnt last through a night class without being plugged in. AND its heavy!!

I think thats another factor. It may not affect you too much living in res, if your laptop sits in your room most of the time, even if you bring it to 50% of your classes you probably wont have a problem carrying it, but when you live off campus and your walk is 10-15 mins, and you have to stay on campus, and lug it around between classes, you wont like it.

if you are on a tight budget,any windows laptop will do that is 14" or less. If you want a good investment, get the macbook pro. they are faster, better quality, and will probably not crash

Originally Posted by efungi

if you are on a tight budget,any windows laptop will do that is 14" or less. If you want a good investment, get the macbook pro. they are faster, better quality, and will probably not crash

Dont think that the laptop screen size determines the core processor that is being used. And not any laptop under 14" would be ideal for her needs. Seeing as a lot of the laptops currently on the market are not running on i5 or i7 processors, or the amd counterparts. Also, she clearly stated she is looking for a PC, not a Mac, so the macbook pro seems like it might not be something she is looking into

This has already been recommended but I have to say it again... Take a look at the Asus Zenbook UX32VD. Planning on ordering it in a few days. I'm sort of considering doing a RAM and SSD upgrade but we'll see... Oh, and this is after considering MacBooks for quite sometime.

notebookcheck.net
notebookreview.com
^Check both of these sites and maybe post what kind of laptop you're looking for on one of them (include your budget).

Originally Posted by Chris23

Dont think that the laptop screen size determines the core processor that is being used. And not any laptop under 14" would be ideal for her needs. Seeing as a lot of the laptops currently on the market are not running on i5 or i7 processors, or the amd counterparts. Also, she clearly stated she is looking for a PC, not a Mac, so the macbook pro seems like it might not be something she is looking into

Can you please point out where the OP explicitly said she is look for a PC and not a Mac?

First and foremost, figure out if you need a macintosh based or a windows based laptop.
Based on what you said i would recommend the vaio s 15" because it fits everything you say and is about $999 on sony vaio site. Next I would recommend the Lenovo Ideapad y580 with student discount on their site. Best deal ever due to its specs. I am planning to buy one soon too so this with a ton of research :p Hit me up if you need any more help.

Originally Posted by Tailsnake

You really have to state a budget, but an Asus Zenbook Prime meets all your requirements and has damn near universally good reviews.

http://www.amazon.ca/ASUS-UX32VD-DB7... 78078&sr=1-2

This is one gorgeous ultrabook but bear in mind that if you intend to do some intense work such as video editing, emulating and similar things the processor will not cut it. Its a low voltage processor which is relatively less powerful. If your not gonna do this then this is perfect in every way.

I would have bought the Asus Zenbook Prime if the Taichi wasn't just around the corner

Originally Posted by herBs

I agree with the latter but not the former. I've had only good experiences with Dell laptops and PCs.

Agreed.

Dell is expensive but as far as I know they don't seem to have many problems.

They may not be the best company (because of the price) but I wouldn't say to avoid Dell at all costs.

I would definitely avoid HP though.

I would stick with a MBA, Lenovo Thinkpad, Dell XPS, or ASUS.

Originally Posted by Alchemist11

Agreed.

Dell is expensive but as far as I know they don't seem to have many problems.

They may not be the best company (because of the price) but I wouldn't say to avoid Dell at all costs.

I would definitely avoid HP though.

I would stick with a MBA, Lenovo Thinkpad, Dell XPS, or ASUS.

I use the Dell Vostro at work and have found it to be a very nice laptop for me. Not sure how many people have exposure to that line of Dell's laptops though.

Originally Posted by Chris23

No dells, and definitely no hp!

Wait...I bought a hp laptop. What's wrong with them??

Originally Posted by herBs

I use the Dell Vostro at work and have found it to be a very nice laptop for me. Not sure how many people have exposure to that line of Dell's laptops though.

I use the Dell Vostro. It's been pretty good for the 4 years I've been using it. I just have 2 problems with my Vostro. The first is the battery. Although it lasted 5 hours for my first year, my second year it lasted around 3 hours and towards the end of that year it could only power my laptop for 1 hour. I bought a new battery and it also only lasted 2 years. I don't know if it's normal for a battery to be like that but I found it very inconvenient. The second is that this laptop heats up A LOT (Which may be the reason why the battery only lasted 2 years). I'm guessing it's because it's a business laptop and isn't built to run youtube videos and tv shows/movies for long periods of time or to handle a lot of multi-tasking when I had to do research.

But that was 4 years ago so I have no idea how vostro has changed since then. But I do agree with posters above saying that Dells are expensive now.