Best Laptop in the $400-500 range

Google&Pubmed · Jul 8, 2012

OOOOOOOOOOOOO can I help?! CAN I HELP!?!?!?!?!??!!!?!?

This is refurbished but that shouldn't matter because it's by ASUS and it's 2nd gen i5!

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This one is a refurb too but it's a ultrabook which is freaking awesome for college and who cares about CD/DVD rom...we barely use them anymore(unless your a nerd like meh)

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Another i5 2nd gen by asus but it's new

Asus - 15.6" Laptop - 4GB Memory - 500GB Hard Drive - IMR Matte Dark Brown Suit - K53E-BBR21

i3 but $409...new

Dell - 15.6" Inspiron Laptop - 6GB Memory - 500GB Hard Drive - Black - I15N-3000BK

Don't worry about RAM size...it's 2012 and they just fill that mother fuck up like there is no tomorrow. RAMs are supper cheap now and so are hard drives so don't worry about it either. The only thing you should really care about (when it comes to speed for college) it's the processor, key board layout, and monitor size. For college(which every god damn sit is only big enough for skinny mofos and people that don't have any muscles...even though we live in US with 30+% obesity rate) you don't have a lot of space to put your laptop down. I have a 15.6" one and it's WAY too big and you have to walk from BFE to BFE every damn day so I would go with something super light(even if your a effing beast carrying a gallon of water, after insane workouts, on top of all your crap the laptop weight will make a big difference...and the heat it puts out which warms up the backpack...which will warm up YOUR back...causing you to get hotter in 100 degrees heat.

So I would go with the ultrabook

dracula · Jul 9, 2012

I bought a nice dell online for $475 and its treated me great for 18 months. I customized it but, I have no idea what I added.

Bigfreak07 · Dec 2, 2012

i'd choose HP, refurbished

Hush · Dec 4, 2012

hell yes I'd go with HP

TommyQ · Feb 4, 2013

HP or LENOVO

MatsuyamaKaze · Sep 28, 2013

Go on woot.com they have refurbished nothing bad about that I've seen 2000 dollar laptops sell for 600 like the zenbook woot 600 Walmart 2200 lol your choice

Se · Sep 29, 2013

As others mentioned, stay with a smaller screen as lugging around a large laptop is a pain, especially in a book bag or other compartmentalized carrying bag.

When in the dorm/office etc. connect the laptop to a larger screen if he wants to...pretty basic and simple.

One thing not to overlook is the keyboard. Pay attention to the type of keyboard you're getting. Note if you want a standardized size or smaller...back-lighting is nice to have. If he needs numbers, make sure he chooses one with a number keypad

"best" is subjective as depending on what he will use the computer for, will steer him in different areas.

I would never consider anything else other than an i7 based CPU, I also would highly suggest as well once you pickup the computer, change over to an SSD drive as speed will dramatically increase regarding read/writing as the stock drive will be a big bottleneck. The SSD drive will also increase battery life too.

Purchasing with an SSD drive installed, will more than likely add quite a bit more than purchasing the drive separately and installing it and running your backup onto the new drive (very simple to do). Most of the class computers you're looking at (price range you suggested) will have very bad slow hard drives.

Ram is super cheap, many lessor expensive computers have poor memory timing.

Main thing to really consider is get a good CPU based computer. The rest you can easily change out. If video is important and you need it to run CAD or photo editing software, then consider a good video card...otherwise you'll probably be using the on-board video off of the CPU which is perfectly fine for general use.

I rarely purchase computer/computer components from a brick and mortar store. Not any one place will have the best rates, check around, some run specials on overstock they may have. You can also consider refurbished computers as they are generally better buys. Make sure it's a certified refurbished computer or you're able to exchange if there's something wrong with it. I use newegg quite a bit....but I don't limit myself to them as sometimes you find better deals elsewhere.

Stating one brand is better than another is really pointless as none of them make the components inside...they are pretty much all the same. If two companies are selling the same computer configuration, there will be zero differences in performance. The main difference is the screen/keyboard layouts from brand to brand.

Good luck!