[Solved] Help selecting a Laptop

Hello. I am helping a friend select a laptop for her 12 year old daughter. I am familiar with Dell laptops, but would like to hear other people's recommendations, particularly because I know AMD's fusion product is very competitive and may offer a better value (though not offered by Dell). Here's the questionnaire:

1. What is your budget? $800.00ish

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering? 15" screen and light weight.

3. What screen resolution do you want? Not important, matte screen

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? Portable

5. How much battery life do you need? as much as possible

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)? Facebook games, little/no 3d gaming

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) ; Webcam, download photos onto it, projects (Word)

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? enough for some tv shows and movies (500GB)

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. - purchasing in Canada (Dell.ca, newegg.ca, bestbuy.ca, etc)

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? at least 3 years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? Bluray reader

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons - friend used to work for UPS and saw a lot of HP laptop returns, may want to avoid HP

13. What country do you live in - Canada

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed - would be nice if vendor offers accidental damage coverage (dropped, liquid spill, etc)

Hello torque79;

The difference between none and some in 3D gaming can be important.
You mentioned a Blu-Ray reader but not 1080p screen resolution. I'm guessing your OK with have Blu-Ray downscale to 720p

And the preference for a matte screen is leading you away from consumer laptops to business class laptops. (which I approve of actually).

Not many MFGRs offer standard accidental damage warranty and even those that do - it's for the higher end models.

There is always the option to get an anti-glare screen protector.
Static cling keeps them attached. Not idea, but an option if glare becomes a real issue.

XPS are a cut above the budget models (as they should be). Latitudes are better than Vostros.
Generally, any laptop at the same price point is going to have reliability with a few percentage points of any other in the same range.
And any laptop has a chance of being drop kicked. And any laptop that's well taken care of has a good chance to outlast a higher end, premium business class laptop that goes through a tough duty cycle.

Occasionally, you see models have much higher problems (HP a few year back) but the MFGRs really do try to avoid those type of troubles.

Which options did you end up going with?