Help with laptop for a new college student

[roro99]

1. What is your budget?
$1400

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
14” – Looking for something that will be easy to carry for a college student

3. What screen resolution do you want? 1600x900

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

5. How much battery life do you need? 6hrs

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)? She is a console game 

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) Word processing

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? 500GB

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? A few years

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
cd-dvd writer/bluray player

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. Not brand specific.

13. What country do you live in? US

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

My daughter is getting ready to graduate high school and getting ready to attend college and am looking to buy her a laptop that will be easy to carry around but yet nice enough to do anything she needs. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[applebloom]

Well I'm in college too and I decided upon an Asus G74SX, that was only a few months ago but at the time it was the best hardware for the money (that i could find anyway); it plays pretty much everything (games) on ultra, but lately I haven't been putting this thing to the use it probably deserves

but it's something for you to look into if you're interested.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Prod [...] 6834230142


*I posted this same thing on a similar question as well, should apply here though*

 

[Avro Arrow]

I think you need to rethink your budget. There's literally no reason at all why you should be spending that much on a laptop that isn't going to be used for gaming. Schoolwork is the same as office work and office apps are not the least bit demanding on modern hardware. Remember, MS-Office has been around since the days of Windows 95 (late 90s) and it hasn't changed all that much in that time. You're still just typing words on a screen, performing math calculations or setting up a presentation, nothing that can't be easily done on a netbook. Since you're using a console for gaming, I would recommend the following laptop for you because I know it will be fast enough and manages to avoid Intel Graphics:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834215187
It has a Quad-Core CPU and a Radeon GPU powerful enough to run Skyrim at medium settings. This is actually more than you need because when I went to University 3 years ago, I had no problems whatsoever with my laptop and it only had the following specs:
CPU: AMD Athlon 2650e 1.6GHz (single-core)
RAM: 2GB DDR2-667
GPU: ATi Radeon X1200
HD: 160GB 5400rpm
DVD-RW Super Multi Drive
Webcam, Mic, etc.
The laptop I showed you is a Quad-Core with better graphics and awesome battery life. Not bad for under $500 eh?

 

[roro99]

Thank you both for the information. I do like your sub $500 option.

 

[emilyle32]

HP is my favorite!

I just wanted to let you know about a deal I received as an IU student that is open to the general public as well. With graduation around the corner, I figured that some of your followers could benefit from a great computer deal from HP!

Coupon Code: “ CAMPUS178 “
$100 off HP PC’s (orig. $699.99+)
Must first register for free at: hpdirect.com/academy/Microsoft

Offer combinable with instant rebates and HP Academy pricing. Expires on 3/23/13.
Coupon code: " CAMPUS178 "