What is the best laptop for $300?

[the_thr34t]

So my sister is looking to buy a laptop for college, but I'm not sure what the best choice would be?

1. What is your budget?
$300 - $330

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
14" or 15" screen, between 5 and 6 lbs.

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Doesn't really matter as long as it is at least 1280x720.

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

No
5. How much battery life do you need?
Doesn't matter so much I guess, whatever is an average battery life should be fine (I don't use laptops so tbh I'm not sure haha.)

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)?
No.

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

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
Not really an issue either, I guess between 250GB - 500GB

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Site doesn't matter, I'll even do ebay, just as long as it works and I won't get a bill an unexpected bill 3 months from now from some random guy in China.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
2 - 3 years.
11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Not really important

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.
Brands aren't really important
13. What country do you live in?
USA
14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

Hopefully I answered everything correctly and posted this in the right section, thanks for the help!

 

[Noworldorder]

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0386796

 

[dom8111]

could the laptop be refurbished?

 

[the_thr34t]

could the laptop be refurbished?

yes

 

[seanmcc]

It's gonna be pretty tough to find any options with those specs.
The one posted by Noworldorder seems like a pretty good deal actually.

Either way the laptop is going to be rather underpowered or rather old (refurbished).
You may want to check out newegg and do a power search for something like 200-330$ + 14-15 inch screen

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

The one from microcenter is a great bang for the buck. I see quite a few acers also, check this one out.

http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0382601

My wife has an acer, I got a second hand one just for tech work, very few issues. In fact, had a slight grahics issue on mine. Easy fix, new thermal paste, pull thermal pad off, get a copper penny that's clean, in the location where the thermal pad was use a decent amount of paste to stick the penny to the heatsink. Apply paste to the to of the cpu and graphics chip, remount heatsink. Essentially using the penny as a shim to make better contact with the gpu. Graphic issues disappeared.

 

[the_thr34t]

Best answer selected by the_thr34t.

 

[Noworldorder]

Thanks!
Now that I look again at the Microcenter Asus, it looks pretty fetching and I might have to pick one up for myself.
Great ol' suggestion from Ohiou_grad, IF one is skilled at laptop dis-assembly.

 

[ohiou_grad_06]

Keep in mind, my laptop is about probably 4 years old with one of the infamous nvidia video chips that were known for failure in laptops. In the last 2 years, I've seen one acer laptop and one acer desktop need repairs. My wife's acer with the ati video chip has been flawless and is going on 3 years old.