Question Advice on buying a new laptop for my parents ?

[elitech]

Hi all,

Looking to buy a laptop for my parents and looking for advice. More information below. Please let me know if you have any additional questions or if I haven't thought about something. Thank you all.

1. What is your budget?

$500-$600 (can be stretched to $700 if worth it)

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?

17 inch screen - parent's eyesight getting worse, big screen is better when laptop not on external monitor.

3. What screen resolution do you want?

I guess minimum would be 1600x900, but higher is fine (i.e. 1920x1080)

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

I guess a bit of both? Will mostly be used as portable but sometimes plugged into a bigger monitor.

5. How much battery life do you need?

I don't know. Not too much? Will have access to power outlet most of the time.

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 games.

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

Browse web, watch youtube, play solitaire, do some Word/Excel/powerpoint, internet banking, copy over pictures from phone/camera

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

With Win 11 in the fold, I would assume 512 GB would be best? 256GB just seems to fill up so fast...

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

None

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

As long as possible for the listed tasks (6-8 years?)

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

None

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.

None

13. What country do you live in?

USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.

A) Would be great if the laptop had an ethernet port, but I know they generally come without em today; guess I could buy USB-to-ethernet adapter?
B) More USB ports are better; but I guess I can/should buy a USB hub?
C) Possibility of connecting it to a monitor; most of them seem to come with some sort of video output though (HDMI, DP)?
D) Looking for a best bang-for-buck in the $500-$600 range; can be stretched to $700 if the benefits are worth it
E) They do not want a touch screen

 

[Aeacus]

Hmm... Based on budget, laptop screen size and expected usage, best would be HP Laptop 17.

This laptop is praised as best budget option;
article 1: https://www.techradar.com/news/best-17-inch-laptop#section-the-best-budget-17-inch-laptop
article 2: https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-budget-laptops

Gave a little look around in terms of price and it goes for ~650 bucks,
amazon: https://www.amazon.com/HP-Generation-i5-1135G7-Graphics-17-cn0025nr/dp/B0CJ2QHKFG

That one is white version and people point out that the KB is hard to read.
So, look into black version of this laptop. E.g this one (running Ryzen CPU, white one has Intel CPU),
amazon: https://www.amazon.com/HP-Display-Processor-i7-1165G7-Bluetooth/dp/B0C7HGNKZK

Only downside of HP Laptop 17 is the lack of ports. But on that budget level, especially for 17" screen, the rest of the specs are good.

 

[elitech]

Hey there, thank you for your input!

Regarding

Only downside of HP Laptop 17 is the lack of ports. But on that budget level, especially for 17" screen, the rest of the specs are good.

Would a solution be to buy a USB expander/HUB?

 

[Aeacus]

Would a solution be to buy a USB expander/HUB?

Yes, that will do, if you need more USB ports than laptop provides.

 

[Aeacus]

I recommend checking out the "Acer Nitro 5 AN517-55."

You did read what OP said, right?

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 games.

So, @mel2 how come you suggest gaming laptop for OP? 🙄 Doesn't what OP asked for, matter?
In the review, very 1st line says:

Launched in January 2022, Acer Nitro 5 AN517-55 is a Gaming laptop with 17.3-inch display and 16:9 aspect ratio.

 

[Rokinamerica]

You did read what OP said, right?


So, @mel2 how come you suggest gaming laptop for OP? 🙄 Doesn't what OP asked for, matter?
In the review, very 1st line says:

From the link it looks like it has a RTX 3050 4 GB mobile GPU, hardly a "Gaming" laptop.