Buying daughter a laptop, questionnaire completed

[angelah100]

Looking for a new laptop for my HS freshman, please advise!

1. What is your budget?
<$1000

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
unsure

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
portable but doesn't need to be super light

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

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)?
Minecraft and Sims 4, high

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
photo and video editing with adobe premiere elements

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
500mb - 1 tb

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

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
4 yrs, through high school

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

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.
I've purchased many Dell laptops over the years and in general, happy with them but lately there have been many complaints about the touchpad, otherwise would probably buy the inspiron 15 5000 series non touch

13. What country do you live in?
USA

I appreciate any advice you can offer, thanks

 

[C12Friedman]

I'm going to take you away from Dell for this since a similar configuration to this Asus X550JX would be >$600 more from Dell. In addition there are more customization possibilities through XoticPC. It's an option, let me know what you think, can always go back to the Dell site

 

[jaguarskx]

The Asus X550JX is a pretty decent gaming laptop for the price. However, a quad core i7 would be overkill for Minecraft and the Sims 4. That is not necessarily a bad thing but laptops with quad core i7 CPUs generally only last about 4 hours or a little less.

The following Asus X555LB-NS51 has a dual core i5-5200u and nVidia 940m and sells for $600. The "u" model Core i5 CPUs consume 1/3rd the power of a quad core i7 CPU so it is more likely to last 6 hours on battery with "typical" uses (no games). The 940m is not as powerful as the 950m, but it is still more than enough for Minecraft and Sims 4 with max graphics.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834232376&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC-_-pla-_-All+Laptops+%2f+Notebooks-_-N82E16834232376&gclid=CjwKEAjwsvmvBRCT5ozK-dmY7D4SJACyIoJmpLbGRZc427ot00fpMH4o0saMpdsFja3DapwPsoCgzRoCwvvw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

[angelah100]

A few people have complained about the trackpad on Asus, have either of you used an Asus? It's hard to gauge whether the negative comments are just a couple of whiners or if it's a real problem. On Dell I think it's a real problem because the same complaint appears on different models and many, many times. There are fewer reviews on the Asus.

 

[jaguarskx]

I never used an Asus laptop, only IBM ThinkPad (before sold to Lenovo), Lenovo IdeaPad, and Dell Latitude.

I do not use the trackpad very often on my laptops. I primarily use a mouse. I never had any problems with any of the trackpad though.

 

[velo3100]

It depends on what is more important. If gaming is the priority, then get a asus n, gl,x series, msi ghost/apache series or acer v series.

If video editing is the priority, then look for a laptop with a good cpu and storage.