Laptop around $500 for mainstream usage?

[elgiov]

Hello everyone.
I am trying to figure out what laptop should my friend get.
She will NOT use it for gaming, so the graphics card is not an issue here. Most usage will be dedicated to Microsoft Word, Excel, etc, web browsing, mainstream stuff.
I've took a look at lappylist.com, but I couldn't make my mind up.
I think that having an SSD is somewhat crucial nowadays, so I think it should have one.
What do you think?
Any suggestions?
Thank you very much.

 

[jaguarskx]

You can buy the following 15.6" Acer laptop with a 7th gen i3-7100u for $350. It is actually a bit more powerful than the 4th gen i5-4200u in one of my laptops; a Dell Latitude 3540. That gives you some room in your budget to buy an extra 4GB of RAM and a SSD. I use the Dell for everyday task, a little bit of video encoding (good for for 720p and adequate for 1080p resolution videos), also play games with it since it has a dedicated GPU. Not bad if you simply want to buy the laptop now, then wait for Black Friday or X-Mas sales to buy RAM and/or SSD upgrades.

https://www.amazon.com/Acer-E5-575-33BM-15-6-Inch-Notebook-Generation/dp/B01K1IO3QW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1509415613&sr=8-3&keywords=acer+i3-7100u&dpID=41HfDkXXyeL&preST=_SX300_QL70_&dpSrc=srch



However, if you ware willing to spending $529 now, then you can buy the following 14" (3.7lbs) Lenovo IdeaPad 320s which is a better deal overall. You get a smaller, lighter laptop that has a 7th gen i5-7200u, 8GB of Ram and a 256GB SSD.

https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-LED-Backlit-Processor-Bluetooth-10-Silver/dp/B0748KXSHM/ref=sr_1_8?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1509417449&sr=1-8&keywords=14%22+ideapad

 

[elgiov]

Thank you very much for your time.
Look, the deal is we live in Uruguay, South America, and my friends brother is flying next week to the USA.
He will spend no more than two weeks, so I think that he will not be there for black friday sales, or am I wrong?
Also, my friend is not that much of a computer girl, she needs it for study and what not, but I can't be around her, telling which SSD she should buy and how she should install it.
Is there any option that's like ~$400 that does not need any upgrade?
If not, when do black friday sales start over there?
Thank you, again!

 

[jaguarskx]

There are some online stores that actually have pre-Black Friday sales.

However, the problem your friend might be facing when ordering online is that most of them will only ship to a permanent address (home / office). If you friend is staying at someone's home, then it is not a problem... the laptop can be shipped to his / her home address. If he is staying in a hotel, then you may have a problem is a hotel is not considered a permanent address. Which means your friend would need to find out from Amazon (or any other online store) if they will deliver to a hotel.

Otherwise, the only option would be to purchase the laptop at a retail store like BestBuy where the selection will be more limited compared to Amazon and prices will be higher too.

 

[elgiov]

There are some online stores that actually have pre-Black Friday sales.

However, the problem your friend might be facing when ordering online is that most of them will only ship to a permanent address (home / office). If you friend is staying at someone's home, then it is not a problem... the laptop can be shipped to his / her home address. If he is staying in a hotel, then you may have a problem is a hotel is not considered a permanent address. Which means your friend would need to find out from Amazon (or any other online store) if they will deliver to a hotel.

Otherwise, the only option would be to purchase the laptop at a retail store like BestBuy where the selection will be more limited compared to Amazon and prices will be higher too.

Ok, I'll try to ask her if her brother is staying at a hotel or at a friends house.
If he's staying at a hotel, what's the best deal you could put me up to? I think amazon is our only option here.