Type of CPU for a "home laptop"

[JerrWolf]

So my parents are looking to get a laptop. I know an i7 is out of the question, but would an i3 or i5 be best? The price range is $300-700 including the $70 subscription to Office 2016.
What they plan on using it for is essentially home activities, while multitasking.

1. Office 2016
2. Web browsing
3. Skype
4. Printing etc.
5. Videos on YouTube and news sites etc.

I'm sure you get the idea at this point.

The specs I was looking towards were:
i5 processor (which tend to be around the 2.2ghz range)
1080p 15/17inch screen. They like having a nice picture and a big screen to see well with, bad eyes and all.
RAM it seems most laptops are doing 8 minimum.
Storage doesn't matter to much but a 1tb HDD

So to the professionals out there, is there anything I'm overlooking, or do you think those specs would work well for a home laptop?

 

[Ecky]

Frankly, a modern Pentium would do just fine. I have a 2.4ghz Ivy Bridge Pentium laptop that I use for these things, and have absolutely no complaints about the performance. I usually keep it clocked at about 1.2ghz to extend battery life, and it's still pretty snappy for day-to-day use with a good solid state drive - which is really what you should be concerned about.

Most low-end laptops do not ship with solid-state hard drives, so you might want to pick one up aftermarket and clone the OS over to the SSD, and replace the HDD with it.

 

[Geekwad]

An i3 would be more than sufficient, or an AMD equivalent.

What would be extremely important in this budget range though would be to get an SSD and replace the inevitable HDD with tons of bloatware right away. If you do this before you even turn the machine on the first time, you should have no trouble installing (probably Win10) to the new SSD and activating it with the key that comes with the laptop.

If it comes with an Office subscription, that will have to be downloaded too, but still well well worth it to get rid of the major performance busting bloat that all OEMs ship with laptops in this price range.

 

[USAFRet]

Agreed. An i3 is the max I would go for this.
My wife's desktop PC, basically the exact same use, runs just fine with a 3 year old Pentium G8something.
4GB RAM, 250GB SSD, twin 19" monitors.

 

[JerrWolf]

I planed on telling them to not put much on it and I'd reinstall a fresh windows onto it as well.
But I do agree having an SSD in it would be nice, but I'm unsure how happy they'd be with small storage internally.
But an i3 would be good enough, okay that's good to hear.

 

[lakimens]

$300-$700 is a good budget for a laptop that doesn't need a GPU.
Try to find one with an SSD, since your parents won't be playing games, they don't need a GPU.
i5 with an SSD is very possible in that budget.
Try this one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1TS-000E-04GA5

 

[JerrWolf]

$300-$700 is a good budget for a laptop that doesn't need a GPU.
Try to find one with an SSD, since your parents won't be playing games, they don't need a GPU.
i5 with an SSD is very possible in that budget.
Try this one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1TS-000E-04GA5

would just like to point out you refer to a i5 and link me an i7
that laptop looks nice, I'll keep an eye on it, although it does seem a bit high on their price range, as they also want to buy office 2016.

How does this look, I'm not a fan of HP but I haven't had any of their products for years now,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA8S13RD3213

 

[USAFRet]

$300-$700 is a good budget for a laptop that doesn't need a GPU.
Try to find one with an SSD, since your parents won't be playing games, they don't need a GPU.
i5 with an SSD is very possible in that budget.
Try this one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1TS-000E-04GA5

would just like to point out you refer to a i5 and link me an i7
that laptop looks nice, I'll keep an eye on it, although it does seem a bit high on their price range, as they also want to buy office 2016.

How does this look, I'm not a fan of HP but I haven't had any of their products for years now,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA8S13RD3213

Never heard of that particular SSD.
"256GB Eluktro Pro Performance SSD"

 

[USAFRet]

Also, look at Dell Outlet: http://www.dell.com/us/dfh/p/?~ck=mn
Refurb and off-lease, for significantly cheaper.

 

[lakimens]

$300-$700 is a good budget for a laptop that doesn't need a GPU.
Try to find one with an SSD, since your parents won't be playing games, they don't need a GPU.
i5 with an SSD is very possible in that budget.
Try this one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1TS-000E-04GA5

would just like to point out you refer to a i5 and link me an i7
that laptop looks nice, I'll keep an eye on it, although it does seem a bit high on their price range, as they also want to buy office 2016.

How does this look, I'm not a fan of HP but I haven't had any of their products for years now,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA8S13RD3213

Haha, I wrote the message and went to look for a laptop, found one with an i7, there are ones with an i5, but no SSD.
This one seems good for the price.
http://www.amazon.com/HP-15-ay011nr-Full-HD-Generation-Windows/dp/B01CGGOZOM/ref=zg_bs_tab_pd_bsnr_1

 

[JerrWolf]

Also, look at Dell Outlet: http://www.dell.com/us/dfh/p/?~ck=mn
Refurb and off-lease, for significantly cheaper.

Haven't heard of that brand of SSD either, apparently its a new USA brand SSD?

In terms of the outlet, I found this.
http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dfh&cs=22&key=h8mzvZMTkl5RZ%2fxCh%2f6FVsQkYSPuRI43&puid=21829e1e

 

[USAFRet]

Also, look at Dell Outlet: http://www.dell.com/us/dfh/p/?~ck=mn
Refurb and off-lease, for significantly cheaper.

Haven't heard of that brand of SSD either, apparently its a new USA brand SSD?

In terms of the outlet, I found this.
http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dfh&cs=22&key=h8mzvZMTkl5RZ%2fxCh%2f6FVsQkYSPuRI43&puid=21829e1e

Try here?
http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?brandId=2201&c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh&dgc=IR&cid=258996&lid=4635114

 

[Geekwad]

This may be a good outlet for you too:

http://www.microcenter.com/product/460613/Aspire_V5-591G-57GW_156_Laptop_Computer_-_Steel_Black

http://www.microcenter.com/product/459461/CS1311_240GB_SATA_III_6Gb-s_25_Internal_Solid_State_Drive_%28SSD%29_-_SSD7CS1311-240-RB

http://www.microcenter.com/product/402317/25_to_35_SATA_and_Hard_Drive_Converter

((((Use old HDD as backup in external))))

 

[lakimens]

$300-$700 is a good budget for a laptop that doesn't need a GPU.
Try to find one with an SSD, since your parents won't be playing games, they don't need a GPU.
i5 with an SSD is very possible in that budget.
Try this one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=1TS-000E-04GA5

would just like to point out you refer to a i5 and link me an i7
that laptop looks nice, I'll keep an eye on it, although it does seem a bit high on their price range, as they also want to buy office 2016.

How does this look, I'm not a fan of HP but I haven't had any of their products for years now,
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA8S13RD3213

That's pretty good, for anyone who doesn't know Eluktro is a new company that produces SSDs, and just recently was discovered in the market with very competitive prices.

 

[JerrWolf]

Also, look at Dell Outlet: http://www.dell.com/us/dfh/p/?~ck=mn
Refurb and off-lease, for significantly cheaper.

Haven't heard of that brand of SSD either, apparently its a new USA brand SSD?

In terms of the outlet, I found this.
http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/SecondaryInventorySearch.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dfh&cs=22&key=h8mzvZMTkl5RZ%2fxCh%2f6FVsQkYSPuRI43&puid=21829e1e

Try here?
http://outlet.us.dell.com/ARBOnlineSales/Online/InventorySearch.aspx?brandId=2201&c=us&cs=22&l=en&s=dfh&dgc=IR&cid=258996&lid=4635114

Yeah that is where I found that one, with the specs listed above.
In terms of price range, the 560 range is nice, and has decent specs.
I tried finding a i3 1080p but only one came up and was over $800.