Looking To Buy For Schoolwork & Networking Simulation

10hellfire01

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Nov 14, 2009
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1. What is your budget?
$500 tops, preferably ~$440'ish

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
~"13, ~15" preferable

3. What screen resolution do you want?
I can make do with 1366x768, but wouldn't mind higher since I'm very observant.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
No. This is just for school work at the University, watching stuff in bed, and twice a year travel.

5. How much battery life do you need?
2 1/2 hours for the longest class I'll have in Fall 2016; the rest of the classes I have I'll be near a power outlet. Wouldn't mind maybe ~4 hours at lowest brightness and power saving settings on for long travel (few times a year).

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.)
Text work, heavy browsing/multitasking, networking simulation work (Cisco Packet Tracer isn't heavy last I remember).

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
I'm going to swap out the HDD with a Samsung 850 EVO 250 GB, so doesn't matter.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
Preferably Amazon or Newegg, but I'm open to trustworthy sites in the US. Used eWiz.com and TigerDirect quite a bit awhile ago.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
2+ years. Me being who I am, as long as possible.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
I'd prefer if it didn't have one, but it doesn't matter. Will never use it. Won't ever notice it's there.

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.
Open to any brand with a reliable history (Dell, HP, Acer, Toshiba, etc.). I'm fine with Lenovo as long as it doesn't have the little pad in the middle of the keyboard. EDIT: I guess none of them come without it? Eh, I'd probably never notice it was even there.

13. What country do you live in?
US

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Since I'm so used to my own PC (in signature), I want something snappy in general for a good price. I have been leaning to Intel for the power savings, and due to the use an i3 is fine. As long as I maybe get 3 or so hours out of the battery on a medium brightness setting doing just typing and so forth, I'll be happy. I think I may be leaning to traditional laptops so I can replace the battery in the future if it ever lasts that long; the 2-in-1's are nice, but the integrated batteries, or lack of info on which can be changed makes me uncertain. It'd be nice if it already has Win10--but if it has too much crap on it I'll just use one of my many DreamSpark keys I suppose.




So far.....I've found a few already, but am unsure on them.
Dell Inspiron 7568 2-in-1?
Dell Inspiron i5559-1348SLV

I really do like the 2-in-1, but again am uncertain if the battery would last 3 or so hours with light usage, and the fact that the battery may not be replaceable. The manual has a section for battery removal and replacement, but it seems odd that a 2-in-1 isn't integrated to me. Since I'll be using it daily, I'm sure the battery would go sooner than I'd anticipate.

The other laptop also seems to work my needs from what I can tell, but again just want opinions or more options that may better suit my needs.

Thanks for any help!
- Rob