Laptop w/ SSD, number pad, and touchscreen

csebasti

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Apr 27, 2012
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I'm looking for a new laptop. The must haves are 15" laptop, SSD, and a number pad on the keyboard. If I can get all that and a touch screen, then I've got the ideal laptop for my needs, but I'd forego the touchscreen if need be. I'm struggling too find something that meets my list. the one I have found with the 3 must haves is this:

Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575G-53VG

If that had a touchscreen, I'd be done looking. But I'd still like to try and find my 3 must haves and the touchscreen. hopefully someone can help. Thanks in advance, and here are the answers to the requested questions.

1. What is your budget? Under $1,000, and obviously the lower the better. If I can stick to the $600-800 range I'd prefer that

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

3. What screen resolution do you want? I don't really have a resolution preference. An IPS screen would be nice (not required) for the viewing angle

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop? I have a desktop, so this will just be used on the couch mostly. Not too concerned about super light weight.

5. How much battery life do you need? Not a priority, but more than my current one that won't even last through a movie.

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 gaming.

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.) Mainly just web, MS Office products, streaming video (but I'm not a resolution snob). I'll probably use it occasionally for a little bit of light use of Photoshop and Lightroom, but it'll infrequent enough that I'm not concerned about having the best performance.

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need? Not much. Looking for an SSD for the speed and plan to use network storage so files can be accessed from the desktop too. Not planning on storing files on the laptop. Something like a 256 GB SSD or better seems right.

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links. I typically shop from newegg or amazon but I don't have a problem shopping from other sites.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop? I don't buy new very often. I think my current one is ~4-5 years old. I don't necessarily need all the latest bells and whistles, but the ability to last several years would be good.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ? I'd be fine with any or 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. I'd prefer a common name brand (Dell, lenovo, Asus, Acer, etc.). I've stayed away from HP for quite a while now due to the absolutely horrendous customer service I have received from them, and will continue to avoid them unless there is a compelling reason to buy an HP.

13. What country do you live in? USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.



Thanks!

Chris
 

gopher1369

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Jan 20, 2012
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How confident are you with computers? Because I was looking for something similar last year and my solution was to buy a cheap HP* Pavilion laptop, remove the optical drive and replace it with an SSD. It's literally one screw holding the optical drive in place, and a optical drive bay caddy for the SSD was less than $10.

I then just formatted the harddrive and did a clean install of Windows 10 onto the SSD.

If you're happy to consider this, it opens up a whole load of options as SSDs are still relatively rare in lower end laptops.


Edit:
*the same would apply to any brand, I just mention HP as I happened to buy one myself.
 

csebasti

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Apr 27, 2012
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gopher - I accidentally voted your response down. Sorry, didn't mean to. I haven't been on this forum in a few years, and didn't realize what I was doing. I'm not sure if there is a way to undo that or not.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion. I hadn't thought of that. I'm confident enough in my ability with computers. I built my last desktop (about 4 years ago) and just added an SSD to it a few months back. I haven't messed around with laptops much other than adding RAM, but sounds like this would be pretty simple. I'll consider it as an option, but ideally I'd rather not mess with it. The physical swap out is no big deal, but I don't enjoy the time spent formatting and installing software, updates, reboots (though certainly faster with an SSD), etc.
 

csebasti

Honorable
Apr 27, 2012
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10,510
I've been searching around, and found a few laptops I'm considering. None have touchscreen, but I'll settle for that if I can't find what I'm after. Anyone have any thoughts on these:

Dell Inspiron i7559 2512BLK
Does Dell make laptops specifically for Amazon? I chatted with someone at Dell asking what they had with a number pad and and SSD, and they told me they did not sell any such thing.

Acer Aspire E 15 E5-575G-57D4

ASUS F556UA-AB54

Now if I could just get one of those with a touchscreen...

Chris
 

csebasti

Honorable
Apr 27, 2012
4
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10,510


I ended up with an Acer Spin 3 Laptop - SP315-51-54MW. I've been pretty happy with it. The only issue I've had is I need to turn numlock on every time I open the laptop. I've tried various fixes to set the default, but nothing sticks. Other than that, it has served its purpose - generally email, web browsing, streaming video, and a little bit of photo editing.

Chris