Budget Laptop Recommendations - Autumn 2014

Hi all,

My fiancée is looking to buy a laptop, but as we're saving for our wedding I want her to buy smart - I don't want her to walk into a PC World and handover £££ to some kid reading from a sales script. I only know PCs and have never shopped around for a laptop or understand their capabilities much, so I'm hoping to find a few opinions from some people in the know, or at least find a few people who can point me in the right direction with helpful, up-to-date articles etc.

What does she need it for?

Typical girl stuff - Whatever it is, it'll need some good CPU/Mem to handle multiple browser tabs and windows to let her get lost online through endless breadcrumb trails and allow her to compare things she finds; wedding blogs, dresses, ideas, and interesting articles she'll come across - and of course, Facebook.

She likes her TV programs, and has DVD boxsets and we have NetFlix - I imagine she'll want something with a good quality screen (15"+ she's said) and sound to allow her to sit in bed on duvet days and watch her shows and movies on it.

She works in an office environment and sometimes emails projects to herself; she's looking at doing some Advanced Excel courses this month, so it should be good for Microsoft Office-type software (which I can provide through work).

Lastly, she's not much of a gamer but she does own a few old games on Steam (Rollercoaster Tycoon 3), has recently tried and liked Hearthstone, loves Minecraft, and had a month-or-so stint playing World of Warcraft with me and loved it, but isn't interested in playing it by herself.

We're on a tight budget, and doesn't want to pay "any more" for a 'gaming laptop', but if for £100-200 extra we can get her something that will let her play it decently, I'd see if I can help her out as I know (or at least knew; dunno if it's changed in recent years) that laptops general come as-is and can't be upgraded like PCs, so you get what you pay for; and £300-400 is a lot to pay for something when one day you think "I wish I could play X" and find you can't because you didn't pay £100 extra when you bought the thing last month.

She's looking at spending something around the £350 mark as a maximum she says.

Whatever it is, it would primarily need to be quick - she's had a laptop in the past and it is infuriatingly slow, even after a fresh reformat that I did. As this would be her primary means of browsing the internet, I think we all know how infuriating it is when our PCs aren't "snappy" with loading things.

So in a nutshell:

Budget £350 max (but may be able to put a couple hundred to it myself if great features aren't that big of a leap away)

Screen size 15"+

Main Priority Fast Processing Power

Priority Scale Multi-tab browsing > Watching Videos/Movies > Office Work > Gaming

Brands she won't touch Dell

Operating System Windows 7 (not interested in Windows 8. Vista was a pile of poo. XP is end-of-support. She can't use Mac/Linux).

Any help, reviews, pointers, or buyers guide links that anyone can provide me with would be a massive help.

If you want to know any more about what she's after just ask me and I'll get back to you. I'll be checking the thread regularly, thanks!

 

I have had several friends buy Dell refurbished laptops, here in the US they carry the same warranty as a new machine. Worth looking into!

Phil

 

Well, here's one on Clearance:

http://www.staples.com/Acer-Aspire-E1-572P-6480-156-Touchscreen-Laptop/product_236473

Don't forget this coupon:

http://www.staples.com/coupons/?cmSearchKeyword=coupon


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