Help me do some laptop shopping

[Dichotomy]

One of my 'kids' (not a gamer) is looking for a laptop in the $550 range.  He wants a decent system with a decent size screen.  I've been doing some looking and can't find anything I'd buy. 

Anybody want to take a run at this for me?

[Dragon]

Nope


 

[Spikes]

If you want anything good you'll be spending 700+ normally. Mine was 1K two years ago. Dell Studio 1555.

[Dichotomy]

kind of what I thought as well but there's always hope

Dragon   

[MrRiplEy[H]]

This might interest you: http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Mobile/ASUS-K53T-Review-Mainstream-Llano-Offers-Inexpensive-Mobile-Gaming

Overall, it appears that the K53T does make up for its CPU shortcomings with GPU performance that’s excellent for the price. Although gamers won’t be able to crank up detail settings, they will be able to at least play any game on the market today, even demanding titles like BF3. This is a major victory for AMD in the budget market, because decent gaming power is still rather hard to find in laptops that are less than $1000.

If you like this laptop and want to purchase it, I recommend the ASUS A53TA-XE2 found on Newegg. This laptop appears to use the same chassis and almost identical hardware as the K53T we reviewed here, but comes with slightly less RAM and a lower price of $629.99. In my opinion 6GB is overkill for this laptop, so saving money and buying the A53TA-XE2 is an obvious choice

[Dichotomy]

not bad rip.. thanks man..


I'm not exactly sure I want to play financier but I'll see if he can drag that out of his budget

[PAPY]

Well, at $550.00 range, laptop, gamming?  hmmm.. i wanted a laptop for gamming and bought the Alienware (Dell) m17X with I7 CPU, Win 7 Ultimate, dual raid0 drives and 8 gigs memory, 17" screen, and some very col gamer setup options.
Game has never played better for me, I use for business, and gaming, but, I am in the $2,400.00 range for this. they do make em even more expensive and i think you can get something similar, but a little less WOW when it comes to configurations, etc.

but I can say i am quite happy with this computers stabilty and AH gamming experience.

[Tyrannis]

I still have an so-tec labtop. Not sure when it was made, but its gotta be so very OOLLDDDDD. 

[forHIM]

Dicho,

Can you validate what they want to do.  All of the previous posters jumped on the "gamer" laptop, but your initial post says they are NOT a gamer.  So what do they want to do?

My work laptop is an ASUS G53J which I like, but not for gaming (too hot of CPU / GPU without the aid of a chiller pad), but I use it to run VMware workstation for my day job.  For general web / email / college work I bought my wife and daughter:

ASUS A53 Series A53E-XN1 Intel Pentium B940(2.00GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory 320GB HDD Intel HD Graphics Notebook

They are low-end $400 laptops which have been replaced by a newer model, but the B940 works for their needs and it has about 5 hours of battery life. 

It all depends on what they want to do with the laptop.