Laptops?

[rogwar]

Will be shopping for a new laptop for my daughter as it is required for starting High School this fall. Need Microsoft Office as well but can get a home/student discounted version when buying the laptop. Probably looking for something around 15" screen.

Apple is sure notably more expensive than others. Wonder if they are worth the money?

Then of course there are the pc based laptops like Dell, HP, Lenova, ASUS, etc...that seem like one could spend between $500-$600 and get a decent machine. With all of the models they do not make it easy top compare. Heck I've built my own desktops for the last 15 years and fixed laptops bought used from work.

Thanks for any ideas.

[Gaidin]

If it will be used for school work and surfing the net, a lowend "big brand" will be fine.  If she is into anykind of graphics or audio editing, then buy something with more resources or go with the MAC.

You will rarely find even a low end laptop these days, (400-600 dollars) that has less than a dual core processor and 2-4 gigs of ram.  Most use the same mother board as the higher end version of the same line, so they are upgradeable with more ram and even better processors at a later time if you want.

Just my .02

[MrRiplEy[H]]

Macs are more expensive but if she really plans to use the laptop then they're worth the money. They're surprisingly rugged, very reliable and plenty of good software for really low prices.

[GScholz]

It all depends on what she's going to use it for. Dell makes surprisingly good laptops on the cheap, rugged, and you can get repair manuals and parts for them.

[Meatwad]

Stay far away from HP. Some models have a defect that the solder joints around the GPU become overheated and lose their connection with the board, making the laptop dead