Laptop Recommendations for my Dad. Budget up to €700

kearneybobs

Looking to get my dad a laptop for his 70th with a budget of €700 but that's easily too much for the type of laptop that'll suit him.
He currently has netbook which quite simply was never fast enough for him. Frustrated him to no end.

He's going to need a fairly nippy laptop, at least in terms of responsiveness so probably a relatively good processor and a fair amount of RAM.
He's not going to be doing too tasking on it. Mostly surfing and word processing. Storing/viewing photos, watching videos etc.

Screen size around the 15.6 range or slightly smaller would be ideal.

Any recommendations. Was looking at the Dell Inspiron 15 3000 series for €450, which includes a 10% discount, but the build quality seems rather poor.

kearneybobs

I've been looking at the Lenovo Yoga 2 series as well as the Flex series.

Anyone got any thoughts on it?

Don't want anything too big for him so I'd be looking at getting him the 11" or 13.3" displays.

He did have a small bit of trouble seeing his 10.1" display on his netbook so the bump to a minimum screen of HD quality would be nice for him I think.

The only thing I worry about is the possibility of the CPU combined with a non SSD harddrive would slow him down. He's going to be playing solitaire, surfing the internet, skyping, organising photos. Am I likely to run into trouble with speed if I get him one with 8GB of RAM.

Anyone know how a setup like a 500GB 5400rpm harddrive with an 8GB SSD would perform in something like this one?

http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/Lenovo_Yoga_2_i3-4030u_4GB_500GB_-_8GB_No_ODD_13.3_FHD_Silver_Windows_8.1__59440097/version.asp

Anyone ever used Laptops Direct?

kearneybobs

Or possibly this one.

http://www.littlewoodsireland.ie/lenovo-yoga-2-fhd-intelreg-coretrade-i3-processor-8gb-ram-500gb-hard-drive-8gb-sshd-wi-fi-133-inch-2-in-1-laptop--clementine/1435492625.prd

mordeith

kearneybobs wrote: »

Or possibly this one.

http://www.littlewoodsireland.ie/lenovo-yoga-2-fhd-intelreg-coretrade-i3-processor-8gb-ram-500gb-hard-drive-8gb-sshd-wi-fi-133-inch-2-in-1-laptop--clementine/1435492625.prd

Given the requirements you set out 8GB is totally unnecessary. I'd plum for a decent processor and a bigger screen. A small HD screen will still be small after all.

EDIT You could get a very decent machine in around the 500 mark and use the extra to get a backup external drive (for the photos you mentioned)

kearneybobs

Little bit betwixt and between. On the one hand, it is a lot of money for a laptop that in reality isn't THAT powerful. But on the other, since it's for his birthday I want something that's standout, suitable to his needs and really nice. Might think about getting him a touchscreen laptop instead of a 2 in 1. Think he'll like that feature, especially the way Windows 8 operates.

Don't really want to get him anything bigger than 15.4" screen. My mum would hate it. I think that 13/1" is probably the sweet spot for him.

Still leaning towards a 2 in 1 but deffo gonna think about a regular old lapper.

boombang

I have a Lenovo Yoga 2 and love it. I looked at the Flex series felt they were terribly flimsy. My Yoga is solid enough with a decent keyboard.

I never use the tablet aspect of it though, but each to their own.

Only think about my Yoga is that I had to disable the power button (from switching from on to off) as it's on the side of the machine and you press it frequently when moving it around.