Looking for some insight please

Looking for a little help here since I haven't bought a computer in a while and it seems as though techno has past me by. I'm looking for a computer for my daughter who is just starting highschool. We have looked at toshibas & samsungs but this one popped up on my amazon account. Just looking for some opinions on this machine or should I stick with my other choices...

Here is the link http://www.amazon.com …03NE5K50?me=ATV​PDKIKX0DER

Thank you in advance,


Mark

What is the purpose of the computer for your daughter? General tasks? Photo work? Anything special she needs it for? Do you want it to last all 4 years of high school?

yeah I guess a little more info would help...sorry about that...

General school work would be her primary use..... I need to get m/s office & student also for powerpoint & excel. I would like to get a machine that would make it thru highschool... she d/l photos & music, but thats about it.....

In that case I would go with something a little more powerful. The AMD CPU in that machine gets a pretty low score on CPU Benchmark (505 I believe). The Intel P6000 chip scores 3 times higher while the Intel i3-350M scores 4 times higher. Dell has a couple of laptops around $530-$550 with those processors. They also have more RAM and larger hard drive. You can often get deals if you watch their site closely or check out slickdeals.net for more deals.

thanks mike...I'm going to keep looking... Man, a few years ago I was up on all this, now it's like staring all over again. Knew I could count on potn for an honest & educated opinion.

Mark

At around $100-150 more than that you can find a good i3 or i5 ith 4GB RAM. I would really look at Dell's outlet for a laptop. If you google "Dell outlet coupons" you'll always find deals like 10-20% off refurbished or outlet. If you dont like refurbs, they also have scratch n dent in the outlet. I have found some excellent deals there.

Mark,

A few quick things....

(1) I'd take your daughter to a mall with a Best Buy, Apple Store, or anything like it that has computers....just to get an idea what she wants. I know a lot of young girls really like Netbooks (the little 10-inch mini computers) because they are so small. They aren't great for photoediting, but they do other 'basic' tasks (email, internet, photo viewing, movies, word processing, etc.) very well. Plus, if your daughter likes 'em, they are cheaper!

Only downside here is I'm not sure whether it would be good enough to keep her happy for 4 years!

(2) As others have mentioned, if you decide to go for a full laptop....I'd definitely eye something with an i3 or i5 processor. That's the *current* generation of processors that have become pretty ubiquitous now over the last 6+ months on the market, translating to pretty good deals.

If 4 years is a major concern, I'd look at the website called Newegg.com....and then look for laptops made by ASUS. They are one of the best PC companies out there right now, and most of their laptops come with a 2-year warranty (as opposed to the typical one year!). Newegg has an add-on 2-year warranty (for a very modest $60-80)....so you're covered for 4 years.

That's important because most low-end laptops (that would be perfect for your daughter otherwise) aren't really designed to last that long. You're doing pretty good if you get through 3 years on most of these....but 4 years is definitely pushing it!

Of course, if you expect your daughter will do something dumb like lose it OR spill a Coke on it, then the basic warranty's are out the window....haha!

(3) If your daughter decides she wants a Mac and the father decides she can have one, I'd *definitely* check out the Apple Refurb store on-line! Pretty good savings over a newer computer. Something like a low-end Macbook would be perfect for a high school/college aged girl. I've used Macbook Refurbs as my primary work computer, and it does awesome! But the deals depend on timing....sometimes the deals just aren't there.