Please recommend a laptop for my daughters 16th birthday

rwalton159 · 11 April 2015 at 4:40AM

I would appreciate some advice on what laptop to buy for my daughter.

Her current laptop, HP Pavilion g series has an Intel i3 processor with 4gig ram and 500gig hard drive. Its now over 3 yrs old. We've had the hinges replaced and apart from a few scratches on the touchpad area its been a good unit.

Went to to pcworld yesterday just for a look aroubd. Surprised that after 3 yrs the only real changes in spec seem to be 8gig ram and 1gig hard drive.

Jessica is 16 next week. . £300 to £400 should be more than enough to spend.

What would you buy please?

Thank you
Richard

macman · 11 April 2015 at 7:50AM

How about telling us what your daughter needs to do with her laptop? What functions, what specific programs etc? And the first choice is, what screen size? If it's just to update her Facebook page etc, then absolutely any modern laptop will do that with ease.
You are correct, not much has changed in 3 years other than the areas you mention, except for the growth of machines with solid state or hybrid drives. The biggest change she will see is the shift to Windows 8.1.

rwalton159 · 11 April 2015 at 8:15AM

She wants it for school and college (September), watch DVDs, surf, email, games

So a reliable model which will last a few years. Only issue with her HP was the hinges went and had to be replaced.

enfield_freddy · 11 April 2015 at 10:36AM

you would be looking at a replacement laptop equal or greater in performance to the one she has now.

over the last few yrs , laptops have developed , however in most cases this is in the power efficiency department , not in the speed. a bit of extra memory and a larger hard drive are not expensive parts , and in a lot of cases , more memory masks a less powerful CPU.

although you say "HP Pavilion g series i3"can you give more details , ie: a model number? this can then be checked to give you a reference to work from

Tropez · 11 April 2015 at 10:57AM

rwalton159 wrote: »

She wants it for school and college (September), watch DVDs, surf, email, games

So a reliable model which will last a few years. Only issue with her HP was the hinges went and had to be replaced.

What type of games? If we're talking browser/Facebook games like Farmville or Candy Crush then a laptop in the £300 to £400 range will be more than sufficient.

If we're talking about something more like Tomb Raider, WoW, Civ, The Sims etc. then you'll almost certainly need to spend more on more powerful hardware.

Fightsback · 11 April 2015 at 12:35PM

rwalton159 wrote: »

She wants it for school and college (September), watch DVDs, surf, email, games

So a reliable model which will last a few years. Only issue with her HP was the hinges went and had to be replaced.

Depends what you mean by reliable, if you want teenager proof then it's going to cost you a small fortune on a Panasonic toughbook as hinges generally don't go without help.

http://www.lambda-tek.com/Panasonic-CF-AX3EDWKBE~sh/2943861&origin=gbaseGB10.22?gclid=CIPk54yU7sQCFSvJtAodHBQAeA

However coming back to reality and budget, if you don't mind grade A1 refurbs then there are bargains to be had £390 :

http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/A1_Toshiba_Core_i7-4510U_8GB_1TB_15.6_HD_Touchscreen_DVDSM_Win8.1Laptop_A1-PSKTEE-02V00GEN/version.asp

Windows 8.1 64-bit (pre-installed)
4th Generation Intel® Core™ i7-4510U Processor with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology 2.0
39.6cm (15.6”) , Toshiba TruBrite® HD TFT High Brightness touch display with 16 : 9 aspect ratio and LED backlighting
Hard disk 1 TB
Glossy black finish with line pattern, black keyboard
8,192 (1x) MB, DDR3L RAM (1,600 MHz)
AMD Radeon™ R7 M260 Graphics with AMD Enduro™ Technology