Another laptop thread!

[Arzy]

Hi guys,

Would appreciate some advice on a laptop for the wife as hers needs replacing.

She will mostly only be using it for work which would entail Outlook, Word, Adobe and some Pastel software.

Only entertainment items that may be on there would be iTunes and the normal photos and MP3's.

So nothing spectacular in terms of specs, her major requirement though is that the laptop needs to be:

1. Light; and
2. Thin.

She actually carries her laptop with her most of the time as her work requires her to be mobile.

Spend would most likely be in the region of R5k to R10k.

 

[lived666]

Hi guys,

Would appreciate some advice on a laptop for the wife as hers needs replacing.

She will mostly only be using it for work which would entail Outlook, Word, Adobe and some Pastel software.

Only entertainment items that may be on there would be iTunes and the normal photos and MP3's.

So nothing spectacular in terms of specs, her major requirement though is that the laptop needs to be:

1. Light; and
2. Thin.

She actually carries her laptop with her most of the time as her work requires her to be mobile.

Spend would most likely be in the region of R5k to R10k.

thin and light with an incredible battery life is the Acer Aspire TimelineX for under R9k.
There is also a thread here about laptops up to R8k - some company is selling the Lenovo Y570 for R8k - very good price if legit, fantastic machine.

 

[Crossing_Swords]

Will probably be quite a bit more than R10K but beautiful nonetheless!

http://www.laptopmag.com/review/laptops/asus_zenbook_prime_ux31a.aspx

 

[Ampha]

Could anyone point me in the right direction where I can look for laptops
Im looking for one in the price range of about R5000-R8000

 

[CataclysmZA]

You can start here > http://www.laptopdirect.co.za/

You specified your spend region to be between R5000 to R10,000. I wrote a bunch of columns for NAG about laptops around those price ranges, so you can check those out as well.

For your wife, I'd recommend an Ultrabook or at the very least, a decently specced work laptop. There's a few options you can look at below:

Dell Vostro V131 13.3" 3G HSDPA@ R9273
Acer Aspire M3 15.6" Ultrabook @ R7000
Acer Aspire S3 Ultrabook 13.3" @ R9000
Lenovo ThinkPad T420Si 14" @ R8548
Toshiba Portege R700 13.3" @ R6735

Three of those laptops sport weights below 2KG and come with three year warranties and built in 3G - all critical for someone who does their work on the run and in multiple places. The Aspire M3 is what I'd recommend if your wife needs a notebook with the extra keypad on the side but would like something lighter, thinner and more attractive. The Aspire S3 is a proper Ultrabook, but the only benefits over the M3 are the form factor, the fact that it looks like a Macbook Air and is easier to carry. You'll still get the same performance and the same battery life from both.

Personally, I'd go with the Toshiba. Its the cheapest of the lot, does exactly what is required and undercuts the bigger brands quite nicely. It is based on older hardware, but for your wife's needs it should be fine. Should you feel that performance can be improved, buy this OCZ Agility 3 120GB SSD to replace the internal drive, move the OS install over there and performance just about triples. Then you can use the original drive in an external case for backups and she'll never have to worry about her data as long as she gets into the habit of actually using the backup system in Pastel.

If she needs something more powerful for a lot of heavy Pastel work (like bulk admin and bulk transactions), go for the Dell. If she ever gets into image editing and things like Photoshop, the Lenovo is the better choice.