Quick laptop questions

[undesign]

I'm on my way to Makro to buy a laptop for my mother-in-law. It has been a while since I last looked at laptops so I have no idea what is what atm. Budget R7k-R10k. Looking at standard specs, 2 gig ram, 15.4" screen etc.

How are Samsung laptops regarded generally?

What processor to look for these days? The Intel i3?

Thanks!

 

[NeonNinja]

For R7k-R10k you can get an Acer or HP, with i3/i5 (which many forumites recommend), 2.6Ghz, 15.6", 4G RAM, decent graphics card, 500GB, and all other extras.
P.S I'm also on the laptop hunt. You can also look into Dell.

 

[MartyMarts]

Any specific reason you're buying the laptop from Makro? You can get a pretty decent Samsung R590 from laptopdirect.co.za for R8543. Does it have to be Samsung though?

 

[undesign]

Any brand will do. I have to be a Makro in any case and I don't have time to shop around.

 

[Pada]

For general word processing & web surfing you don't require anything more than a Core2Duo,

eg. Asus K50ID @ R5,538
Specs:

ASUS® K50ID Series ASUS K50ID-SX103V Home Series Notebook, Intel Pentium Dual Core T4400 2.2GHz 800MHz FSB 1M L2 Cache, 2048MB DDR3-1066 SO-Dimm Memory (1x2048), 320GB SATA 5400rpm Hard Drive, 15.6" WXGA HD Color Shine LED (1366x768 resolution) TFT LCD Display, nVidia Geforce GT320M with 512MB dedicated graphics, 8 X Super Multi Writer optical drive, 802.11b/g/n Wireless LAN, 10/100/1000 Gigabit Ethernet LAN, Bluetooth, 0.3MP Webcam, 6 cell battery, Full Keyboard, Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64, 2 Year collect and return Warranty, Mouse Included

Otherwise, I would recommend the TOSHIBA® Satellite Series L650-11F @ R7,249
Specs:

TOSHIBA® Satellite Series L650-11F Notebook, Precious Black with black keyboard, Intel® Core i5 Series Dual Core i5-430M 2.26GHz 3MB L2 Cache 1066MHz FSB Processor, 4096MB DDR3-1066 SO-Dimm Memory (2x2048), DVD Super Multi Double layer optical drive, 500GB SATA 5400rpm Hard Drive, 15.6" WXGA HD Trubrite LED (1366x768 resolution) TFT Display, ATI Mobility Radeon HD5650 with 1GB dedicated graphics, 10/100 Mbit Ethernet LAN, 802.11b/g/n wireless LAN, Bluetooth, intergrated webcam, 2.5 kg, 6 cell battery, Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium Edition 64, 1 Year International Warranty

So if you're going for something in the region of R7k-R10k, ensure that the specs are better than those that I've posted above

Dell Laptops are quite expensive, but the next business day service is fantastic. The Asus laptop has 2yrs warranty compared to the 1yr of the Toshiba.
I would also advise you to go for Win7 x64 Home Premium/Pro at least.

 

[undesign]

Thanks guys, got this for Lenovo for R6,999 -

* Intel Core i3-330m(2,13GHz, 3MB)
* RAM: 3GB
* Hard Drive: 320GB
* Dual layer DVD writer
* Card reader
* Windows 7 home premium
* 3G embedded
* Bluetooth
* 1 year warranty
* 15" laptop

 

[Pada]

Siris, what exact model of Lenovo laptop is that?

R7k for those specs isn't bad, but it's not a brilliant price either.

 

[undesign]

Siris, what exact model of Lenovo laptop is that?

R7k for those specs isn't bad, but it's not a brilliant price either.

I'll have to check. It's for my mother-in-law so I didn't look too hard. Nice specs, price ok and I went for it.

If it was for me on the other hand I would have read every review, went to different shops, change my mind 15 times...

 

[ichigo]

I'll have to check. It's for my mother-in-law so I didn't look too hard. Nice specs, price ok and I went for it.

If it was for me on the other hand I would have read every review, went to different shops, change my mind 15 times...

Sounds like you don't like her much?

 

[undesign]

Nah, she's cool.

Just no point in obsessing over a purchase like this, her generation is technically-challenged to the extreme you know. ;-)

I reserve my gadget OCD for myself...

BTW it was the Edge 15.