New Lappy Needed -- which & how much?

April 12, 2015 2:33 PM

I want to buy a new laptop/notebook/tablet and here are the requisites: - Windows OS - Light and compact (fits in a backpack) - No frills: only need Word, Internet/email, Spotify. Windows 7 preferable; do they come like this anymore? Thinking I could do Windows Easy Transfer, which hopefully will transfer my Word 2007 too. Currently have Dell Inspiron 1525 and similar -- needs to be much lighter than these. Can anyone help by giving some initial direction, including price range...links?
posted by noelpratt2nd to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Response by poster: P.S. Might like around 500g for total memory (mostly music)
posted by noelpratt2nd at 2:36 PM on April 12, 2015

I'd look into Dell's Ultrabook.
posted by deathpanels at 2:42 PM on April 12, 2015

FYI, Windows Easy Transfer will only transfer files, folders, and program settings. After the transfer it will give you a list of programs that were installed on the old machine that are not installed on the new one. But it will not install them for you.
posted by zinon at 2:50 PM on April 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I was looking for a relatively cheap, small, lightweight laptop that would fit in my backpack, and I ended up choosing the Asus Zenbook UX305. Retails for about $700. It is Windows 8, and while I don't love that, I haven't found the transition from 7 to 8 to be too bad. It is attractive and delightfully light. Looks like the default for memory is 265 GB- but I think there may be fancier models available for more $$. I was looking for something that could do just the basics, and so far it's doing that for me.
posted by Secretariat at 3:49 PM on April 12, 2015

Do you have a preference as regards battery life, screen size, or weight? Do you care if it has a CD/DVD drive? Hard to recommend without knowing any of that. If you would be happy with most anything that met the criteria you listed, then it's almost hard to recommend because it just wouldn't matter--just browse slickdeals.net until you find a nice discount for $300-400. But if, eg, you said battery life would be *really* nice to have a lot of, then I'd second the recommendation of the Dell XPS 13 (ed. : because it has a 15 hr battery life). On the other hand, if you said you really just wanted to stay cheap, at $700 for the base model that would be double the cost of starter-level computers.
posted by pdq at 3:55 PM on April 12, 2015

HP Pavilion will do what you need it to and you can use Start8 or Classic Shell to make Windows 8 look/feel more 7-like.
posted by mirepoix at 8:21 PM on April 12, 2015

I had similar requirements of portability and battery life to what you have and bought a refurbished Lenovo X230 with the extended battery pack two years ago and it's great. The battery usually lasts 6-7 hours without much management and it's light, durable, and small (12.5") enough to carry around with me nearly every day. The only downside is that it's 1368x768, so it suffers a bit in terms of screen "real estate". The price, though, was less than $800 two years ago, and it looks like they're pretty cheap used. It's not a gaming computer, but it certainly works for email, writing papers, coding, running matlab, etc.

I can't speak for the X240 but I've heard it's also decent. The outlet store is here (I've prefiltered for the X series; I can't speak to the X1s).

Also, dell has a similar refurb store that you may want to check out. I bought a refurbished desktop from them a few years ago and haven't had any issues. Then again, if you're worried about durability I would stick to business and high-end consumer series no matter what manufacturer (XPS, Latitude, Precision for Dell; X, T for Lenovo; can't speak to other manufacturers).
posted by johnnydummkopf at 10:39 AM on April 13, 2015

Response by poster: It seems like this one -- http://www.dell.com/us/p/inspiron-11-3147-laptop/pd?oc=fncwr1203s&model_id=inspiron-11-3147-laptop#secondaryContent
--would be just fine. Wish I could get something in Windows 7. Thanks.
posted by noelpratt2nd at 7:00 PM on April 13, 2015