Laptop as a father's day gift

[Vol]

Hey all,

I want to give my father a laptop as a gift for father's day. I never owned a laptop and obviously never bought one. I started looking into and there are way too many of them
I would love to have some suggestions. Here are the criteria

• 15.6'' screen (Low resolution would be good since he will otherwise reduce the resolution to see better. He is stubborn and doesn't want glasses even if he is 63 )
• 500 GB hard drive
• DVD burner
• LAN connection and WiFi
• Not too heavy (he goes to work in bicycle and will take it with him in his backpack)
• Core 2 Duo would be enough (more is always better)
• Battery power of 4 hours or more
• Graphic card: Need to be able to watch youtube and video from camcorder . So, not an integrated video card. I don't think he will start gaming anytime soon
• VGA or DVI output
• He will use it mostly for Outlook, Word, Excel and internet.
• Not a Dell
• Edit: Budget around 800$

I think that's about it. Thank you for your time and any suggestions is appreciated!

 

[Roman79]

Well one thing you haven't mentioned is your budget.

Here is what I just bought my father for an early Father's Day gift (he's 72).

Acer Aspire AS5542

- 15" LED screen
- 2GHz Athlon II
- 4GB RAM
- 500GB HDD
- Radeon 4200 graphics (it's integrated, but not shitty like Intel's)
- VGA and HDMI outputs
- DVD burner
- Initial use puts battery life at about 3.5hrs (surfing, etc)

It was only $599Can, and the best part is that Costco has a 90day return policy, and doubles the manufacturers warranty. If you're in the US I'm sure you can get it cheaper.

EDIT: Editting out my Scotch induced typos

 

[Vol]

Thank you for pointing out about the budget! It was one of the first criteria I was thinking about and I forgot to write it down
The budget is around 800$.

I didn't put it the initial post but I'd like to stay away from Acer. Though the specs fits, I don't trust Acer's product enough. Bad experience with their monitors.

Thanks for your reply

 

[Striker109]

What do you have against Dell specifically to not want to buy a laptop made by them? You're only other choice at this point is a laptop from HP or Lenovo if you want decent American technical support.

Lenovo has their G460 (Part Number 06772XU) on sale for $764.15 after a 15% coupon discount (found on their site). It has the following:

Intel Core i5-520M Processor (2.40GHz 1066MHz 3MB)
NVIDIA GeForce 310M 512MB Onboard Video Card
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64
4 GB PC3-8500 DDR3 SDRAM 1066MHz
14.0" WXGA LED Backlight TFT 1366x768
500GB 5400 rpm Hard Drive
DVD Recordable (Dual Layer) Optical Drive
6 Cell Lithium-Ion Battery
Bluetooth Version 2.1 + EDR
Intel Wireless Wi-Fi Link 1000 Card

Datasheet: http://www.lenovoconnect.com/www/consumer/files/common/csmr/csmr3-1-datasheet-Lenovo-G460.pdf

If you're looking for a laptop that is truly portable I would stay in the 14in screen range. Usually anything larger than 15 inches is above 5 lbs.

 

[Daggah]

http://www.amazon.com/UL50Vt-A1-Lig...ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=pc&qid=1275402263&sr=1-2

Asus UL50VT

Product Features
1.3GHz Intel SU7300 Core 2 Duo Processor
4GB of DDR3 RAM, 2 slots, 4GB Max
500GB SATA Hard Drive (5400 RPM), DVD Super Multi Drive
15.6" HD LED LCD Display, NVidia G210M Graphics with 512MB DDR3 VRAM, Wi-Fi 802.11 bgn, 0.3M Webcam,
Windows 7 Home Premium Operating System (64 bit), *11.5 Hours of Battery Life
Processor, Memory, and Motherboard

Hardware Platform: PC
Processor: 1.3 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
Number of Processors: 2
RAM: 4 GB
RAM Type: SDRAM
Hard Drive

Size: 500 GB
Manufacturer: Portable
Type: Serial ATA
Graphics and Display

Graphics RAM: 512 MB
Cases and Expandability

Size (LWH): 15.4 inches, 10.4 inches, 1.05 inches
Weight: 5.2 pounds

 

[Vol]

Thanks for all the replies

No Dell is not because of the bad customer service but because I've seen too many friends with Dell laptop going bad.

I really want to get him a 15.6'' because of his sight, a lower size screen with the same resolution than a 15.6'' will be to small for him.

That Asus seems nice but is there a LAN connection on it? What I mean by LAN connection is a connection for the internet via an ethernet cable (is LAN connection the proper way to describe it?).

Thanks!

 

[Daggah]

Yes, it has an ethernet port.

 

[Vol]

Thank you all for your inputs. I'm gonna get the Asus UL50VT. Seems like it fits the most with what is needed.

Thanks !