help on notebook purchase decision, please

[datora]

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Hey folks --

I need to make a "fairly quick" purchase on a notebook; target is about 1 week.  It needs to be relatively powerful for electronic & print publishing and will also perform duty for music & (light) video editing and publishing.  It is unlikely to ever be used for gaming.

The person using it is an "older" who will not adapt well to Win8, so it's fairly important it comes with Win7 (home ed is fine).  We're going with the notebook for space considerations as well as occasional portability, although that will be rare.  The screen shall not be less than 15.6" w/ 1366 x 768 native resolution, and a 17+" w/ 1600 x 900 could be very nice.  Something w/ native 1080 on ~17" screen is almost impossible for this person to read effectively, so, no on that.

Professional multimedia playback is not required, although the equivalent of HDMI full HiDef/surround playback to an appropriate home entertainment/theater system is desired.  Does not have to have Blu Ray capability, although playback might be a nice bonus.  DVD playback & burning is essential.

Budget is flexible around $650.  Other tech also needs to be purchased, so can't throw the entire budget into this item.

I will likely swap out the hard drive for an SSD within a couple months of getting this stable & configured for my 'client.'  So, a large-ish HDD (750 GB) is nice overkill since it will get installed into an external USB 3.0 enclosure as a mass storage/back-up device.

So far, conveniently @newegg (which is a desired vendor, but willing to consider others) there are two options that are high on my list:

lenovo IdeaPad Z580 (21512JU) Notebook Intel Core i5 3210M(2.50GHz) 15.6" 8GB Memory DDR3 1333 750GB - $600 delivered

lenovo G780 (21823UU) Notebook Intel Core i7 3520M(2.90GHz) 17.3" 6GB Memory DDR3 1600 750GB - $700 delivered

I like the size & performance boost of the i7/17.3" model, but may have to adhere to a tighter budget for the i5/15.6" model.  The NVIDIA GeForce GT 630M GPU for the 17.3" model is vast overkill for what this machine will be doing.  But, who knows, maybe will Win8 upgrade in a year.  The superior RAM speed (6 GB of 1600) in the 17.3" is nice, but doubt it will be greatly noticed, so the 8 GB of 1333 for the 15.6" model probably works better for someone who doesn't know how to keep their system running lean on memory.

I haven't followed notebook CPU technology recently, so any feedback on these CPUs in particular is appreciated.  I'm open to suggestions for other notebook models that have similar or superior configurations to these, and lower prices always a bonus.

I'm happy & familiar with Acer & Lenovo brands.  I tend to shy away from HP/Compaq, have had horrible experience with Toshiba & Sony in the past, have loved Dells over the years but doubt there will be anything of this substance in this price range.

Would appreciate very much any feedback anyone would care to post.  Thank you!

[ EDIT: Um, yeah.  The convenience of using newegg was meant to convey that the purchase will be made in the U.S., so availability & delivery, etc. need to be in that market, around Wilmington, Delaware.

heh.  1337 post.  Damn.  Wasted a cool 'get.'    ]

[kitamesume]

why a laptop, based on what you've told hes pretty much stationary and a desktop's processor line is plenty more powerful for a cheaper price.
to aid that space efficiency on desktops, you might wanna look into the HTPC form factors, they tend to encourage tiny footprint.
the APEX MI-008 for example, is not much larger than a shoe box at L11.80" x W8.70" x H5.1".

otherwise i advice on aiming for small screen laptops, preferably under 15", as he could always dock the unit onto a larger screen (21.5" goes for well under 200$ now a days) and which may save quite some money too.
dual screens is a great asset for work related tasks as well, as he could use the laptop screen as a monitoring screen(tracking from ripping progress as an example) and the external screen as the main-work screen(while doing some artworks).
a great combination example would be Acer Aspire V3-571-6643 Notebook Intel Core i5 2450M(2.50GHz) 15.6" with an Dell S2240M Black 21.5" 7ms (GTG) Widescreen IPS Panel LED Monitor (for a total of 600$ after sales&discounts, before shipping) although you'll have to purchase an HDMI-to-DVI cable for the two to be effective, otherwise VGA.

[AceHigh]

Do you guys in US still have retailers that sell notebooks with win7, but with "upgrade to win8" possibility? Because that would solve the issue of getting a win7 OS. Can't help with anything else in this thread.

[datora]

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OKay.  Thanks guys.  The 'client' has made his decisions.  I can't go into them (some reasoning is flawed), just accept that it's a notebook for many reasons.

As far as dual screens, I'm well aware of it and intend to push for that.  I am dealing with someone who is hard to convince on some of these new "innovations."  Customer is ALWAYS right.

Anyway, probably will order the 17.3" Lenovo within a few hours if I don't find something better.  I was most interested in making sure I was getting one of the more recent CPU revisions instead of mistakenly getting older tech.

The situation cropped up as an 'emergency' with a notebook dying and the Holidays being in full swing, so I don't have the time to investigate that I would like to have and shop around for the best deal.  Hell, I had hoped I could make the purchase within the next four or five days, but I was just told to order it tonight ... so ... my hands are pretty tied.

Yeah, I'm also looking at the Win8 upgrade route so I can do it later if wanted/needed.  I specifically had to toss a number of possible notebook options because the customer does not want to deal with Win8 right now.  Just does not have the time to figure it out while staying in communications with family right in the middle of the Holiday season.


I'll check back in here before making final purchase, so if anyone knows of some good deals to take a look at, please post.  I'm just too swamped in a hundred little tasks right now to do the proper research I want to and I terrified I'm missing a better option than what this $700 will buy.

Thanks!

[Freedom Kira]

Just a comment, if you're just gonna swap for an SSD, I don't see how Win8 will be an issue, unless your client's going to be using it as it is for a while before you do the swap.