
Ask HN: Laptop for girlfriend? - reacharavindh
HNers, any recommendations for a laptop for my girlfriend with following considerations?<p>* Windows 10 
* Not too big&#x2F;heavy. Preferably 13&#x2F;14 inch display - preferably higher res.
* Good build quality even if that means paying more. 
* Battery that yields at least 5-6 hours of real-world usage (Excel, lots of it, social internet stuff)
* Possibly buying in Europe with a German keyboard.. (Would buy the US version if there is a excellent laptop missing just this.)<p>I&#x27;m wary of Lenovo after Superfish. Would prefer to steer away unless things have demonstrably changed and hear better about Lenovo from HNers.<p>And, No, she is not considering running Linux, neither does she want to use a Mac. She is used to her ways with some legacy stats tools that work well with Windows.<p>Any inputs welcome..
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t1k3
Dell XPS 13. It's light, it's got the battery life and it's competitively
priced. More importantly, it's not Lenovo.

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Jonnax
I second the XPS 13. The 3200x1800 has revolutionised how I view excel sheets
with tons of columns.

And yep, I get about 5 to 6 hours of usage.

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reacharavindh
Thanks. Coming from a rMBP, I definitely appreciate the ability to see more at
once if needed and see crisper text in general. XPS 13 seems to be a popular
choice. I will ask her to definitely try it out.

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brudgers
Curious why not just ask her or even why get involved at all since it's not an
area of immediate and direct deep expertise?

Laptops differ in their tradeoffs and better and worse sets of tradeoffs vary
by individual. I love the Dell Precision M7510 I currently have and I loved
the Thinkpad X series it replaced as my daily driver and between them are two
very very different sets of tradeoffs.

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reacharavindh
Fair point. She came up to me asking to find choices in the sense I described.
Ultimately it'd be her who tries it and makes the final choice.

My objective is to get pointers like what you just gave - Dell Precision M7510
so I can research and give her a few options to choose from :-) Thanks!

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brudgers
The 7510 probably will not meet the tradeoffs of most people. It is heavy and
has mediocre battery life. On the other hand, it can be had with more CPU than
most desktops and ECC RAM and a fair amount of GPU and a lot of screen.
Conversely, a ThinkPad X series is small and light and sips battery while
still being reasonably powerful.

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gaspoweredcat
i really struggle if i cant recommend the x1 carbon because i love it so damn
much but if you must avoid lenovo the asus zenbook would probably be my next
choice, that or an xps13

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jareds
Any of the ASUS ZenBook laptops. THey are reasonibly priced and good if you
don't need a tun of CPU power.

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reacharavindh
I dont suppose she needs the CPU power in the raw sense, as in she is not
going to run builds or render anything. But, I have seen her using Excel like
a Pro with ginormous sheets and sophisticated formulas. So, a good CPU room
would be useful I think.

Asus ZenBook looks neat. Will definitely check it out.

