Need advice choosing a laptop

F

frrlod

New Member
Hello...

So I'm starting university (going to study computer science, might be important to know) and have absolutely no idea which laptop to get.

Looking to pay up to 1500$, of course it's better if it's cheaper.

Most important things I need:

good battery life (at least 6 actual hours)
relatively light
14 inch screen
touch screen
good (doesnt have to be excellent) processor, graphics card, RAM.

as long as it can achieve those parameters, I don't really care if it's haswell or SSD etc.

I've been looking at many laptops:

-Macbook Air 13 inch http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2420468,00.asp
this one seems perfect on battery and portability, but: no touch screen, screen is too small

HP Envy 14
Spectre http://ultrabook-review.toptenreviews.com/hp-envy-spectre-review.html

-Toshiba Satellite U845-S406
http://ultrabook-review.toptenreviews.com/toshiba-portege-review.html


I'm really lost as there's way too many choices, and I'm not even sure about 13.3 or 14. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!
 
I'm curious why you have the requirement for a touch screen? In your studies you will probably be doing lots of coding as part of your Computer Science curriculum and you will also probably be typing up lots of papers for general ed type classes, a touch screen will be more of a hindrance than a help for this type of work. Personally, I'd want to make sure any laptop I choose for this type of work would have a great keyboard.

Touch screens are gimicky at best and add to the cost of the laptop unnecessarily without giving much value for your money.
 
This is one I am looking at myself, under a inch thick, core i7, 8 GB of memory, dedicated gpu (still not for gaming) and claims 8 hours of battery life which is probably on power save mode.

IdeaPad U410 Laptop $679.00
http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/u-series/u410/#techspecs

or

IdeaPad U310 Touch (Touch Screen) $799

http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/u-series/u310-touch/

By the way I heard from someone on here that if you are planning on doing programming then you are going to want a i7, heard a i5 will hold up but a i7 is nice.
 
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I was thinking a touch screen might be nice when you don't have a mouse, I don't like touch pads too much. But I'm willing to consider options if they are great but have no touch screen.
 
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