Laptops

[grizzle]

I assume she will be using standard office applications. She will also be taking a summer course on programming and plans to pursue other computer courses. I honestly have no idea what kind of things will be required for that in computing power. Like her father, she also plays games. I have been looking at gaming laptops since I figure those will be high performance machines with good graphics subsystems and I can get them with Windows 7. General specs I have been looking at:

Windows 7
17" screen
Intel Haswell CPU (i7-4800MQ)
8 GB RAM
Hybrid Hard Drive
NVidia video card - model varies, latest one I looked at had a GTX 770M with 3 GB RAM

If you're going with a Windows laptop (ass opposed to Mac), then just go ahead and get a touch screen laptop with Windows 8 on it. But then visit stardock.com and pick up Start8 and ModernMix. This allows you to pick up all of the Windows 8 performance enhancements and general fixes/upgrades over Windows 7, and allows you to use Windows 8 just like Windows 7. I have done this at home and it works perfectly.

As far as the touch screen laptop goes, I just got one at work and I surprisingly use it much more than I thought I would. With the screen so close to my keyboard and hands, it's many times much easier to just touch the screen to select something than it is to use the touchpad on the laptop to navigate the cursor somewhere on the screen. It's a huge convenience when using the laptop on the go. (That said, I don't think I'd get a touch monitor for my home desktop - the distance from where the monitor sits on the desk to the keyboard/hands is too far - easier there to mouse it)

And if you go with touch, then when you buy Office, buy the latest touch-optimized version of Office. It gives you an option to optimize the UI for all the apps for touch, making certain buttons larger and easier to use.


For laptop brands - Lenovo is what I buy for home use, and never had a problem with them. At work I've had both Lenovo and Dell - the Dell has had a couple of issues, but because I deal with my company's support (who in turn deals with Dell's support) it's an easy transaction for me. I don't know what home support for Dell is like. From Slamz' post, it doesn't sound too good.