13" Laptop for under £500

[KalashnikovAli]

My mum wants a new laptop. She currently has a Samsung N210 netbook, which is just too old and slow.

Her budget is around £500, the cheaper the better. The speed of the laptop is important, but not the graphics. So Intel HD graphics is fine. It will mainly be used for standard web browsing, so Facebook, Youtube, Gmail etc. Also frequent Skype calling.

I haven't done any laptop shopping since I switched to Mac a few years ago. I really can't tell what's good and what's bad..there are so many damn laptops out there!

Any help will be appreciated.

 

[CEUOTC]

How about Inspiron 13z - 5323.

Or

XPS 14 Ultrabook

Regards

C.

 

[Marine-RX179]

Question...if she's not doing any productive tasks i.e. document, excel etc...for the things you mentioned she'll be doing, wouldn't she be better off getting a tablet?

For example, Nexus 10 16GB is just £320, 32GB is more expensive though at £389:
http://www.google.co.uk/nexus/10/

Yes it is only 10 inch, but with 2560x1600 res, it would put most sub £500 laptop's screen to shame. It's much lighter, easy to carry around and can be used pretty much anywhere, whereas laptop still have to find a appropriate surface to use.

 

[KalashnikovAli]

Question...if she's not doing any productive tasks i.e. document, excel etc...for the things you mentioned she'll be doing, wouldn't she be better off getting a tablet?

For example, Nexus 10 16GB is just £320, 32GB is more expensive though at £389:
http://www.google.co.uk/nexus/10/

Yes it is only 10 inch, but with 2560x1600 res, it would put most sub £500 laptop's screen to shame. It's much lighter, easy to carry around and can be used pretty much anywhere, whereas laptop still have to find a appropriate surface to use.

I just showed it to her and she's agreed it's probably more useful to her than a laptop. Looks like I'll probably be getting her one of these. Thanks!

edit: Though it does seem like the new one is likely to be released soon, so I might wait.