Buying a laptop, in need of guidance

I'm in the market for a laptop and I truly have no idea where to begin. I currently have a Dell Studio XPS, not sure of exact size but it's 13.something", Intel core2 duo. I tell you this because I love this computer. However, I'm typing through a flickering screen that will likely die any moment, and the battery is no longer recognized so it won't hold a charge. I don't even have an "A" or down key anymore lol. I've saved up a good amount of money to buy another laptop but I'm somewhat unsure of what I even need. I was wondering if anyone would have any suggestions.

Typically I do not use my laptop for much more than browsing the web and writing. I'll stream movies or play games on it but very rarely, last game I had installed was Oblivion...when that game was new.

Ideally, I'm looking for something in the 11"-14" range size-wise, I'm sure a 500GB hard-drive would be sufficient. Would like at least 5 hours or more battery life on average. Would love to have a back-lit keyboard. The faster the better, I tend to have two separate browsers running each with about 10+ pages open. I'm trying to stay around the $500 dollar range but would go up to say $700.

Friend recommended I look Lenovo laptops. Looked at Flex, G500, and G510. Noticed different processors AMD10 and Intel5 not sure how the two would even compare.

Any recommendation on processors?

General guidance towards laptop brand?

I'm completely lost so any advice at all helps!

@pikahyper

I feel like you could help :p

BB

Any of these tickle your fancy?

Lenovo's are pretty cheaply made, Sony is on the high end but out of your price range so try Toshiba, this one is good for the price or this one. Specs are not all that big a deal when you are not running resource intensive apps or games as you don't really notice a difference with most current laptops, the thing to keep in mind is longevity, most electronics are disposable and not made to last anymore since people upgrade so often, if you just need something for around a year then a cheaper brand will do but if you need it to last a while you have to go for a better build quality as it is worth the money.

@pikahyper: Thanks for the input. I'm basically looking for something I can keep a couple years and not have to worry about it falling apart. I'll check out the two laptops you linked and Toshiba's site.

@doomdoomdoom: Toshiba's are nice and sturdy, I'm on my second one, my first one is about 8 years old and still works well enough for watching movies and gaming (originally cost $700 I believe) and my current one is about two years old and I can still open a couple hundred tabs in chrome (this one is high end, $1800).

I agree with Toshiba and Lenovo if we are talking sturdiness but I have issues on Lenovo graphic processors.

BTW, stay away from AMD laptops for now though they ace graphics.

@overlordargeist: I had a bit to pick my friends brain about Intel vs. AMD and that was pretty much his sentiment as well. AMD does great with graphics but the Intel is better for just running a ton of things simultaneously.

@pikahyper: Good to hear they last. I've done some digging around and I think I'm going to go with a Toshiba. I've been looking through there site seeing what I can find in my price range given the few specifics I have. Personally, do you think the Intel I3 would be ok for what I'm using it for? I tend to have IE and Chrome both open with say max ten tabs open in each and I'm constantly hopping back and forth between the two browsers and their pages.

@doomdoomdoom: AMD's are not nearly as good as they used to be in the old days, they run too hot causing problems more often and diminish the lifespan.

An i3 would be ok for browsing but it doesn't leave much wiggle room, if you ever decide to play a game you'll start seeing problems and you won't be able to play more then an hour before the heat gets out of control. If you can try for an i5, also if you are going for windows 8 or 8.1 you need a minimum of 8 gigs of ram, 6 gigs is the bare minimum for windows 7. Also when it comes to tabs and browsers cpu power isn't as important, it is more about your ram, on average one chrome tab is between 20 and 80 megs, extensions can be around the same amount, both depend on what is happening in the tab/extension, so the more ram you have the more your browser can handle smoothly, to look at how your chrome tabs are using resources hit shift+esc.

@pikahyper:

8 Gig Minimum for Windows 8 just to power surf. May I know the load for each tab?

@overlordargeist: I said in my last post, 20-80 megs, depends on the site. The 8 gigs minimum for win8 is to handle all the win8 frills and common multi-tasking.

Ahhh! Ok.

BTW, does your Laptop's graphic processor use your RAM or does it have one of its own?

@overlordargeist: depends on the configuration but a graphics card can have its own ram (not usually very much) but it will still use system ram when it needs it.

@pikahyper:

Well, most Laptop's I encounter have their graphic memory taken from the system memory.

I do not know much on WIN 8, WIN 7 on my PC takes 2. something Gig on physical RAM to run. How much does WIN 8 takes.

@overlordargeist: most laptops I see either have 2 or 3 gigs of dedicated ram, onboard graphics tend to have 256, 512 or none but ya they both take vram when necessary.

I'm actually running win7 on one of my servers pretty well with only 1.5 gigs of physical ram, pretty old ram at that with a low bus speed, ideally win7 should have 2 gigs min.and for win8 depending on what version and what features are enabled and how many background applications and services are running 4 gigs just for the OS is a good idea but I've seen win8 work semi-decent with just 2 gigs of ram for bare-bones usage. Ram usage all depends on if you are using a 32-bit or 64-bit cpu and OS, if you are not using a 64-bit cpu and OS you can't use more then 4 gigs of ram.

Wow, I had no idea Win8 would require that many gigs to run at its full extent.