I'm looking to get a new laptop for my Wife. The main purpose for it will be to stream movies, cruise the internet, and email. Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance.

BTW, not interested in an Apple Mac.

Too bad because for what you want the MacBook is the best choice.

Look at the Asus Vivobook S15.

I have one of their Zenbooks and its a nice laptop.

I'd suggest an i5 processor with 8 gigs of ram and, of course, with an SSD.

I only recommend the three US laptop companies.

HP, Dell and Apple.

Hp and Dell have stuff to fit any budget

You pay a premium for Apple.

I recommend Apple if you have an Iphone it makes it simple to go between them. If you don't mind paying the premium.

I have a mostly used HP my wife is an Apple fan girl.

I had to have a laptop for my business over 20+ years.

The only one I ever used was Toshiba.

quote:

Originally posted by pedropcola:
Too bad because for what you want the MacBook is the best choice.

I agree, mine has been great.

Love my Dell XPS 13. Bought it at the Dell outlet store. It was listed as new, without retail packaging. About 300 off full retail. I later added a larger SSD drive for about $250 as I recall, although they have come down in price quite a bit. I can get 8 solid hours of battery life starting from fully charged down to 15%. Worth a look.

I've been very happy with my HP i5 laptop. I use it primarily for streaming videos, movies and music. It holds a charge far longer than I expected which is a plus.

Jim

You pay a premium for Apple, but I’ve got a 10+ year old MacBook Pro that, hardware wise, is still going strong. Unfortunately, 10+ years ago 2GB RAM was considered great, not so much today. Go big and it’s likely to pay for itself.

My 8 year old iMac with 24GB RAM runs fine and can keep up with everything I do.

I recommend the Apple - 12.9-Inch iPad Pro

That’s exactly the same use I have for browsing the internet, email, and viewing videos.

My wife bought it for me as a gift and I love it.

I don’t see any reason to break out my laptop anymore.

quote:

Originally posted by jbcummings:

You pay a premium for Apple, but I’ve got a 10+ year old MacBook Pro that, hardware wise, is still going strong. Unfortunately, 10+ years ago 2GB RAM was considered great, not so much today. Go big and it’s likely to pay for itself.

Crucial or Kingstom RAM is inexpensive and easy to install.

If my ancient memory is still working, the only tool that you need is a teensy little Phillips screwdriver; there are ten little screws that hold the back of the case on. Remove them carefully, they like to hide in a corner if you drop them, and note the positions, as they are not all the same length. Once you have the case open, the RAM slots are easily accessible.

If you have a mechanical rotating hard drive, it's easy and inexpensive to replace it with an SSD while you have the case open.

With maxed RAM and an SSD, the ten year old MacBook Pro will have new life.

Bought an Acer Swift 3 from Amazon for $679 and it's been awesome so far. Thin, light and BLAZING FAST.

It's got really high ratings and glowing reviews everywhere you look, I'd recommend it:

Acer Swift 3

CNET review

Tech Radar Review

Anything but HP for me. I have a MacBook Pro that is killer. I've had a few Dells that have also been great - if you want a windows only machine.

I run Parallels on my Mac with good success with those few windows programs I still rely on.

quote:

Originally posted by Fire Away:
I'm looking to get a new laptop for my Wife. The main purpose for it will be to stream movies, cruise the internet, and email. Any recommendations?

Yeah: Why a laptop for such light-duty tasks? It's over-kill. Unless she wants/needs a screen size larger than available on them, a tablet would be way better-suited to her needs than a laptop. Less expensive. Easier to lug around and use. Far lower maintenance. Much, much longer run-time on battery.

quote:

Originally posted by Fire Away:
BTW, not interested in an Apple Mac.

Curious: Why?

Not a Mac, but my wife's using a 12.9 in. Apple iPad Pro for exactly the things you list. On rare occasions she uses my desktop for printing. (Her's has become kind of non-functional and we haven't gotten around to replacing it.) If we had a newer printer, she probably wouldn't need my desktop for even that.

She used her previous iPad the same way. As with the current iPad: Maintenance-free. They just worked. As a retired IT Pro who is happy to be done with baby-sitting computers and networks, that's a big plus in my book.

She doesn't use her tablet so much because she has no desktop, but rather doesn't yet have a new desktop because, her tablet being so useful and convenient, she doesn't much feel the need for one. I will eventually get her a new desktop, but, in keeping with my low-maintenance goal: It will be a Mac.

Can't help you with Android tablets if you find the tablet argument persuasive but want to avoid Apple. We stopped using Android devices several years ago and I haven't kept up.

As for an MS-Win laptop: I have no suggestions. I always bought Dell Latitude. Those are business-grade laptops. They gave me far less grief than others we tried. But I'm going on four years out of the grind, so I don't know anymore. Plus they'll come with MS-Win10, which I have never touched--and expect never to have to.

Another recommendation for an Android based tablet. I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S5e, 10.5 inch screen. All day battery, but can use a Fast Charger. Darn near anything done on a computer can be done on a tablet.

Much already said above.

If you have an iphone, I would get a Macbook based on the M1 processor. It works well and syncs easily with iphone. But connections to external peripherals may be somewhat limited and/or expensive.

Avoiding Apple, I would only get a laptop that was properly engineered in the US or Japan. That leaves: MSFT Surface, Dell (select lines like XPS), Lenovo Thinkpad or X1; I would prefer the former 2 given US companies. But look for a laptop that is well configured: 16GB dual channel memory, 256GB+ SSD, nice display, wifi6, etc.... The new 11th Gen Core based laptops are pretty zippy and responsive but may be a little pricey still.

I have had a new laptop every 2 years at work for 20 years. I have tried dell and Lenovo, but HP is my favorite and most reliable hands down. Made it an easy decision when my wife wanted a new laptop.

I currently have a Dell Latitude, Apple MacBook Pro and Lenovo ThinkPad. Of the 3, the MacBook Pro is the most expensive to repair by far. After a couple of years, my MacBook Pro battery would no longer hold a charge. I called Apple to talked to a Rep.. After everything was said and done, it was going to cost over $400.00 just to replace a battery. I was livid. I let the Rep. know I have been a long time customer having purchased 3 MacBook Pros, 4 iPads and 5 or so iPhone, that this was going to be my last. Long story short, they ended up sending me a FedEx label, had it repaired in 3 days and shipped back to me within a week. I didn't pay a dime. It was great that they did that but I'm sure that doesn't always happen. The cost of repair is just something to keep in mind when making your selection. I've always had great luck with Dell and Lenovo.

quote:

Originally posted by ensigmatic:

quote:

Originally posted by Fire Away:
I'm looking to get a new laptop for my Wife. The main purpose for it will be to stream movies, cruise the internet, and email. Any recommendations?

Yeah: Why a laptop for such light-duty tasks? It's over-kill. Unless she wants/needs a screen size larger than available on them, a tablet would be way better-suited to her needs than a laptop. Less expensive. Easier to lug around and use. Far lower maintenance. Much, much longer run-time on battery.

Beat me to it. I have a desktop machine, a laptop, and a tablet. Each serves a purpose, but the one I most reach for for the tasks you noted is my tablet.

quote:

Originally posted by Jupiter:
I currently have a Dell Latitude, Apple MacBook Pro and Lenovo ThinkPad. Of the 3, the MacBook Pro is the most expensive to repair by far. After a couple of years, my MacBook Pro battery would no longer hold a charge. I called Apple to talked to a Rep.. After everything was said and done, it was going to cost over $400.00 just to replace a battery. I was livid. I let the Rep. know I have been a long time customer having purchased 3 MacBook Pros, 4 iPads and 5 or so iPhone, that this was going to be my last. Long story short, they ended up sending me a FedEx label, had it repaired in 3 days and shipped back to me within a week. I didn't pay a dime. It was great that they did that but I'm sure that doesn't always happen. The cost of repair is just something to keep in mind when making your selection. I've always had great luck with Dell and Lenovo.

I'm not an Apple fan or hater, but I do not like Apple's continuing efforts to prevent third parties from doing repairs on their machines. I can personally replace the internal battery in my Lenono Thinkpad for a new one in under 20 minutes with nothing more than a micro-screwdriver set that cost me $20. The main external battery is hot swappable, which quite frankly, should be the industry standard for business laptops.