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Originally posted by bigdeal:

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Originally posted by ensigmatic:

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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.

At one time, Tablets did have much better battery life. That is really not the case anymore. I can get 10 hours from my Lenovo laptop. Enough so that battery life is not really an issue.

iOS keeps getting better and better but it's still not able to provide everything I need as a developer. If all I was doing is streaming movies, cruising the internet, and email, maybe a tablet is the best choice.

I love my DELL.

Costco has some great deals. I believe if you use your Costco credit card they double the warranty.

SSD drives are so much nicer.

I use a Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon for work. It's very light and has been problem free for me so far. The picture on the screen is much more vivid and clear than on standard monitors at work when using docking stations, and those are pretty high end monitors.

Tablet would be best since your (wife actually) use requirements are fairly basic.

That said, I cycled through about 4-laptops over a 10+ year period, I'm not a computer guy so, I'm pretty computer basic when it comes to troubleshooting and figuring out operating issues (though I can hold my own running Excel and Adobe). The constant start-up/re-booting, odd ball issues with Windows 9, keeping up on security and then the batteries not holding a charge were all constant sources of irritation.

I bought a MacBookPro 8-years ago, and haven't looked back. Starts up like a charm, quick and without any issues like it was brand new. The Retina screen is still sharp as ever and what repairs I've done have not been an issue...gotta credit a few You Tube videos. Updates and patches have been trouble free. The metal case has proven itself a few times when traveling and it syncs with my phone so...yeah, user friendly and still ticking.

For the intended purposes, a Chromebook would work very well.

I have a Lenovo Chromebook Duet which is actually a tablet with a detachable keyboard. For $250 it is hard to beat. Though if I planned to do a lot more serious typing with it, I’d look for a standard laptop shell.

I second the idea of suggesting a tablet. I have an iPad Pro and it would be great for everything your wife wants to do, and is very lightweight and thin, compared to notebooks.

If typing on a touchscreen isn't your wife's thing, there are keyboard alternatives ranging from a cover that doubles as a flat keyboard to a plug-in moving-key keyboard. Here's a link to a page with some examples of iPad-compatible keyboards