Started thinking he's probably going to need this laptop for college and stuff, so portability and battery life actually matters. That means a dedicated gpu actually probably wont be a great idea. If he truly only cares about playing his 2003 game (and other non-intense stuff will work. Wont play GTAV but whatever) I think any of these would be the best to pick from.

I picked laptops that other people I know (not reviews and stuff) have said are from good product lines. I only picked laptops with an aluminum case (that actually matters a LOT, especially if you're an 18 year old college student.) They only come from a couple companies that I think make good products, the prices are all sensible for the hardware, no gimmicky bs laptops. And I kinda assumed Knoll is the kind of person who drops/breaks stuff a bunch so I picked from lines people told me can take getting beaten up.

Only 7th gen i5s or i7s. No i3s, intels weird low range atom processor offshoots (they got a bunch of weird names.) And no AMD unless maybe you are buying a laptop next year. None of these have dedicated gpus because even a modern integrated gpu on an i5 or i7 will play a 15 year old racing game and the smaller size, wayyy better battery life, lower heat output and lower cost seemed like it would be worth that compromize.

I only chose laptops with solid state drives. Platter harddrives for your operating system or almost anything besides big archives of whatever is just stupid in 2017. I can barely use grandma's computer because Windows is on a platter harddrive and it's just so, so sluggish. That's like the biggest but cheapest bottleneck that people don't think about. Everything has at least a 256gb SSD which is enough probably. It's not like it's hard to upgrade that in a few years.

Ram is ram, they all have enough I guess.

Anything under $600 will fall apart in a year unless it's something like a Chromebook. But those aren't really full laptops so that doesn't count.

These are mostly 13inch screens, so kinda smallish laptops. For laptops that arent gaming computers I like small screens because then the whole laptop is more portable, they're usually a little cheaper, a lot of laptops with 15+inch screens are just the 13inch screens hardware poorly scaled up so it looks bad, and if you really want to play a game with a bigger screen just plug in another monitor or something it's not that hard. One of them has a 15inch screen. You can probably find the others in an almost identical model that's 15inch if you want. But just really don't get like 17 inch on anything but a highend gaming/editing laptop where battery life doesn't matter, the cpu has a big heatsync and you know the screen's quality is high. It's stupid big, you don't need that for anything but gaming. It will probably look bad (crappy hardware scaling it up to a size it shouldn't be.) Larger screens actually do generate more heat and it's enough that matters and will make the cpu throttle down more often and drain the batter faster. And it just makes the laptop a pain to carry around and stuff.

Asus ZenBook UX3300UA - $699
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01M18UZF5/
I have an Asus laptop and I think it's good quality. This isn't one of the Asus gaming laptops though, so it wont be as heavy. It's 2.6 pounds, gaming laptops are all like over 5 pounds. This is probably the lowest price you can still get an actually good laptop that will last you long enough and be able to do every "normal" computer thing for the next 4 years. The processor is current gen i5, probably the best mobile processor you can get at this pricepoint. 256GB is pretty big for a solid state drive. 8gb of ram is fine, all of the other laptops have 8gb too. I think 16gb should be a new standard because ram is pretty cheap but every laptop has an empty upgrade slot and my 16gb rant is just this whole other thing that has nothing to do with any of this.

Seriously, this is the cheapest actually good laptop that will last and work well that you can get. It's good though overall, as good as or better than other companies laptops at the same price/a bit more.



The rest are all Lenovo laptops, because Lenovo has a really good track record for making laptops that last a long time and because they just have the best hardware with aluminum cases for laptops around or under $1000. They will all also play the 2003 racing game, but also do all the other normal computer stuff really wellThey all have good battery life and are from models real people actually say are good. I think Lenovo probably makes the best college laptops.

People told me that you can get Lenovo laptops for like more than 20% less than anywhere else too if you but them from Lenovo with some Barnes and Nobles coupon thing (I think?) I don't have a lenovo account and didn't want to make one to test it so I dont know if/how it all works. I guess you just go here  https://www3.lenovo.com/us/en/barnesnoblegold and, make an account, log in and that discounts them or something. I don't know if it works, worth a try.

Lenovo Ideapad 710s - $830
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01LNOEZ6Q/ref=psdc_13896615011_t2_B073DH6F2Q
Same processor as the other one, a current gen i5. Also an aluminum case. Same screen size at the same resolution, just as much ram, weighs about the same. This laptop's actual size is a bit smaller though but I think you lose a usb port. Same size SSD. The differences are just in the things that don't matter much. But mostly you'd be paying more because it's probably built a little more solid than laptops from other companies (like all lenovo laptops.)


Lenovo Yoga 720 - $960
https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-Yoga-720-i7-7700HQ-Memory/dp/B071YC64VM/
This one is a lot more powerful. The processor is a current gen i7, it's the 7700HQ which is probably what most i7 laptops have at best, it's just overall a really good processor. Since these all have integrated graphics that means this laptop has a more powerful igpu than the others too. It's a bigger laptop, the screen is 15inch but it's probably better quality than the first two laptops. All the Yoga models have really good screens, probably because they can do that thing where it flips around and becomes a tablet. I think that's a stupid gimmick, if you wanna use a tablet you're going to use an actual tablet right? But it doesn't hurt the laptop or anything so I let it pass, it doesn't sacrifice anything (usb port and stuff) to be able to flip around.
Same 8gb of ram and same 256gb solid state drive as the others.
It weighs more, 4 1/2 pounds instead of the other's 2 1/2. That's still not too much, it's just how it is with a bigger laptop.


Lenovo Ideapad 710S - $1050
https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-IdeaPad-Touchscreen-Dual-Core-Fingerprint/dp/B073DH6F2Q/
Mostly similar to the Yoga. It has a current gen i7 (although actually a slightly slower one even though this is the more expensive model. It's really a small difference though, a 7500 vs a 7700. Look up benchmarks I guess if you care exactly how different they are.)

This is a normal laptop. It doesn't do the stupid swirl around into a tablet thing. Smaller 13inch screen like the first two laptops, 8gb ram like all of them.
This is the only one that actually advertises that it has an SD Card reader. I think some of the other ones do (some of the pics looked like it) they just didn't list it? But I dunno, this one straight out says it does.

The solid state drive is 512gb. That's the real reason it's $100 more than the other one. I kinda think it's worth it over the Yoga 720 because it has a normal laptop case and a smaller screen ( So more portable and it's only 2 1/2 pounds).


If you look at other laptops;
Aluminum case
Current gen i5 or i7
256gb or more SOLID state drive
Doesn't have a stupid big screen and weigh a bunch
Integrated graphics (not a dedicated nvidia or amd gpu) if you want good battery life
Definitely no less than 8gb ram
Not super cheap under $600 because it will 99% fall apart in a year if you ever move it from a single desk. Like what do you do if the case is so cheaply/poorly built that when the fans get dusty and die (which they will if it's that cheap) the heatsink is trash so it doesn't keep things cool, the case is cheap plastic with no airflow, and the processor LITERALLY MELTS?! And it will happen a week after your warranty ends. Your keyboard just starts randomly typing a whole line of characters whenever you press A, but to take the keyboard off and replace it you have to unseat the whole motherboard? Then static in the air shorts the cheap motherboard because of course it will. The screen has 4 dead pixels that are "within product quality standards" but they're just sitting there, bright green,all the time. I could probably think up a million catostrophic failures that wouldn't be a big deal in a desktop but will completely destroy your laptop.

And then the rest is whether it's a well built model by a company that makes stuff to last. I can't think of a way to measure that besides "read stuff" and "ask people"