Which laptop is good for a non-gamer?

[Valory]

Most product reviews seem to emphasize that laptop's suitability for gaming. However, what I want to do is basic word processing (writing, editing, etc.), e-mail and surfing the Internet, watching movies and listening to music. Possibly some photo editing, but no gaming at all. I'd also like it to be compact enough to use on my lap, when I'm curled up on the couch or in bed, and I'm concerned that a large screen would make it unwieldy.

I'd like the laptop and cooling pad to be light enough to rest comfortably in my lap, but I'm not too concerned with portability, since I'm mainly just looking for something to use when I'm curled up on the couch or in bed. Most of the time, I'll probably just plug it in, rather than running it off the battery.

I need a hard drive large enough to store a lot of lengthy manuscripts, as well as music videos. And I want good screen resolution and sound for movies and music, but I'll usually be listening with headphones.

What model of laptop would you suggest for my needs? and what model of cooling pad?

 

[Trotter]

Check out Dell's Vostro line:
Dell Vostro Laptops / Notebooks

Good price, good quality. The same as their home line, but without all the crapware. You can add whatever you want, and choose XP or Vista.

 

[CalcProgrammer1]

Pretty much anything is good for basic tasks. You won't need a super powerful processor or high powered graphics chip, but there are still a wide variety of laptops you may want to look at.

I personally like HP. HP has the dv6000 series that have 15" widescreen displays. I have a dv9000 customized for gaming, but the 17" widescreen display on the dv9000 is great for web browsing and multitasking in word processing and other programs.

If you're not concerned with the processor or graphics, you should still look at screen size. You can get laptops in a wide variety of sizes. I like big screens, so I got a 17" 1680x1050 dv9000. If you think this is too big, you can get 15.4" or 14" screens instead. Make sure the resolution is good, as a low resolution will limit the amount of content that can fit on your screen. High resolutions will have the option of smaller text, but more text can fit on the screen. Pictures will also be more detailed on a high resolution screen.

If you are not gaming or doing system intensive tasks such as compiling or video editing, your laptop will hardly ever run at 100% capacity and thus will rarely reach its full heat output. I highly doubt you'll need a cooling pad (I ordered one because my laptop gets very hot when gaming and folding [intensive processing], but mine runs pretty cool when just typing or browsing the Internet).

 

[DoubleHelix]

Videos can take up a lot of drive space, documents generally do not unless they contain a lot of high resolution graphics.