What she wants:
- Definitely under $700
- Less than 17 inch screen (so preferably on the lighter side)
- Durable and built well. (Hopefully to last another 4 years)
Since she is a teacher, she can use a teacher discount if a Mac is suggested… And she is curious about Macs, but they're really overpriced for the hardware you get. Most decent ones are over her price range.
The biggest consideration is that she's kind of careless with her things. For whatever reason, she leaves her laptops on the ground. She has stepped on the screen more than once… So I'm thinking some sort of accidental warranty should be thrown in.
All I know is that she probably shouldn't get an I3 processor - probably should be an i5 or i7… But I don't know what to suggest or get for her outside of that.
Added (1). Edit:
I've heard Lenovo is really good, and this is one of the models I'm considering for her:
http://shop.lenovo.com/...-customize
But it's only 4GB of RAM. I'm not sure it'll be enough since Windows 8 uses quite a bit of RAM by itself.
Again though, she's just a teacher and will mainly be listening to music, using Facebook, and word processing. No gaming.