Looking for very specific Notebook advice

[zir_blazer]

Before starting, you must first know some details about my actual situation: I live in Argentina. Current goverment have imposed several restrictions of industrial protectionism nature that restricts importing several types of goods that some startup companies are assembling locally, reason why shopping malls and the like are working mostly with local brands. "Great" you would say? Not that much. First, the Hardware variety sucks, Intel got a near-total monopoly in the mobile segment as I have yet to see anything with AMD that isn't an old Brazos. Second, the build quality is mediocre (Generally the plastic casing), maybe for a Desktop Replacement Notebook it doesn't hurts as much but I'm looking for something more robust, a segment that local brands seems to not care about. Finally, they are MORE EXPENSIVE that what it seems that would cost me to import a better one myself.
The objetive of the Thread is to get a list of a few Notebooks models that would suit the needs I will state in the next paragraphs, and I suppose that I will choose the Notebook that I could get more easily delivered here, thoug that will requiere even more research. I know that if you do an online purchase from Dell they ship internationally, and many people purchased Monitors directly from them that arrived at their homes, so that would work, but there are others like Newegg doesn't ship internationally. There are some people that acts as intermediary for purchasing stuff from eRetailers and feeds the high end crowd or people with niche needs, though.


Anyways. My mom is annoying me to get her a Notebook to use for working while commuting. It must meet or be close enough to all this criteria:

* Total budget is 750 dollars. As I don't know how much it will cost me to get it here, I don't know how much it will be left for the Notebook itself, but I suppose that 550-600 dollars will be for the Notebook itself.

* The Notebook will be used for both work (She usually uses AutoCAD) and possibily gaming. Keep in mind that her current machine is a 4 years old A64X2 5000+ with 4 GB of RAM and an integrated Radeon 3200 (Chipset AMD 780G) and she is usually happy with it. Even the slowest Llano or Trinity are already a performance upgrade over her current Desktop machine so they would be more than enough, and I prefer them to Sandy/Ivy Bridge because due to its GPU they are much all-around balanced.
In case that only decent options are Intel-side, a dedicated GPU is injustified, I prefer to go with the IGP to save budget. Brazos and Atom are discarded, as they're slower than my actual performance target. 4 GB of RAM are enough, but 8 (Or more) will be better.

* The Notebook should have to be small (14 or 15'), be light, and have good battery duration, so Desktop Replacement models don't fit. The case should be resistant in case of accidental fall or whatever else it could happen to it (This is one of the reasons local brands Notebook assemblers will never suit my needs). As my mom will use it due commuting, it must be cool enough even under Full Load to be able to support it on her legs confortabily, so it can't be one of famous furnaces that can potentially cause heat injuries.
Some manufacturers got expensive, professional lines that usually are the ones that meet all of these requeriments. An example of something that would be perfect in this regard is the old Lenovo Thinkpad T60 (I can get some refurbished variants here for around 400 U$D, but its Hardware already 6 years old. Keep in mind that its launch price was around 2600 U$D). Sometimes they also come equipped with ATI FirePros or nVidia Quadros, that is a plus.

* Keyboard layout should be preferabily Spanish or Latin American (Both have the ? key).

* It should come without OS, or with Linux preinstalled, as I'm not intending to pay 100-160 U$D on a Windows licence.


I hope that someone knows what brands, product lines and/or models will meet these needs and stay on budget because I'm clueless regarding the Notebook market. I always hated it because you are stuck on whatever the vendor decided to equip their Notebooks with even if it is sub-optimal for a specific need, and there are things like the construction quality that aren't as easy as just comparing dull specifications in a sheet. A quality professional line Notebook with budget Hardware and no OS would be ideal, if such a thing exist.

[yojimbo197]

Before starting, you must first know some details about my actual situation: I live in Argentina. Current goverment have imposed several restrictions of industrial protectionism nature that restricts importing several types of goods that some startup companies are assembling locally, reason why shopping malls and the like are working mostly with local brands. "Great" you would say? Not that much. First, the Hardware variety sucks, Intel got a near-total monopoly in the mobile segment as I have yet to see anything with AMD that isn't an old Brazos. Second, the build quality is mediocre (Generally the plastic casing), maybe for a Desktop Replacement Notebook it doesn't hurts as much but I'm looking for something more robust, a segment that local brands seems to not care about. Finally, they are MORE EXPENSIVE that what it seems that would cost me to import a better one myself.
The objetive of the Thread is to get a list of a few Notebooks models that would suit the needs I will state in the next paragraphs, and I suppose that I will choose the Notebook that I could get more easily delivered here, thoug that will requiere even more research. I know that if you do an online purchase from Dell they ship internationally, and many people purchased Monitors directly from them that arrived at their homes, so that would work, but there are others like Newegg doesn't ship internationally. There are some people that acts as intermediary for purchasing stuff from eRetailers and feeds the high end crowd or people with niche needs, though.


Anyways. My mom is annoying me to get her a Notebook to use for working while commuting. It must meet or be close enough to all this criteria:

* Total budget is 750 dollars. As I don't know how much it will cost me to get it here, I don't know how much it will be left for the Notebook itself, but I suppose that 550-600 dollars will be for the Notebook itself.

* The Notebook will be used for both work (She usually uses AutoCAD) and possibily gaming. Keep in mind that her current machine is a 4 years old A64X2 5000+ with 4 GB of RAM and an integrated Radeon 3200 (Chipset AMD 780G) and she is usually happy with it. Even the slowest Llano or Trinity are already a performance upgrade over her current Desktop machine so they would be more than enough, and I prefer them to Sandy/Ivy Bridge because due to its GPU they are much all-around balanced.
In case that only decent options are Intel-side, a dedicated GPU is injustified, I prefer to go with the IGP to save budget. Brazos and Atom are discarded, as they're slower than my actual performance target. 4 GB of RAM are enough, but 8 (Or more) will be better.

* The Notebook should have to be small (14 or 15'), be light, and have good battery duration, so Desktop Replacement models don't fit. The case should be resistant in case of accidental fall or whatever else it could happen to it (This is one of the reasons local brands Notebook assemblers will never suit my needs). As my mom will use it due commuting, it must be cool enough even under Full Load to be able to support it on her legs confortabily, so it can't be one of famous furnaces that can potentially cause heat injuries.
Some manufacturers got expensive, professional lines that usually are the ones that meet all of these requeriments. An example of something that would be perfect in this regard is the old Lenovo Thinkpad T60 (I can get some refurbished variants here for around 400 U$D, but its Hardware already 6 years old. Keep in mind that its launch price was around 2600 U$D). Sometimes they also come equipped with ATI FirePros or nVidia Quadros, that is a plus.

* It should come without OS, or with Linux preinstalled, as I'm not intending to pay 100-160 U$D on a Windows licence.


I hope that someone knows what brands, product lines and/or models will meet these needs and stay on budget because I'm clueless regarding the Notebook market. I always hated it because you are stuck on whatever the vendor decided to equip their Notebooks with even if it is sub-optimal for a specific need, and there are things like the construction quality that aren't as easy as just comparing dull specifications in a sheet. A quality professional line Notebook with budget Hardware and no OS would be ideal, if such a thing exist.

https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/lemu4

[zir_blazer]

*BUMP*

https://www.system76.com/laptops/model/lemu4

Not bad, I actually find them quite palatable. But they don't ship directly to Argentina.


So far I have been recommended a Lenovo Thinkpad Edge E430 that is available locally, and is around 700-750 U$D for the cheapest model (Reasonable price for a few others I have seen). Because it is available locally, it has the alternate N key (The actual key gets replaced by a ?, seems Forum don't like it), but the most surprising thing is that IT HAS NO WINDOWS!