My daughter is in the market for a new laptop, and having a hard time finding what she wants. We're here now looking for suggestions. Her problems, with her old Dell laptop, started with wildly differing free space reports (she had a thread about that), and ended with edge lighting failure. She has borrowed my laptop until she can replace her's.

Here is her wish list of features: I5 or better, touchscreen (probably), 3GB or better processor, 8-16 GB RAM, Wireless capability, card reader, webcam, 500GB SSD drive &/or 1T drive, optical drive. Ports should include: ethernet, display or HDMI, audio headphone and mic, 3 or 4 USB. She prefers a 14 inch screen, but will accept a 15. She doesn't like W10 (her statement was a bit stronger), but is resigned to probably having to accept it.

Here is her statement on usage. "Probably a combination of light scientific work, remote connecting to work servers (and on that side I'd see things like JMP and maybe Labview programming), MS Office, web and movies, light photo editing. I might get back into video editing and rendering at some point so it would be good to be capable of that." I think 'light scientific work' might be an understatement. She is a physicist working high tech in silicon valley. I'd go more toward mid-level scientific.

We would appreciate any suggestions you all might offer.