Need a decent quad-core laptop under $400

[ilovedietcoke]

Looking to buy my wife a decent quad-core laptop under $400 for Christmas.
She wants something that is around 15.6 inches and lightweight (as she will be using it for her nursing courses and carrying it around a lot).
Doesn't need to be super fast but I would like it to have at least 4GB of RAM and around a 500GB HDD. Doesn't need a dedicated Gpu or anything like that either. Ive seen some black Friday deals around $350 but don't know what to get.

 

[thegreatest]

I don't think you will find a quad core laptop under $600. Let alone $400 unless you find one used, but I don't think a used laptop is a very good christmas gift.

 

[smallsharkbigbite]

Yeah, I think the higher end i7s are the only quad-core laptops and those go for typically >$800. Maybe you meant dual core, 4 threads? You seem to indicate you don't need that much power.

Maybe it's just me, but I bought the cheapest $350 and $400 laptops I could find and they each lasted me about 2-2.5 years each. So I spent slightly more on my current laptop $650 and we'll see where I go from there.

I like buying computers in general from the dell outlet. Prices are already 25-35% off and I constantly get 25% off coupons to use there. Last 3 (2 desktops) I've bought from there have been just like new and I've been disappointed in the the cheap Asus and IBM laptops that I had and fell apart.