Laptop for college?

[LongShotHero]

Hey everybody, long time no post here, but i need help choosing a laptop for college. I will be attending in the fall as a bio major, and as far as i know there are no specific requirements for the computer as far as my major is concerned. My school has deals through dell and apple, but i'm not sure what to get. I would prefer a dell as i'm used to windows and it will be used for music, movies, and maybe some light gaming, but most of all i want a computer that will be able to last me all 4 years of college without major upgrades. I have a budget of 1300 and would like a 17 inch. is the dell inspiron 1720 a good choice?

 

[Mystofolyse]

A 17" will probably get annoying after a while of carrying, not to mention the battery life is substantially lower than any of the smaller screens (obviously). I'd get a 15.4" at the most so you have the room for customization with your budget and still maintain mobility. Just my thoughts.

But yeah, Dell with Vista. It isn't nearly as mucked as some would make it out to be.

 

[Deadsexy]

Everyone seems to want something different no matter how similar the needs are so I'll just let ya know what I am looking at and like for reasonably small, reasonably powerful smaller then 17" screen laptops.


I like the new mac book pro...who wouldnt at $2500 lol.

I have my eye on the Asus C90S right now, you can config one pretty stacked for like $1700(3 gig ram, 2.4GHZ C2D, ect..) and at 6.5lbs'ish its about as heavy as I'd like it. The mac book at almost $1k more isnt nearly as powerful but its smaller and looks cooler from the outside.

Also from what I am told you can easily dual boot on the apple and have windows AND OS on it but whatever...


oh and the dell M90 looks nice to despite the large 17" screen

 

[LongShotHero]

i tried looking on the asus site for that c90s, but could not find it, what site would you recommend to customize that through?

 

[Deadsexy]

try here

http://www.btotech.com/store/products/laptops/asus/c90s/c90s.htm

seems decent

 

[minc3d]

Most bang for the buck def comes from Dell. Get a nice Latitude with a 14" screen and 4 year warranty and youre set. Id say around 1200 for such a unit.

 

[Vanarak]

for a college student, you cant, and wont beat a dell.

its just too good a deal for the price you pay. and with all the warranty options, your set.

i just sold a mbp, for a new 1420.

 

[trick_m0nkey]

I am using an Inspiron 2200 from Dell, been using for 2 years now. We've had our problems together but she has been a faithful computer for me, doing all the things that I've needed to do while in college and providing entertainment as best as she can. The computer I'm typing on right now in fact...I dont go very many places without my laptop handy. This machine also gets very respectable 4-6 hours of battery life depending on how you stretch it. Only thing I wish was that the screen was a little brighter.

 

[JohnleMVP]

I'd also look at a Thinkpad. They are reasonably priced, but with any laptop I would get the bare minimum ram and then just buy more from newegg or whatever. 2GB is dirt cheap these days.

 

[bigjon32]

i just got my macbook pro, partially for college too, and i love it. however, it isn't the right machine for every situation. I do like that it's fairly small, thin, and feels light enough for me. It's only loud and hot in games, or at least thats the only thing that i've seen. I've got XP installed with VMware Fusion and bootcamp, works great. I like the dvd burner and the backlit keyboard a lot too. You could get a Dell for cheaper, but from first hand experience, they're customer support is so terrible you might as well not even bother. the apple attracts attention, which can be good or bad. my G4 Sawtooth is in it's 8th year now, still going strong with some upgrades so i'm hoping for a similar life span for my laptop. my dell laptop weighs several times more than my macbook pro and has a known overheating problem. i'm glad i made the decision that i did.

 

[Deadsexy]

i just got my macbook pro, partially for college too, and i love it. however, it isn't the right machine for every situation. I do like that it's fairly small, thin, and feels light enough for me. It's only loud and hot in games, or at least thats the only thing that i've seen. I've got XP installed with VMware Fusion and bootcamp, works great. I like the dvd burner and the backlit keyboard a lot too. You could get a Dell for cheaper, but from first hand experience, they're customer support is so terrible you might as well not even bother. the apple attracts attention, which can be good or bad. my G4 Sawtooth is in it's 8th year now, still going strong with some upgrades so i'm hoping for a similar life span for my laptop. my dell laptop weighs several times more than my macbook pro and has a known overheating problem. i'm glad i made the decision that i did.

LOL dell customer service...
And why doesnt steve jobs just come out on stage wearing a ski mask and carring a gun and just get it over with already? Crooks plain and simple

your dell weighed several times more then your MBP? What on earth are the weights we are talking about here??? I find this kind of hard to believe...


if you do get rooked by dell I'd suggest going the small business route. Its slightly less price gouging, matte screens(boo gloss), actual choices for an OS and what not, and to be honest I think the business lines are of higher quality then the consumer stuffs.

 

[bigjon32]

LOL dell customer service...
And why doesnt steve jobs just come out on stage wearing a ski mask and carring a gun and just get it over with already? Crooks plain and simple

your dell weighed several times more then your MBP? What on earth are the weights we are talking about here??? I find this kind of hard to believe...


if you do get rooked by dell I'd suggest going the small business route. Its slightly less price gouging, matte screens(boo gloss), actual choices for an OS and what not, and to be honest I think the business lines are of higher quality then the consumer stuffs.

I'm sure you know more about the laptops in my house than I do, however, google "inspiron 5150". Please. Also, I can run any OS that you would be able to run on a Dell easily. And as I said, I do run Windows on my MBP. I don't remember the last time I walked into an Apple store and had anything, especially not a gun, shoved down my throat. I do remember a pleasant experience and when they were out of the model I was interested in, called all of the Apple stores within reasonable driving distance to check if they had one for me, which they did. It would have been easy to say "Sorry, we're out, come back Monday when we get our next shipment!" The weight is an exaggeration, but honestly not by much.

OP: get whatever does whatever you want it to do well now, and it will probably do fine four years from now.

 

[Alienraptor]

I also have a new MacBook Pro, which happens to be my first laptop ever. Unlike the OP, I am not starting college (entering my junior year now), but while the University of Washington has tons of computers all over campus, I constantly found myself wishing that I had my own.

I will relate what caused me to make the decision I did. Hopefully it will help those who have to make a similar decision.

I was looking for a computer in the 13.3" to 15.4" range, because it would have to serve as a main computer (decent screen real estate) and would likely take a few good trips around campus (I benefit from being familiar with my campus, approximate future schedules, and where I will have to go between classes and for my job). I prefer dedicated graphics because I would be inclined to play some (though not many) games. The availability of BootCamp really made the Apple a viable choice in this regard. The low weight of the MBP (for a 15.4") and its thin profile also made it attractive. And its specifications were quite good (this was a few months ago), comparable to other laptops that were roughly $1600-1700. Clearly, price was an issue.

At first I really liked the ASUS offerings, but the educational discount available on the Apple computers was also very enticing; it brought the MBP down to $1800 for the base model. The Santa Rosa refresh, and the associated bump in specs (with no price increase), combined with the iPod promotion, available only to educational purchases to my knowledge (I also have never owned any portable music players other than a CD player), sweetened the deal.

I took advantage of the ongoing iPod promotion and my education discount, so my base 15.4" MBP (Santa Rosa, LED backlit screen, etc) and 30GB black iPod (and a free printer, which nobody cares about) came out to $1998 before WA state sales tax (8.9%, bringing it to $2175.82). If one then subtracts the $199 mail-in-rebate, the cost was $1799 excluding tax (as this may vary from state to state) and $1975 including WA sales tax.

For those without an iPod, the value is of course "laptop value + iPod value = purchase price". For those who already have one, it is harder to say (you could sell it on eBay, but that takes time, effort, some money on your part, and is generally less desirable). I didn't count the printer because it is of negligible real value (maybe $80 MSRP, but more importantly hardly anyone really needs a printer).

Thus a computer would have had to have been (in my case) less costly than the purchase price minus the value of the iPod ($249). This comes out to a computer under $1549 (before tax; it's much easier to shop for prices before tax than after) with comparable specifications. To my knowledge, no such deal was readily available to me. Furthermore, I really prefer the aesthetics of the Apple products over pretty much anything else out there.

To be fair, I had my eyes set on the MBP simply because of the aesthetic angle (combined with the good hardware specs of course), which is a personal preference. I thus placed considerable value in the aesthetics of the computer, whereas someone not so concerned about the appearance of the laptop would more readily settle for a similarly equipped but less sleek and polished look, or even more likely, one might simply have different tastes and prefer a different design.

So ironically, somehow the MBP became not only my favorite-looking laptop, but also one of the best deals I could get.