Need laptop for college please help me decide.

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spetsacdc

Weaksauce
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So I need a laptop for starting college next year. Prolly looking @ a budget laptop since I have a wii for games. I would like it not to be slow though :) Maybe ~750 range

My basic questions are:

1.) what processor gives the most bang for the bucks? Like core2duo, pentium dual core, or turion like TL-50?

2.) Any recommendations out of these or others:

Dell E1505 with core2duo T5200 and 1GB ram for ~760 shipped,

Or next weekend in my town computers are tax free.
I have today's bestbuy ad and they have a toshiba with a dual core T2080, 80gb hd, and 512 ram for $530. I could add another gig of ram and it would be about $600.

Or compaq Turion TL-50, 1gig ram, 100gb hd, geforce go 6150 graphics $600

3.) My sister complains of glare in the sun on her monitor. If I went for a dell and can customize glossy or non glossy which should I get.

Thanks!
 
apple does macbooks for $699 in their refurbished store sometimes. you can't really get a better college laptop than a macbook. small, light, portable, durable, fast, osX, nice looking... etc.

you will not regret a macbook if you get one, but it might be tough with your budget.
 
I'm a windows lover/not willing to convert ;) But thanks for the tip. I'll at least look at them.
 
get a pc w/ windows like everyone else in college

If you aren't going to game then just make sure you have 1gig of RAM, a dual core proc., big enough hard drive for your music collection and a good warranty. (I would suggest going cheap.....I like the best buy deal.)
 
compslckr said:
apple does macbooks for $699 in their refurbished store sometimes. you can't really get a better college laptop than a macbook. small, light, portable, durable, fast, osX, nice looking... etc.

you will not regret a macbook if you get one, but it might be tough with your budget.
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No.

Now, to answer the questions he asked instead of imposing the "trendy" Mac ideology unto him and avoiding all but one of the questions, in which case a preference to OSX may be revealed and open the non-standard alternative as a viable solution to the problem:
1. Core 2 Duo. Avoid AMD laptops (they draw more power and perform less operations than the Intel ones).
2. Try to find something that has a Core 2 Duo and 2gb of RAM if you can (or at least be willing to upgrade to 2gb of ram in the future... Vista and your patience will thank you for it--btw, get a system with Vista and not XP). If you can find something within your budget, non-Intel integrated graphics is always better, but this is probably a negligible issue since you're going to be gaming on a Wii.
3. Get non-glossy if you are worried about sun. I believe there are certain options that makes glare almost non-existent, but I am not familiar with which ones those are.

Dell is a good choice and you can usually find pretty good laptops using coupons for their online store (they always have a few hundred off, etc.). Also, there are usually good budget notebooks on sale at Circuit City and BB often, keep your eyes peeled for those.
 
mrjminer said:
No.

Now, to answer the questions he asked instead of imposing the "trendy" Mac ideology unto him and avoiding all but one of the questions, in which case a preference to OSX may be revealed and open the non-standard alternative as a viable solution to the problem:


Dell is a good choice and you can usually find pretty good laptops using coupons for their online store (they always have a few hundred off, etc.). Also, there are usually good budget notebooks on sale at Circuit City and BB often, keep your eyes peeled for those.
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Geez, way to be an a-whole to someone making a suggestion.
Since the OP did not specify until later in the thread he is a Windows guy it was a perfectly good suggestion.

The second half of your quote is what you, OP, should look into. Dell come with good battery's for college students, especially if you plan to be away from a wall for a long time.
 
Cool. I was looking on dell's site and when customizing the E1505 under the ram option, the list 1gb as 2dimm. So I assume this means they use 2 512 sticks. Anyone know how many extra dimms are left for a future upgrade? 1gb seems good for now, but I might 2gb in the future.

Does the core2duo T5200 dell justify spending ~160$ more than the dual core T2080 toshiba?
or
get the gateway over the dell which has 2gb ram, 160gb hd, but a T2060 processor.

Thanks
 
spetsacdc said:
I have today's bestbuy ad and they have a toshiba with a dual core T2080, 80gb hd, and 512 ram for $530. I could add another gig of ram and it would be about $600.
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By the way, that is not a Core 2 Duo system. That is a Core Duo system.

Core 2 Duo processors are: T5200, T5500, T5600, T7200, T7400, T7600
The ones starting with "5" have 2mb L2 cache, whereas the ones starting with "7" have 4mb L2 cache. The difference will not be significant for your purposes.

Don't get a processor other than one of the Core 2 Duo ones (ie: don't get anything Intel starting with "2" in the model number because the price difference is extremely small between those and Core 2 chips and the benefits far outweigh the small --if any-- price difference).

theDreamer said:
Geez, way to be an a-whole to someone making a suggestion.
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As opposed to suggesting a Mac without answering his questions in conjunctions with the knowledge that < 6% of the population use a Macintosh and the likelihood of him looking for a Mac is extremely low? I think you're attempting to degrade the wrong person. That is all.
 
Thanks for all the help.

I was thinking of these options:

1. Dell E1505; Core 2 duo T5200 and 1gb ram for $760 after tax and shipping.

2. Office depot Gateway Dual Core processor T2060 with 1gb ram for $600 after tax.

3. Or I can get a toshiba from Bestbuy with Dual core T2080, 512mb ram for $530, then add another gig of ram for $70 making it $600 too.

Is the core 2 duo really worth the $160 more?

If so, any cheap good laptops with Core2duo? All the instore deals I find only have dual core, and the core 2 duo start @ like $900.

Can I upgrade the ram in either later?

All instore deals I do not have to pay tax on b/c of a tax free weekend.

Thanks again
 
mrjminer said:
As opposed to suggesting a Mac without answering his questions in conjunctions with the knowledge that < 6% of the population use a Macintosh and the likelihood of him looking for a Mac is extremely low? I think you're attempting to degrade the wrong person. That is all.
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Sorry for doing a bit OT in your thread, but some people are a bit rude sometimes.
~Does it matter that a small fraction of the market uses Macs, he asked for any suggestions for a good college laptop. Suggesting a Mac is a good thing, it is a good laptop for a college student and may have been the exact thing he was looking for.

OP, also look at maybe refurbs if you do not mind those, you can sometimes get a great laptop in a refurb store for way cheaper than a brand new one. Many times they are not even opened at all, such as my brothers.
 
Well, I guess since you aren't going to be gaming on it or anything, it won't make a huge difference if you go with Core Duo since you can't find ones that are roughly the same price.

Just note, you will lose some performance (it probably wouldn't be significant with what you'll be doing, unless you're encoding movies all the time or something; the difference is not very noticeable anyways, it's just a touch) and battery life; of the two, battery life will be the more prevalent, but it might not be that big of an issue to you if you plan on plugging it in every 2-3 hours or something.

As for RAM upgrades, before you buy anything you might want to check the manufacturer's website and see if the system can hold two sticks or one stick of RAM. That or when you buy the system you'll know because it will usually have 2x512mb sticks if it has two slots since it's the cheaper method for them.

theDreamer said:
Sorry for doing a bit OT in your thread, but some people are a bit rude sometimes.
~Does it matter that a small fraction of the market uses Macs, he asked for any suggestions for a good college laptop. Suggesting a Mac is a good thing, it is a good laptop for a college student and may have been the exact thing he was looking for.
mrjminer said:
That is all.
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theDreamer said:
OP, also look at maybe refurbs if you do not mind those, you can sometimes get a great laptop in a refurb store for way cheaper than a brand new one. Many times they are not even opened at all, such as my brothers.
Click to expand...
Yah, if he's willing to get refurbs they tend to be good deals. Just make sure that they give you the battery charger/power adapter with the laptop and that's all you really need if you go the refurb route.
 
wow, didn't mean to derail your thread so badly. I am a college student too, and in my classes (comp sci major) at least 75% of the people that bring a laptop to class on a daily basis carry a macbook or macbook pro.

anyways, that dell that you have looked at is looking like your best bet.

be aware that most companies will split the ram between all the open slots, so if your order a system with 1gb you will most likely get 2x 512mb sticks, or if you get 512mb they may give you 2x 256mb sticks. My macbook came with 2x 512mb sticks so to upgrade to 2gb I had to remove all the ram that came in it and replace it with 2 new 1gb sticks.

companies do this because
1) its cheaper for them to buy small sticks
2) if you buy the upgrades through them as many people do you have to buy more


the dell refurbished outlet also has some great deals from time to time so make sure to check that out.

for me when I was looking for a laptop my key factors in my decision were: portability, performance, battery life (major selling feature), and screen size (I did not want anything bigger than 14" because it gets hard to see over the screen when they start getting bigger, especially in non-wide screen laptops.)

My first college laptop had a 15" non-wide screen display and it was way to big for my liking, it was hard to see the board/professor and It took up the whole desk.

good luck making a decision.
 
Oh crap, I forgot to mention the biggest difference between Core Duo and Core 2 Duo:
Core Duo is not 64-bit.

Basically, if you want to run a 64-bit version of an operating system, it is not going to happen if you get a Core Duo. Again, however, I doubt it would be a significant issue for you, especially since the laptop will very likely come with the 32-bit version of the OS, regardless of whether it is Core 2 Duo or a Core Duo.
 
Skip the Mac and just get a PC like everyone else. No software, poor warranty support, and high cost of ownership make owning a mac very undesirable!

And as for glare, I think that non-glossy is best for you. All those multimedia screens that Dell offers are susceptible to lots of glare and fingerprints show like no other! Get a regular matte TFT.

Yea, Dell is pretty much the most cost effective way of going about this. I would recommend Lenovo but that starts at $900 for a decent machine.
 
I think I am getting the Gateway MT6705 for $600. It got a good review on notebookreview.com Also, I think it will be fine for my needs. I'm not going to game or anything :D

Thanks alot!
 
i really recommend an apple macbook or macbook pro, either refurbished or new. you really can't go wrong with the new apple macbooks. they'll run either windows or mac os x. all of my friends that went off to college, bought themselves new macbooks and they love it. the macbook is sleek, slim and portable. be sure to get yourself some extra ram though. at least 1 gig.

but if you HAVE to get yourself a non-apple laptop, i'd recommend the ASUS barebone laptops. you buy the cpu, hardrive, cd-rom drive, and wireless card separate. i see this as a big advantage because you know what you put into your laptop. doing this can be cheaper than buying a name brand laptop (ibm, hp, compaq, dell, etc)
 
What is the name of an asus laptop like that? There site just lists 100 different names like asus 348939 and they expect you to know which one you want.
 
I bought a Dell E1505 with a T5200 Core 2 Duo a few weeks ago. It wasn't a budget system (configured price was $1470, paid $942 through the EPP store), but I have been very happy with it.

My only recommendation is to check into the battery your potential purchase includes. Most of the lower budget systems include a smaller-cell battery that will impact battery life.
 
minc3d said:
Skip the Mac and just get a PC like everyone else. No software, poor warranty support, and high cost of ownership make owning a mac very undesirable!

And as for glare, I think that non-glossy is best for you. All those multimedia screens that Dell offers are susceptible to lots of glare and fingerprints show like no other! Get a regular matte TFT.

Yea, Dell is pretty much the most cost effective way of going about this. I would recommend Lenovo but that starts at $900 for a decent machine.
Click to expand...

Wow, talk about stereotyping.

What software does he need? If he just needs something to write essays, he doesn't need some proprietary engineering app. High cost of ownership? Explain! He doesn't have to maintain AV/firewall/spyware tools, and much of what he needs is already there. The software warranty is short; the hardware is a year, and Apple is often nice about fixing it (especially if you have an Apple Store nearby).

That said, the question for the MacBook is whether the priorities of the design are what he wants. Bluetooth, a webcam, 802.11n are all nice, but they do add up. Apple is likely to have a May/June update that may address some of the price/performance balance.
 
Do not buy a laptop right now for college next year. The next Centrino platform (Santa Rosa) is being released at the end of May and will cause the prices of all the Napa platfrom Intel notebooks to drop. Personally I'd wait and see what deals the college your going to gets from Dell or Lenovo and pick up one through the school. Then you can get full support through your school for it and they generally come with a standard 4 year warranty to cover your entire time at school. Unless you like school and go for 8 years like I did :D
 
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