Getting a Laptop for University (Need help Please!)

DesertFly · Post by **DesertFly** » 2008-08-25 08:13am

So I'm finally restarting school after taking three years off, and the thought has occurred to me rather late in the cycle that a laptop would be an invaluable companion for this stage of my life. It would let me both do homework between classes, and, since I'm in majoring in Computer Science, it would let me do any examples and such right in class. Being able to play games during down time also wouldn't hurt.

With that in mind, I've been looking at sub $1000 notebooks on Newegg, and have, after a little searching, settled on this.

Is this a good laptop for the money? The only absolute needs I have are basically: writing papers, surfing the internet (so wireless capability is a must), programming and compiling, and playing tv shows through my home network. This does all that, and it has good reviews, but I don't have any experience with laptop shopping.

Any help here will be great. Thanks people (man it's late and I'm tired.)

I will be ordering either nine hours from now, or tomorrow sometime.

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » 2008-08-25 10:48am

i wouldn't buy an acer laptop, never.
And do you really want a hulking 7+ lbs to carry between each class?
i'd rather go for a Thinkpad
or check dell and HP website in the SMB section, usually it's where the best offer lays.

Tolya · Post by **Tolya** » 2008-08-25 11:08am

Quite honestly the only laptop that I would heartily recommend is a thinkpad or HP Pavillion.

Dell is also a good company, but I never handled any of their laptops.

Still, my parents bought a Pavillion a few months back and it is working like a charm. Besides, its build quaility is excellent and it just feels sturdy.

Cyborg Stan · Post by **Cyborg Stan** » 2008-08-25 11:37am

Huh. Got Apex seems to have a deal on here. Might be worth taking a look.

DesertFly · Post by **DesertFly** » 2008-08-25 12:18pm

Well, how does this HP Pavilion look?

It's got nice amounts of RAM, 64-bit Vista, widescreen, and even a graphics card, all for $900.

I would buy off of HP or Dell's site, but I can't wait until the 9th of September for it to ship!

Mobius · Post by **Mobius** » 2008-08-25 01:39pm

My personnal experience:

Dell (business line): nothing fancy but good built quality and you avoid most of crapware

Thinkpad: same as above but you get a clitoris point, better modulability and the Thinkpad MBT casing and very good customer care: i spilled coffee on my keyboard, the morning after calling the customer care i got the replacement keyboard

Sony Vaio: Experience may vary(My former A317M was a piece of crap comes to my mind, other are actually good the TX1P of my father is an excellent sub-notebook) and since most of them are Asus laptop rebranded, go for the original

Acer: suck if you get a problem with it.

The R61 is actually the replacement of my current R60 and well, unless i buy my next laptop with my work and don't have any choice; i think i'll probably buy a new one or a Dell Latitude (even if i'll miss the trackpoint)

General Zod · Post by **General Zod** » 2008-08-25 01:51pm

DesertFly wrote:Well, how does this HP Pavilion look?

It's got nice amounts of RAM, 64-bit Vista, widescreen, and even a graphics card, all for $900.

I would buy off of HP or Dell's site, but I can't wait until the 9th of September for it to ship!

The HPs are good budget models if you don't need to play the latest games. Their service centers are really good too. I had to send my HP in to get a problem with the screen fixed after I'd had it for a couple months and I got it back fixed within 72 hours.

TimothyC · Post by **TimothyC** » 2008-08-25 08:27pm

What ever you get, look at getting accidental damage coverage. It can be expensive, but it worth if if you drop the system.

Post by **Gandalf** » 2008-08-25 08:32pm

I got a Dell Inspiron 1525 for just this purpose.

It's worked pretty well, it came with Windows Vista (replaced by Ubuntu), and a nice 140GB hard drive.

It's about three or four centimetres thick, which helps because the laptop case also holds books quite well.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2008-08-26 08:37pm

Mobius wrote:My personnal experience:

Dell (business line): nothing fancy but good built quality and you avoid most of crapware

Thinkpad: same as above but you get a clitoris point, better modulability and the Thinkpad MBT casing and very good customer care: i spilled coffee on my keyboard, the morning after calling the customer care i got the replacement keyboard

Sony Vaio: Experience may vary(My former A317M was a piece of crap comes to my mind, other are actually good the TX1P of my father is an excellent sub-notebook) and since most of them are Asus laptop rebranded, go for the original

Acer: suck if you get a problem with it.

The R61 is actually the replacement of my current R60 and well, unless i buy my next laptop with my work and don't have any choice; i think i'll probably buy a new one or a Dell Latitude (even if i'll miss the trackpoint)

Latitudes other than the D500 series actually have a trackpoint, and the later D-series (D630) does *feel* sturdy- the E series looks nice.
The higher end Latitudes seem to have an ARM processor running Linux for low power browsing which seems to be a nice feature, since that's what I use my laptop for a lot of the time. The newer Latitudes look more businesslike, getting rid of the round corners.

That said, I'm a Thinkpad fan myself, got myself a T61.

I'll start w/ the negatives though. I do dislike the battery life w/ discrete graphics. I myself got a 9 cell which gets only 5 hours, so the 4 cell must be much worse at 1.8 hours (judging by the given AH rating for the 4 cell*14.4 volts- my laptop uses 20 watts when I'm actually doing something). The newer T400/500 w/ LED backlights and switchable graphics cards should have considerably better battery life, and I should have waited a month and paid only 100$ more. Oh well.

It also feels a bit squeeky since the strength layer is on the metal frame underneath, but this isn't too much of a problem (I took some double side tape and applied it under the palmrest to solve most of this).

Other than that, the keyboard is great, the laptop is fairly lightweight and thin (sans battery, the 9 cell sticks out the back considerably- doesn't really get in the way other than being fugly though and ruining the otherwise sleek boxy businesslike appearance; it works as a handle while holding laptop one handed while using it though), and the framing on the screen is quite sturdy feeling (the hinges are especially stiff which is good- most other laptops suffer floppy hinges, esp Toshiba).

IBM's implementation of the clit pointer is excellent, and I like the reduced size of the touchpad since I don't use it. It's fast enough to play ETQW acceptably on low quality but decent resolution (11xomethingxsomething at 16:9 in windowed mode). Linux compatibility is good, though resume is a bit slow due to nVidia bugs.

Wireless reception on the T61 14" is excellent. I recommend getting the "thinkpad wireless" ABG card, which has an atheros chipset, which is more sensitive in my experience than Intel cards.

Also, +1 to accidental damage protection, esp if you're clumsy and inept like me.

I don't think an HP Pavilion is really comparable to a Thinkpad or a Latitude- you have to get their business series laptops. Those don't seem too popular though, haven't seen any in the wild; of business laptops most tend to be Latitudes and then Thinkpads.

DesertFly · Post by **DesertFly** » 2008-08-26 08:48pm

I went ahead and ordered that HP I was looking at. Also got some damage protection on it.

Pu-239 · Post by **Pu-239** » 2008-08-26 08:52pm

Oops, posted my comments on pavilions too late. Oh well. Oh, and the graphics card is still integrated and fairly weak, although better than an Intel one, and would save power. RAM shouldn't be a factor, since it's best to upgrade cheaply later- I filled mine up to 4GB for 70$. The resolution seems to be a bit low, I'd recommend 1440x900 at least. If I were you, I'd wait, since a laptop should last you for awhile, and rushing to get something substandard seems unwise.

Sarevok · Post by **Sarevok** » 2008-08-27 05:11am

I think when getting a laptop you should look at factors like aesthetics, ergonomics, weight and battery life. Basically how comfortable it is to hold and use while you are sitting, standing or lying down in a position that does not strain your neck, arms and back. You don't want a 3 kg monster with 4 gb ram that will leave you with neck aches after an hour of use. Portability and ease of use is more important than hardware specs. Unless you are paying several thousand USD it is hard to get a laptop with hardware powerful like a desktop. So it is a futile quest anyway compared to getting something small,lightweight and comfortable to use.

Qwerty 42 · Post by **Qwerty 42** » 2008-08-27 11:34pm

Bah, too late, but you can get pretty good discounts through www.delluniversity.com. Not the highest quality machines, but they're sufficient for whatever you're doing provided it isn't graphic-intensive.

DesertFly · Post by **DesertFly** » 2008-08-28 12:51am

Qwerty 42 wrote:Bah, too late, but you can get pretty good discounts through www.delluniversity.com. Not the highest quality machines, but they're sufficient for whatever you're doing provided it isn't graphic-intensive.

I was looking at the homepages for Dell and HP, and could have probably gotten something pretty good, but the problem is they wouldn't even have started building them until September 9th, and I could really use a laptop very soon.

Thanks for everyone's help.