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Well I'm off to college this fall, and I've set aside some money so that I can buy a decent computer to use. Only problem is I have no idea what I should get. I really want to get a laptop so I'm not stuck in my dorm room, and I want something I can write my papers on and such, but I also want something I can use to play games to pass the time and whatnot. Any suggestions? Experiences? Recommendations?

Get a Pentium M if your going for a laptop, its worth it.

Playing games in higher education shold not be a priority.

I wold say get a computer that will not put a strain in your economical situation, but for running word processors and sutch you do not need any sort of speed deamon.

Faram wrote:Playing games in higher education shold not be a priority.

I wold say get a computer that will not put a strain in your economical situation, but for running word processors and sutch you do not need any sort of speed deamon.

It's not, but I'm going to have this thing for four years and I don't want to be restricted to only writing Word docs., I want to be able to listen to music, watch movies, play games, ect. when I have time from work, friends, ect.

If you want to multi-task then a dual core is very fast, if you want to concentrate on games than an AMD athlon is probably best.

Given the price of high-performance laptops, it would probably be cheaper to get a desktop and a midrange laptop than to get a laptop that's powerful enough for gaming.

Keep in mind that a laptop is prone to being stolen. I'm not saying it will happen, but it could happen.

If you get a high-performance laptop, you are not going to want to lug it around, because truly high-performance laptops are big and heavy. Furthermore, it's not likely to have a great battery life. And it won't be much good for use on your lap because it's going to be pretty warm.

And, to be blunt, you're not going to bring your laptop to class to take notes. I've seen a grand total of maybe four people who have ever done so, and they usually aren't getting nearly as much down as others around them with pen and paper. Maybe if you had a tablet laptop, but again, you're probably not getting high-performance there.

Laptops are also very limited in terms of upgrades. It will not have nearly the staying power of a desktop... and once it finally becomes obsolete, you can't keep your old laptop's screen or hard drive to save on upgrade costs.

If you're really married to the idea of having a laptop so you can have word processing and what-have-you on the road, don't bother getting a hot gaming rig, because it will not stay viable as a gaming rig for four years.

Just about any laptop you buy new (and even a lot of used ones) will do music/video/office apps/light gaming just fine. If you're committed to playing PC games, invest in a desktop, and if you must, get a cheap laptop. Otherwise, I strongly recommend getting a high-quality, reliable, and portable laptop (so that you can actually take it places if you want to).

I'd personally go with a Mac (because OS X rocks) but if you have to have a PC, Pentium M (the only good Intel product) is the only way to go.

Celerons are too hot AND pathetically slow, Pentium 4's are way too hot, etc. Pentium M is the perfect mobile processor; even Apple is switching to Intel for it.

And a Mac laptop is one of the more stupid ideas I've seen. There is a reason Apple is switching from PPC to intel for the laptops first.

the .303 bookworm wrote:If you want to multi-task then a dual core is very fast, if you want to concentrate on games than an AMD athlon is probably best.

For lots of multitasking ram is what you need, not more CPUs.

ggs wrote:

the .303 bookworm wrote:If you want to multi-task then a dual core is very fast, if you want to concentrate on games than an AMD athlon is probably best.

For lots of multitasking ram is what you need, not more CPUs.

I know that , for tasks involving multiple thread or processes at the same time (compressing an archive while watching a movie) dual cores are faster, Ram lets you work on multiple tasks faster with better performance but dual core lets you do multiple tasks at the same time without losing performance also some rendering programs may have support for dual core threading but i'm not sureabout that.

The biggest preformance loss is when the OS needs to read/write to disk. Which is hidiously easy to hit when you have a bunch of memory intensive applications running.

the .303 bookworm wrote:I know that , for tasks involving multiple thread or processes at the same time (compressing an archive while watching a movie) dual cores are faster, Ram lets you work on multiple tasks faster with better performance but dual core lets you do multiple tasks at the same time without losing performance also some rendering programs may have support for dual core threading but i'm not sureabout that.

At this point, unless you're a professional that truly needs the very best hardware, dual-core chips are firmly in the "e-penis" price range.

Uraniun235 wrote: Just about any laptop you buy new (and even a lot of used ones) will do music/video/office apps/light gaming just fine. If you're committed to playing PC games, invest in a desktop, and if you must, get a cheap laptop. Otherwise, I strongly recommend getting a high-quality, reliable, and portable laptop (so that you can actually take it places if you want to).

That's what I'm looking for. I don't want a sweet-ass gaming rig (if I did I would get a PC ) but I don't want to spend a couple hundred on a mobile word processor; I want to be able to actually use it for something besides writing down the notes I took that day. Are there any specific brands or models that you would recommend, or are they all pretty much the same? (searching for something below $1000)

It's funny, I'm in almost the same boat as you, and I literally just got back from CompUSA with my purchase. I bought a desktop, not a laptop, but what you're aiming at fits the specifications perfectly. If you're still interested, it's here.

Basically, it's the 'high-end' of the cheapo EMachines. You've got enough memory and a suitable graphics card, so you can play games. At the same time, it's one of the cheaper models around.

Just an idea.

The most economic alternative is not to plan for modern games in the first place. Get yourself something with a word processor like OpenOffice or Word, and then get budgety but good games like Master of Orion 2 and the like. You can have a surprising amount of fun without going for what's currently considered fast.