Well I'm going to college.....so time to ditch my trusty desktop and get a laptop. So whats a good kind for college? Price isn't much of a concern, as long as it isn't too high.
oh and Mac or PC?
Quote from: Echo on July 06, 2009, 11:59:55 PM
Well I'm going to college.....so time to ditch my trusty desktop and get a laptop. So whats a good kind for college? Price isn't much of a concern, as long as it isn't too high.
oh and Mac or PC?
If you have games, you don't even need to ask Mac or PC.
I need a few more specifics if you want anything but general recommendations, but generally good advice:
Operating system:
-Different colleges have different ways of connecting their students to their campus network. Some require domain-based networking or other nuances which may force you to upgrade to Vista Business. Call them in advance to figure out if Home Premium is OK or not.
-Most laptop manufacturers are allowing you to upgrade to Windows 7 free now, so don't worry about Vista.
CPU:
-As much as I like AMD, their mobile CPUs kinda suck (Turion Ultra X2s are the one exception). Get an Intel Core 2 Duo that's in the E6000 series. If you're a power user, the E7000s might be worthwhile. Intel loves overcharging people on their high end stuff, so I wouldn't get the E8000 or E9000 series just to experience minor performance gains. Most applications rely on the CPU aren't very intensive, anyway; GPU is much more important for intensive apps like video encoding and gaming.
Memory:
-Very few companies allow you to put 3gb of memory in a notebook; therefore I would go with a 64-bit edition of Vista with 4gb of memory; 2gb isn't much of anything these days.
Graphics card:
-Graphics cards aren't as good and are more expensive on laptops; be prepared to play a premium if you want to do any kind of high-res gaming. If you'd like to play recent games (Oblivion, Fallout, GTA, etc.) on mostly medium settings (with a couple lows in things like lighting), you'll want at least a Nvidia 9600M or a ATI Mobility Radeon HD4670. If you don't game, a basic discrete card will be enough to support Aero and play movies.
Don't even consider getting Intel GMA or another integrated option.Hard drive:
-Beware of 5400 RPM hard drives; they'll slow down everything from boot time to pulling up an application. Make sure that you've got a 7200 RPM drive. How big depends on what kind of user you are; I'm just fine with a 250 gb drive, but if you're a torrent nut, you might want something bigger. Keep in mind you can also get an external hard drive later.
Other:
-Network cards supporting wireless n-protocol (most also support the older b and g protocols) have gone down dramatically in price (Dell and HP charge $25 to install one), and many colleges support fast networks now. You might consider getting one.
PY, the first "Hard drive" category I think is supposed to be memory/RAM
Maybe I'll post one's I find...
thanks....I'm not really computer savvy but I think I understand all that lol. I don't use my computer for gaming and I don't torrent stuff either, so I'll just skip over all those parts.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220520
5 eggs, top seller, may be more than what you need but I would think it would last a long time.
PY seems like he knows a lot, this should be good, no?
I would get it myself, but I don't want someone to buy it and find out it's poop and it being my fault :(
I think I've posted the one I'm getting around here somewhere, but its more of a desktop replacement than a laptop, even though its technically still one. Its 1200 base price, and upping the graphics card froma 9600M to a GT 130 is a extra 100.
Quote from: Ryu on July 07, 2009, 12:06:20 PM
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220520
5 eggs, top seller, may be more than what you need but I would think it would last a long time.
PY seems like he knows a lot, this should be good, no?
I would get it myself, but I don't want someone to buy it and find out it's poop and it being my fault :(
Good aside from the slow hard drive.
Look on Newegg.
Make sure it has an E7000 Core 2 Duo
3-4 gigs of ram
Mac had the better operating system IMO
Quote from: ombsz on July 08, 2009, 06:03:06 PM
Mac had the better operating system IMO
you CAN install OSX on a non mac system ;D
Quote from: Psilocybin on July 08, 2009, 09:52:42 PM
you CAN install OSX on a non mac system ;D
Not legally :P