Best Laptop for College Student?

[itznfb]

if you're using this for photography, as i said before, at least go to the store and compare the screens that come on each model. the HPs that i've used have terrible screens, and are completely useless in working with photos.

in my experience Dell has the best monitors with the most accurate color. out of the box my Studio needed no color calibration. at least to my eye it matched my calibrated monitor perfectly.

 

[bigtwinky]

My wife has had an Dell Inspiron for a little over a year and no issues. It works fine, she is very happy with it. A few more people I know have Dells and say they are ok.

It was stated above to get as much RAM as possible. While in theory this sounds nice, you need to make sure how much RAM your Operating System will work with. From memory, both Windows XP and the 32bit Windows Vista will support just below 4gigs of ram (I'm thinking 3.8?). So putting in 8gigs of ram in a Windows Vista 32bit is pointless.

You need to get Windows Vista 64bit if you want to use more than 4gig of ram in there.

And I agree with Dell screens. I upgraded my wife's screen when she bought it and the colours are amazing. She is into graphic design and web page creation, so she needed something good and it was a great purchase.

 

[JamieR]

Go for a Mac if you can, I've had my Macbook Pro for 2 years now and had no problems with it.

I owned a Toshiba laptop beforehand, i can tell you, i will never go back to using PC's now I've had a Mac.

Macs a renown for being THE crème de la crème with the use editing software, they run with no glitches, virus's are highly unlikely, and the OS is made by Apple, where as with PC's, the OS is made by Microsoft, which can cause problems.

 

[itznfb]

Macs a renown for being THE crème de la crème with the use editing software, they run with no glitches, virus's are highly unlikely, and the OS is made by Apple, where as with PC's, the OS is made by Microsoft, which can cause problems.

this is nothing more than a misconception and marketing gimmick. the current version of Photoshop doesn't even exist for Mac in 64 bit. and it performs exponentially better running in 64 bit.

IBM or Dell would be the OPs best bet. if you can find an IBM with a nice glossy screen. however, my Dells have lasted years beyond any IBM i've used.

 

[CW Jones]

Go to the Lenovo site and look to there warehouse or whatever its called. They are brand new laptops that were custom built but the customer simply never ended up taking them for whatever reason. hell you can get a T series built very well for under $900. I have been pricing them out through there as well. 2.9GHz processor with 1-2GB chip and you can add a second to get to 4GB for very cheap. they tend to run very well and are very easy to fix.

 

[itznfb]

you might want to consider Asus as well.

 

[Mystwalker]

$2000 is your budget? That is HUGE!!! You can get top of line machine for anything but games on max resolution.

I do not have CS3, but if it's anything like the old Photoshops, it will take every bit of memory you have and still need more.

Unless you get a 64bit OS (Vista 64Bit), your machine will only recognize around 3MB of RAM. If you get 64bit, the most RAM I've seen on a notebook is 8MB on an upgrade Lenovo T500 ... I am sure Dell also have them, I'm just not a "Dell fan". This 8MB will cost you upwards of $800 (EXPENSIVE!!) and machine will be in the $1900 range. This is with a graphic card that shares system memory - not ideal, but discrete gfx will take you over $2K.

"imo" - this is way overkill - you can get a very good system with 3MB (Vista Home Premium) for easily under $1K - make sure it's a Core 2 Duo CPU (8400, 8600) - again, I'm thinking Lenovo (R500 series). Spend the other $1000 on a new lens

 

[manaheim]

Go for a Mac if you can, I've had my Macbook Pro for 2 years now and had no problems with it.

I owned a Toshiba laptop beforehand, i can tell you, i will never go back to using PC's now I've had a Mac.

Macs a renown for being THE crème de la crème with the use editing software, they run with no glitches, virus's are highly unlikely, and the OS is made by Apple, where as with PC's, the OS is made by Microsoft, which can cause problems.

Oh here we go...

Someone has to do it... eeeeeeevery time.

 

[ArizonaSun]

This 8MB will cost you upwards of $800 (EXPENSIVE!!)

"imo" - this is way overkill - you can get a very good system with 3MB new

:er:
hehehe this isn't the 1980's


j/k I know you meant GB

ABout the Mac thing, If a person really had to run the Mac OS, I would just buy an HP laptop and then run Mac in VM ware, or run Free BSD.

About that PC and virus thing, I think in the past 7 or so years, I have only had maybe one or two viruses, and they were weak ones.

As long as you don't click on garbage, and you have a good anti virus and firewall you should be ok.

Does Mac regularly updates its security? Or are they banking on that it won't get hacked?

I like VM ware, I ran Linux, DOS, and windows 7 on it.

 

[CW Jones]

1980's? hell thats like the 60's haha

I agree that the reason macs run better with less memory is because of there OS. its a much smoother system. my sisters MAC book with 1GB of RAM is fast than my Dell with 3GB of RAM lol yes I know lots of other things factor in.

If your doing IBM I would stick with the T series for there aluminum cases vs plastic cases, much more durable! I believe the T series is the only one that has that style of case (someone correct me if I am wrong)

 

[SrBiscuit]

spend a grand on a nice HP, the other grand goes toward photography equipment.
duh.

i have an HP DV series from about 4 years ago...i abuse the hell out of it.
it runs like a champ. i can multitask pshop, premiere, and whatever else with no issues.
HP price point is nice too.
wife has a dell xps from about 4 years ago...also runs like a champ (most of what she does is surfing, itunes, and video editing).

go PC and save your money.

 

[JamieR]

Go for a Mac if you can, I've had my Macbook Pro for 2 years now and had no problems with it.

I owned a Toshiba laptop beforehand, i can tell you, i will never go back to using PC's now I've had a Mac.

Macs a renown for being THE crème de la crème with the use editing software, they run with no glitches, virus's are highly unlikely, and the OS is made by Apple, where as with PC's, the OS is made by Microsoft, which can cause problems.

Oh here we go...

Someone has to do it... eeeeeeevery time.

Mac Forever

 

[bigtwinky]

I hear that if you buy a Mac, the machine will start up on its own while you are sleeping, get out of the house, and eat babies

 

[blash]

Macs aren't worth the premium. Right now, Photoshop does not run in 64-bit on Macs as previously stated so PC's have a rather extraordinary performance benefit over Macs. You also will not suffer from viruses so long as you use some common sense, keep in mind Macs will not protect you from social engineering attacks like phishing attacks. People would rather lean on the crutch that is OS X than learn safe behavior on the internet, and will pay for it as that crutch gets weaker and weaker every year that OS X's market share goes up and the likelihood of more attacks against OS X goes up with it.

Keep in mind, you want to have money left over to buy a nice Wacom tablet. Ideally you'd get a $1,000 PC and a $1,000 12" Cintiq (draw right on the screen, this is INVALUABLE), but you may have to settle for an Intuos or Bamboo.

Both Dell and HP in my experience suffer significant quality problems in the long term in either the case or the components. I have had ZERO problems from Lenovo because they know how to engineer a machine without cutting corners.

Buy your memory upgrade from a third-party source (Newegg.com). Pretty much everyone will want $100+ for the upgrade while Newegg will charge you $40 including shipping for something you will snap together in 5 minutes.

Pricing out the discrete graphics base T400 with an upgraded 9-cell battery is $949 without a student discount, and should offer good enough power for what you want to do. Combined with a Cintiq and you have one hell of a set-up.

 

[FitzTML]

1. Find out what your college recommends.
2. Get an extended warranty!
3. Buy software through your school, it will be cheaper. (I can get CS/4 Master collection for $560 vs $2,500 retail)

I work at a journalism school and we have a recommended laptop along with a list of minimum specs for people who don't want that particular laptop. Further, the university has an IT department with "baseline" and "power user" recommendations for students. Where I work we can only provide limited student support for their own laptops so getting a warranty is essential.