Best Laptop for College Student?

[Mtalicarox]

I know you want to stick with a PC, but I would suggest getting a used MacBook Pro or a new MacBook. You can dual boot it and have the best of both worlds -- and when your using MacOS, the internet is a better experience.. No worry about viruses, spyware, adware, etc.. (at least, not yet)

Can't go wrong IMHO.

yeah except for the fact it's a mac. that's wrong right there... and the internets a great experience on a PC... on a mac - go right click and do a save as.. oh wait.. you cant.

to the original poster - check out dell - you can buy a decent laptop for around 1100 with all the basic stuff you need... then you can just add onto it. But get 64 bit vista if you want so you can get more than 3 gigs of ram on it. You can also buy a 1 or 2 TB HD and put it in an enclosure for storage space... I actually have 2 of those myself and I back everything up on them.

 

[CW Jones]

UM actually you CAN have a right click with a mac.... I have done it 1000's of times before. you just need to know how to set it.

 

[Mtalicarox]

UM actually you CAN have a right click with a mac.... I have done it 1000's of times before. you just need to know how to set it.

need to know how to set it? i thuoght "It just works"... bahaha. i'd never go mac. then again I know how to build and properly use PC's... so thered be no reason to downgrade for me.

 

[manaheim]

Ok can I suggest everyone not do the "Mac sucks" / "PC sucks" thing?

They both have pros and cons and are both absolutely viable platforms.

A decision for what to buy should boil down exclusively to:

1. Budget
2. Does platform X have the software you need?
3. Does whereever you are going (like your school) have a particular recommendation? (you should ABSOLUTELY go with these recommendations)
4. Personal preference

That's it. Now everyone behave, please, or I'll start yelling AMIGA RULZZZ!

 

[pplsearch]

I still don't have a laptop, but a friend of mine has had good experiences with her HP. She got hers at a really good price, I want to say ~$400-$500 but I'm not sure. Anyway, she bought it during the fall I believe, when prices drop down.

 

[CW Jones]

UM actually you CAN have a right click with a mac.... I have done it 1000's of times before. you just need to know how to set it.

need to know how to set it? i thuoght "It just works"... bahaha. i'd never go mac. then again I know how to build and properly use PC's... so thered be no reason to downgrade for me.

well I guess its all how you see it then. everyone is going to see it differently. I am on the fence about which is better. I have built both and have run both MAC and PC for about 3 years now and each have there weak points and "selling points" if you will

its like the debate between Canon and Nikon, I-Pod or Zune lol the debate will go on and on forever. the point... she said she wanted a PC so thats what she'll get :thumbup:

 

[Do'Urden's Eyes]

I've run my dell perfectly for 3 years so far. The only issue i had was the battery being shiitty. I think i got the better generation for build quality, but it runs my photo shop and light room smoothly. Its all about how you maintain your PC, regular scans, virus protection,and be careful what/where you download from and you shouldn't have many problems.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

I would actually recommend getting a desktop, if you're in a dorm, theft is less likely. And you can build a sick desktop for 2 grand.

 

[fotoflair]

As you know, the tech industry has been transitioning to 64-bit. If you have a 32-bit OS then the max memory is 4GB. That is the RAM barrier. Is 64-bit Vista the way to go? Will it be faster or slower? Well, I'd think that the more RAM you have with a 64-bit processor in combination with 64-bit apps, it would be faster IMO.

With that said, I recommend 64-bit vista but remember that the max RAM you can have depends on the variant of Vista that you get. With the faster processor and more RAM, then one can be prepared for future changes in the industry.

An aside note,
I wish the tech industry would slow down so that Microsoft can catch up. Their OS's are way too buggy and bulky, and they need to slim down.

 

[blash]

I would actually recommend getting a desktop, if you're in a dorm, theft is less likely. And you can build a sick desktop for 2 grand.

If you have the budget, it's really beneficial to bring both a desktop and a laptop.

With a desktop, I can spec one out real nice, with a 24" screen, multiple terabytes of hard drive space, a nice fast graphics card, etc. This is my gaming/entertainment computer.

Now that that's out of the way, I can get a laptop that's just for school work, allowing me to get a machine that's light with great battery life instead of having to compromise with a desktop replacement -> get a Tablet PC, which is not just great for but the best for class and taking notes but not for games.

Do keep in mind, you shouldn't go to college with just a desktop anymore. Fact is, people get together in study halls or otherwise outside their rooms in general if to do nothing else than writing essays. It's much more conducive for a lot of people to work outside their rooms and the associated distracting elements. Also, with a laptop you cannot and will not lose any notes that you make for class - you can't lug your desktop with you to class.

 

[itznfb]

An aside note,
I wish the tech industry would slow down so that Microsoft can catch up. Their OS's are way too buggy and bulky, and they need to slim down.

i personally don't feel this way. I love Vista... however; for anyone that does think this... they obviously haven't used the Windows 7 RC. i've been running Windows 7 since January and it is incredibly fast and lightweight. especially CS4 64bit.

 

[fotoflair]

An aside note,
I wish the tech industry would slow down so that Microsoft can catch up. Their OS's are way too buggy and bulky, and they need to slim down.

i personally don't feel this way. I love Vista... however; for anyone that does think this... they obviously haven't used the Windows 7 RC. i've been running Windows 7 since January and it is incredibly fast and lightweight. especially CS4 64bit.

I like Vista as well. And I've liked all of their OS's over the years with the exception of Win 3.1x and earlier (so I was a DOS person). But it just seems like their OS's are released and they have bug fix after bug fix. Then when they finally get it right, it's time to release yet another OS. And they get bigger and bigger.

It's just my opinion. YMMV....

 

[ArizonaSun]

Well whatever laptop you get just make sure you treat right and give it the ventilation it needs and should last many years.

I wonder how many times that peoples' story, they are like "my crappy laptop only last 8 months and started having problems". And like the whole time its been running on top of pillows and blankets and left hot in cars and such. And then wonder why hp, dell or whatever can't build a quality laptop.

 

[manaheim]

AMIGA RULZ!!!

 

[TWoods450]

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.

For a forum that is so proper in using licensed software ya might wanna check with the EULA for the Mac OSX, running OSX on anything other than apple built hardware violates that agreement.

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.

I personally have a MacBook Pro which if you had the money to drop on it I would say 100% buy that, but the recommendation of the Lenovo T400 is a great one, I work in the IT field and have setup a lot of these, they are very quick, solid built machines, This is good advice in my opinion.

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.

More great advice, the school should suggest a min spec for any computer that you may get, be sure you at least meet those specs.

UM actually you CAN have a right click with a mac.... I have done it 1000's of times before. you just need to know how to set it.

in Mac OSX hold CTRL when clicking or put two fingers on the touchpad and click, easy enough nothing needs to be set. Oh or use a PC mouse, thats what I do.
If running in windows on the mac two fingers on the touchpad and click = right click.... easy enough huh.

UM actually you CAN have a right click with a mac.... I have done it 1000's of times before. you just need to know how to set it.

need to know how to set it? i thuoght "It just works"... bahaha. i'd never go mac. then again I know how to build and properly use PC's... so thered be no reason to downgrade for me.

read above... it does.