Hey everyone, I’m off to college and I am looking to purchase a new laptop. I really don’t know jack shit about computers, but i’ve done some research and talked to friends and I was just looking too see as to what your recommendations would be.
So far, I know that there are the daul core, i3, i5, and i7 processors, and that around 2-4 GB of RAM is good and around a 250 GB hard drive is decent. I will basically be using it for everyday stuff, writing papers, surfing the web, listening to music, etc. Nothing fancy. However, I would like something with a decent graphics card to play games on, so if anyone has any recommencdations it would be really appreciated.
Firstly, you can probably get a student discount depending on where you bought it (I’m on an HP I got discounted which I bought on their site).
Secondly, I personally don’t believe a laptop is ideal for gaming: laptops don’t have very good cooling systems, particularly if you get one with the kind of horsepower to run better games, so they overheat and lower performance. Secondly, having the keyboard right next to the screen also isn’t ideal. Further, get a full sized mouse. For shizzle. Also it may help to not get a wireless mouse so you don’t have to worry about batteries, but I digress.
Also, are you going to bring it to class to take notes? That can influence the size of the laptop you’re looking for…
Also, it may be important what your major is. Cuz if you’re going into engineering you may need to run CAD which is pretty hardware intensive, moreso than some games…
I bought an expensive dell at the beginning of college, $2500ish, and it has served me well, that being said, I can’t take it to class or really “use” it of battery. And like Mouse said the shit gets fucking HOT, the fans are loud when playing any game. The only good thing was that a lot of the money that I paid was for warranty, which came in handy when one of my jackass friends spilled on it and literally destroyed it. The warranty got my shit fixed in like 2 days, so pretty worth it.
Now looking back, I would look in to dell, for the warranty, or honestly a Macbook is a pretty solid deal for college students. you get a free ipod and most colleges have a deal that gets you like 100 off, and you can use windows on it if you are more comfortable with it, which you should be able to get for free from your college. I’m thinking that a mac will be my next purchase.
Check www.slickdeals.net daily. They link to other websites with great deals. The absolute minimum you should get is 2 GB ram. I’d get 4 GB if I were you. I’m a network engineer at a college so I see first hand what these students bring in during move in time in the fall. The ones with 1GB ram always end up with problems once a few programs get loaded on them. As far as batteries go , spend the extra cash and get a 9 cell battery when you’re ordering it. Makes a huge difference. Stay away from 6 cell batteries because they are crap. I’ve personally had good luck with Dell’s. My friends and colleagues love Toshiba’s. Another thing that is a must for me, would be a HDMI port. This way in the future, you can hook the laptop into a LCD or plasma TV and have nice quality video on it. Keep in mind you’ll need at least a decent video card to get nice HD video out to the LCD TV.
I don’t know much about gaming but I do know if you’re going to get a high end video card, it’s going to add a shitload to the price of the laptop. You wanna play games, get a PS3 lol. On video cards, I wouldn’t get anything less than a 256MB card.
While I typically don’t recommend this, I’d get a basic 13" Macbook and be done with it.
If you want Windows, then go to Best Buy and play around with the laptops they have on display. Find one you think is the right size/comfortable keyboard and it will be able to do the things you want (unless you’re looking to play big intensive games, in which case, just get a desktop and supplement with a netbook).
I want the system I just spec’d out for a customer.
9 clustered Dell PowerEdge R710’s each with 48GB RAM (6x8GB), 1066MHz Dual Ranked RDIMMs for 2 Processors. Chip in each is X5570 Xeon Processor “Nehalem”, 2.93GHz 8M Cache,Turbo, HT, 1333MHz.
Thanks for the responses everyone! I am an integrative physiology/pre-med major, so it wont need to support any crazy engineering programs. Also, as far as gaming goes, i’m really not an avid computer gamer (I love my xbox 360), but I was thinking of picking up the new starcraft lol. I’ve never used a mac, so i’m not really sure what to do there…oh well, the search continues!
[quote]The Greek wrote:
Hey everyone, I’m off to college and I am looking to purchase a new laptop. I really don’t know jack shit about computers, but i’ve done some research and talked to friends and I was just looking too see as to what your recommendations would be.
So far, I know that there are the daul core, i3, i5, and i7 processors, and that around 2-4 GB of RAM is good and around a 250 GB hard drive is decent. I will basically be using it for everyday stuff, writing papers, surfing the web, listening to music, etc. Nothing fancy.
However, I would like something with a decent graphics card to play games on, so if anyone has any recommencdations it would be really appreciated.
Note: I am looking to spend around a grand.
[/quote]
[quote]The Greek wrote:
can someone explain what the processor speed/GH is? Is there a difference between a daul core 2.4 GH processor vs. an i5 2.4 GH processor?[/quote]
AS A COMPUTER SCIENCE MAJOR… lol, well, dual core = 2 processors in parallel, 2.4 gHz processor = 1 processor. 2 processors is bettar.
Anything that uses a core 2 is old(er) as intel has moved on to the i series, which as use less power and space (45nm to 32nm for the i5) to do the same thing. all of the i series is at least dual core.
[quote]The Greek wrote:
Hey everyone, I’m off to college and I am looking to purchase a new laptop. I really don’t know jack shit about computers, but i’ve done some research and talked to friends and I was just looking too see as to what your recommendations would be.
So far, I know that there are the daul core, i3, i5, and i7 processors, and that around 2-4 GB of RAM is good and around a 250 GB hard drive is decent. I will basically be using it for everyday stuff, writing papers, surfing the web, listening to music, etc. Nothing fancy. However, I would like something with a decent graphics card to play games on, so if anyone has any recommencdations it would be really appreciated.
Note: I am looking to spend around a grand.
[/quote]
either one of those will play almost any game out right now at max settings including starcraft 2
[/quote]
I was just about to send you the first link. I would whole heartedly recommend it. An i7 might not be necessary, so if you want to save even a little bit more money, you could check out the i5 version of the same laptop.
The laptop audiogarden1 recommended is also excellent, and you could get it $50 cheaper here:
Reviews on both laptops are excellent. Hope this helps!
[quote]The Greek wrote:
can someone explain what the processor speed/GH is? Is there a difference between a daul core 2.4 GH processor vs. an i5 2.4 GH processor?[/quote]
AS A COMPUTER SCIENCE MAJOR… lol, well, dual core = 2 processors in parallel, 2.4 gHz processor = 1 processor. 2 processors is bettar.
To take advantage of dual processing, both the O/S and the software must be written to specifically do so. In other words, the dual processing is not optimized unless the OS and software are designed to take advantage.
Ibuypower.com fucking sucks. I purchased a $1.2k system from them and then shipped it to me broken! They didn’t even have the CD rom plugged in or installed and I got fatal errors as soon as I started the computer and was prompted to contact the manufacturer because there was hardware damage.
I couldn’t even get in contact with their customer service reps after trying for weeks and I had to eventually have the credit card company dispute the charge and threaten to sue. Only then did ibuypower email me shipping stamps and I returned the comp for a full refund. 6 weeks of nothing but a hassle. Pissed me off.
Now I’m still using my 10 yr old alien because I’m too fed up to worry about building another desktop.
Way, just do your research on compatibility and build your own from newegg.com. There are plenty of popular guides out there with pictures, just find 1-2 that seem the best (and most popular in Google) and get to work. I built my own about a year ago. It took me a full day and my lower back killed, but it worked after a couple of snafu’s.
Honestly, it sounds like you’d be happy with a 2.0+ dual core, 4 gb ram, an nvidia 9800+, 320 gigs on 7200 rpm (movies and music will eat it up) with a 15.4" screen. It’s small enough so you can lug it around, but you can still enjoy movies and stuff on it on the go.
anything over a nvidia 9800 gt will more than take care of any low to mid level gaming. You can def get this for less that a grand on newegg. And without this turning into a pc vs mac debate, don’t get a mac.
[quote]The Greek wrote:
can someone explain what the processor speed/GH is? Is there a difference between a daul core 2.4 GH processor vs. an i5 2.4 GH processor?[/quote]
AS A COMPUTER SCIENCE MAJOR… lol, well, dual core = 2 processors in parallel, 2.4 gHz processor = 1 processor. 2 processors is bettar.
To take advantage of dual processing, both the O/S and the software must be written to specifically do so. In other words, the dual processing is not optimized unless the OS and software are designed to take advantage.[/quote]
I was aware of that, but I figured nowadays plenty of programs would be able to take advantage of that. I’m probably wrong, of course, as that kind of programming is hard.