Laptop for college
Soon I will be heading off to college and have decided that a laptop would be one of my smarter purchases. I really have never ventured outside of the desktop market and was wondering if anyone had any opinions on a good/cheap brand or model of laptop. I have done some research and of course i knew about dell, hp, gateway, sony(expensive), ect. I was curious about the brand Averatec just becuase their prices are so much lower. Anyone with any opinions on laptops I would sure appreciate hearing them. Thanks
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I literally JUST bought a laptop for college, and spent a good 10 hours doing research on all different models and types before I did. I'll need some information on what you're planning on doing with it, first.
When I was deciding, all I really had to focus on was that I was going to use it primarily for notetaking and surfing the web, it had to hold a charge for more than 3 hours, and could be easy to travel with. Minimal gaming, as my desktop is used for that (also at school.)
If you're going to go that route, I picked up a Compaq v2000z online, custom built, for $733 w/ free shipping from www.hpshopping.com. Its a system that was right in my budget, and had the added bonus of a processor that wouldn't chew up my battery life, a Turon ML-34. I'll get ~4.5 hour charge on the model, which is more than enough to make it through my plane rides to and from home, and my classes during the day.
One place to start is notebookforums.com and notebookreview.com. Both have plenty of information, reviews, tips, guides, etc. to get you started, trust me.
So, desktop replacement or portable workhorse, I should be able to point you in the right direction. Spending all that time looking for the perfect laptop and I know pretty much more than anyone would WANT to know about buying one.
I just have no experience with laptops cuz i have built all of my previous desktops. Nights what were the specs of your laptop?
If you want battery life, you're going to be looking at a Pentium-M or a Turon based processor and chipset. After reading about them, I basically derived that Celeron processors are Pentium-M's that run 100% all the time, meaning they won't save battery life and use all they can no matter what. Both the Pentium-M and Turon run slower than they need to when not being utilized to their full capacity (you don't need to run 100% if you're watching a DVD, for example.) Currently, P-M's are 32bit.
With the Turon, there are 2 important things you want to know. The higher the SECOND number (32, 34, etc) the more powerful the processor. Pretty straight forward, but it gets worse. A MT-xx processor does a better job of an ML-xx processor at keeping a charge. Unfortunately, MT's appear to be hard to come by, so you'll most likely be dealing with ML's. Luckily, there are only ML-xx and MT-xx processors to date, so its simple in that sense.
As always, AMD's are cheaper. However, the P-M does a slightly better job keeping its charge over the AMD. What it came down to for me was that (as always) dollar per dollar, the AMD would win out because its nearly as good and ~100 cheaper everywhere.
Ram: 256 Megs
Easy one here, its always cheaper to upgrade ram yourself later on down the line. Myself, I ordered a 512 meg stick from www.newegg.com for $10 cheaper than the hpshopping config. Better still, since I have the 256 in there, I can devote that solely to the X200 integrated GPU and leave the extra 512Megs for the computer itself. (I'll get to the X200 later)
Hard Drive: 40gig 4200rpm
3 flavors here, 4200rpm, 5400rpm, and 7200rpm. I chose 4200 because all I will really be running on this is firefox, office, and random programs to aide in notetaking. Load times on those are negligable, I can wait an extra second before having to start actually paying attention in class
For general purposes, 5400 might be the way to go. Its the sweet spot for price and performance.
7200 I really wouldn't honestly bother with unless I would be gaming on the laptop and planning for the future.
Screen Size: 14'' WXGA w/truebrite (1280x786)
Christ, this was confusing for me. I'm just going to give you this advice - for the desk you're sitting at in a college classroom, 14 inches is almost too big. Keep that in mind when you're looking at which to buy. 15.4 is the new standard, mainly because it offers widescreen viewing for DVD's, which everyone drools over. XGA, WXGA, WSXGA, etc...all that you're going to have to find on the two websites I suggested above, it gives an EXCELLENT breakdown of the resolution size per each lettering acronym.
The Truebrite I got basically is like a casing over the screen itself, making the pictures displayed much more vibrant. Colors tend to show up better on it, I've read, and DVD's look stunning with it, think CRT-esque. It was only $25 more from hpshopping, and cut my build time down by an entire month...so what the hell. :thumbup
Basically, XGA is 1024x768 resolution. A "W" before that means widescreen, so you can see, my native resolution will be 1280x768 for all intensive purposes, handy when keeping multiple windows open on a relatively small screen.
Drives: 8x DVD
They allow you to add anything you want as far as drives go. For myself, I had no need sticking a CD or DVD burner in, I have one in my desktop. There was no need to spend the money on this. Regardless, most drives in laptops are modual, meaning they can be taken out and replaced with one you buy from newegg.com, for example.
Wireless internet: Yes
Pretty important for a classroom, allows me to browse collegehumor.com when I should be paying attention
Battery: 12 Cell
Compaq and HP comes in 6 or 12 cell. Larger is longer-lasting, obviously. Dells come with all types, 6, 8, 10, 12. Each retailer is different. Not much else to say here, can be bought from online retailers as well if upgrading. Sticking a 75 cell battery in a laptop is a bad idea, from what I've heard. Wonder why.
Video: X200 128megs shared w/6-1 productivity ports
Okay, you can literally write a book on this subject, its right up there with screen size. Since you're not gaming (thank God, this makes explaining that much easier) all you have to worry about is what integrated GPU you want.
Basically, if you go AMD, you have an X200 chipset. If you go P-M, you have GMA900 chipset. X200 trumps GMA900 as far as gaming goes. You can play a lot of newer games on it (FarCry and Doom 3,) they won't be pretty, but they're playable.
Each has the option of 32 megs, or 128 megs of shared RAM. Now, this is the tricky part. Intel's GMA will only take the amount that it needs, when it needs it. The X200 will take 128 (and 256 if you want it to) all the time, meaning it is stealing the "shared" RAM from the rest of the computer (configurable in the BIOS.) It is this reason why I'm buying a 512 stick to add to the computer, it allows me to operate with 768, and after subtracting the 128 I'll devote to the GPU alone, still have more than enough to keep myself operating happily.
So, when it came down to it, my train of thought was this. I wanted a 14 inch screen, I had used my girlfriend's Powerbook in class to take notes which had the same screen size. It was quite large and almost too much for the desk, therefore, 15 and 15.4 screens were not an option for the classroom. I didn't want to strictly game on it, I have my desktop for that. However, if I was choosing between the two (GMA or X200) I was going to go with the one that supported my older and relatively new games well enough for me to play on a plane or something. X200 was the obvious choice. Battery life was key, which crossed off the Celeron, Athlon 64 mobile, Athlon 64, and Sempron processors. They chewed up too much too quickly. P-M's are great, but more expensive, and I wanted the X200 anyway. Turon was the winner. My hard drive didn't need to be cutting edge, load times in BF2 wouldn't be happening, so I grabbed the cheapest that would get me by, 40gigs. All that will be installed on it is the OS, Office, chat clients, browsers, some music, and one or two pre-2004 games (not the new ones that take 12 Gigs each
What I got was a laptop that is both powerful and portable enough to bring to class but have enough juice to provide some entertainment if I was away from my dorm room.
I hope this was helpful, and I know you're going to have questions, so don't be afraid to ask. Let me know what type of budget you're working with and I can give you some options. Manufacturer's make a 12.1'' screen, as well as a 17'' widescreen, for starters. You're not just limited to 14, 14.1, 15, or 15.4.
For more info on laptop graphics, read here:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,1409455,00.asp
A battery saving laptop under $800? :hitit2:
You can try navigating the websites themselves, search for "University" or "Student" and see what pops up. The College or University's bookstore should also have a code for the individual company for use on instore purchases or over the phone.
I wouldn't go anywhere else. Awesome prices, awesome customer service.
True, but I've had better luck viewing things on my friend's VAIO w/cover than with my girlfriend's powerbook without in sunlight. *shrugs Whatever works for me, I'm happy I got to try out a variety of options before purchasing.
Just checked my order status, shipped this morning direct from Shanghai and its expected due date is the 13th at 10:30AM :wow2: They finished building it early and should get it here WELL before they projected it would.
Ordered on the 4th, it wasn't expected to be built until the 13th. So far so good!