Purchasing a laptop

[Vampire]

So my high school years are nearly over and now I'm preparing for college. I need to buy a new laptop since I can't bring my desktop to the university so my sister decided to buy a laptop from a coupon she just received. However, we don't know what's a good deal or not since both of us aren't PC geeks and know nothing about it.
Should I buy any of the first two selections below or can anyone tell me what to look for or a good deal online?

Spoiler for Coupon:

[SeijiSensei]

The first one is a "netbook" which is probably not what you want as your only computer unless you add a monitor and perhaps a wireless keyboard and mouse to use it as a desktop machine as well. The Inspiron deal doesn't look all that great compared to what you can buy at Dell without the deal. This item: http://www.dell.com/content/topics/s...dhs&redirect=1 is the equivalent Inspiron but without the add-ons like McAfee and Lojack.

I'm writing this on a four-year-old Inspiron 640m that I bought for my daughter when she started high school. We've never had any problems with this machine, and my daughter will probably take it with her to college in the fall. I did replace the 80 GB hard drive with a 250 GB drive, but other than perhaps adding more memory, there's little else she'd need for college.

Oh, she's running Kubuntu Linux 9.10 on this machine with nary a problem.

[chikorita157]

I would stay away from Netbooks if you going to use it as a main computer since they aren't suitable for longterm use because of the small screens, keyboards and trackpad. Also, the Dell Inspiron line from my experience from using them in the past had troubles. Inspiron 9100 tend to overheat alot because dust cakes up in the vents and the DVD having trouble reading discs, Inspiron 6000 overheating and hard drive crashing and the latest Dell XPS M1330 won't power on at all because of a motherboard failure. This is the same case with consumer computers, so if you are using the computer long term, a Business Class laptop such as the Thinkpads or Latitudes tend to held up better because they are better made although they tend to cost a little more than consumer models.

My suggestion is check with your college/university and what kind of computers they offer you. Most of the time, they will have discount on the laptops if you buy through the college or university.

[Claies]

Originally Posted by Vampire

So my high school years are nearly over and now I'm preparing for college. I need to buy a new laptop since I can't bring my desktop to the university so my sister decided to buy a laptop from a coupon she just received. However, we don't know what's a good deal or not since both of us aren't PC geeks and know nothing about it.
Should I buy any of the first two selections below or can anyone tell me what to look for or a good deal online?

Spoiler for Coupon:

Got enough cash for this?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220699

It's a damn good deal no matter how I look at it.

[0utf0xZer0]

I'd say until we find out the answers to the following, we're kind of making blind recommendations:
1) Do you plan to game on this notebook?
and
2) How long do you need the battery to last?

[mg1942]

Get corporate off-lease laptops such as Dell Latitude D430. That 12 inch ultra portable is rugged and lightweight. Right now they're priced the same as netbooks (if not lower). If you have extra money get solid state disk drive.

[synaesthetic]

Am I the only person in this forum who demands a decent GPU?

Bunch of consoletards!

[stefan231]

I would look at this one from Toshiba its a good price with nice specs for that price.
$749.00
FREE SHIPPING!

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/pdet.to?poid=478193

Processor*
Intel® Core™2 Duo Processor T6600
Operating System*
Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium (64-bit)
Memory*
4GB DDR2 800MHz memory
Display Size*
14.0" widescreen
Display Type*
HD TruBrite® LED Backlit Edge-to-Edge display (flush screen)
Display Resolution*
Supports 720p content, 1366x768 (HD)
Graphics Engine*
ATI® Mobility Radeon™ HD 4570
Graphics Memory*
512MB GDDR3
Hard Drive*
400GB HDD (5400rpm)
Optical Drives*
DVD-SuperMulti (+/-R double layer) with Labelflash™ drive supporting up to 11
Webcam and microphone built into LCD bezel
Wireless LAN*
Realtek® 802.11b/g/n wireless LAN
Bluetooth
Bluetooth® V2.1 + EDR
10/100/1000 Ethernet LAN
Audio
harman/kardon® stereo speakers, S/P DIF output port (shared with headphone port), Built-in microphone, Microphone jack (mono), Headphone jack (stereo)
AC Adapter
75W (19V 3.95A) Auto-sensing, 100-240V / 50-60Hz input
Battery
Li-Ion (3700mAh, 6-Cell)
Memory Card Reader
USB Ports*
2-USB (2.0), 1-eSATA/USB (2.0) combo port with Sleep and Charge
HDMI
HDMI-CEC output port
Starting at 5.18 lbs.
Color
Fusion® Finish with Sonic Pattern in Black Onyx
Standards*
Energy Star Qualified, RoHS Compliant, EPEAT™ Gold
Standard Limited Warranty*
1-Yr Parts and Labor, 1-Year Battery

[mg1942]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Am I the only person in this forum who demands a decent GPU?

buying non-apple/sony/hp budget laptops with ATi/nVIDIA GPUS gets pretty dicey
yes im singling out Dell cause lately their laptops with nVIDIA GPUs gets fried easily

[Sides]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Am I the only person in this forum who demands a decent GPU?

Bunch of consoletards!

It is one of these trade offs. Laptop should have at least 6h battery life to do some decent work at school or college, unless you're using it for 3D animation, modeling or CAD their is no need for a decent GPU, even then you might want one with Nvidia's Optimus, don't know if ati/amd offers something similar.
I always find it funny that my fellow students have to hook up their laptop to the mains after 1-2h, meaning they have to carry a psu with them all the time.
I would have a look at the acer timeline editions or asus super mobility models, alternatively look for a mac.

[chikorita157]

Intel Graphics in the new laptop i3, i5 and i7 are horrible and half the performance of what a nVidia Geforce 9400 would normally be. I have a 9400m and 9600m GT on my 1 year old laptop I use primarily for college and it gave me decent battery life on the 9400m while having decent performance. Also, the nVidia Geforce 8600 GT only has the defect... all the later models don't have this defect.

From my preferences for laptops, a laptop must have at least 4-5 hrs of battery life, decent graphics (no Intel) and a 16:10 decent resolution screen. Nothing less than that...

[synaesthetic]

I don't mind crappy battery life because I carry my brick with me anyway. To get the kind of runtimes I need, I would be forced to use a netbook or ULV, and I just don't want that.

The TimelineX from Acer look quite interesting, but the question is--when are they going to show up? Nobody really knows, except for Europeans who already have them. The TimelineX 3820TG is absolutely my dream laptop--compact and portable with good battery life and stunning power for the form factor. The 3820TG craps all over the Alienware M11x in specs (Core i7-620M + Mobility Radeon 5650 vs. C2D SU7300 + GT 335M) yet still gets just as much battery life--more when discrete GPU is enabled on both systems.

Of course, it does cost more... around 50% more to be exact... but it's a sweet, sweet package. Too bad it's way outside my price range. Maybe later.

@chikorita157: The new 15" and 17" Arrandale MBPs have the GT 330M and switchable graphics... which is pretty cool, but the coolness is sort of ruined by the fact that Apple doesn't let you easily overclock the 330M (and this GPU is only worth buying if you can OC it), and the system makes dumb choices on when it switches graphics modes. There's no option for manual switching (thanks a lot, Mr. Jobs...)

[chikorita157]

I don't recall there is any OCing utilities in Mac OS X, but I don't play games in Mac OS X since there aren't many, but I use it for 95% of the productivity stuff (programing, blogging, photoshopping, office stuff, etc.) If you boot into Bootcamp, it is possible to overclock the GPU. I have did so with my laptop and was able to overclock the CPU and GPU with the nVidia System Tools, but the only problem here is that you need to properly cool the thing with a cooling mat or some sort as the bottom gets hot (well, not too hot since the whole thing is aluminum, which acts like a heatsink). I think it is possible to overclock the GPU with the new models with nVidia System Tools, except you can't overclock the CPU.

I managed to get 6000-6300 3DMarks in 3DMark06 by properly overclocking the system... cool, but it is risky since laptops aren't really meant to be overclocked. If gamers decide they want a good computer to game on, a Desktop will do a better job including overclocking since they will have better cooling systems.

[synaesthetic]

Some mobile GPUs are very tolerant of overclocking; the aforementioned GT 330M was ramped up substantially to reach ~8000 3DMark06 with maybe a degree or two of extra heat. Gets around 6k at stock clocks.

[Claies]

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Am I the only person in this forum who demands a decent GPU?

Bunch of consoletards!

By "consoletard" I think you mean "some people already have PCs with great video cards, so screw gaming on a laptop."

[Random32]

Since it's for college, I would suggest a Thinkpad
they are a bit pricey, but it's worth every penny
the keyboards are the gold standard and build quality is solid, even the Edge seires that hardcore Thinkpad fans complain about is much better built than any consumer laptop.

A T410s would be my number one recommendation, but the upcoming L series looks promising and starts fairly cheap ($650), and Edge would work too

Originally Posted by synaesthetic

Am I the only person in this forum who demands a decent GPU?

Bunch of consoletards!

I game on my desktop
a $2k+ gaming laptop gets the same framerates as my $700 custom tower

[synaesthetic]

I hear you, but when you don't have enough cash for both and you don't really have the space for a desktop, you make sacrifices accordingly.