Breaking B
I need to get a laptop for college in the next couple months. I need fast laptop. I want one with a Core i5 or i7, a fast graphics card (GTX 240M or faster), at least a 250 gig hard drive, at least 2 gigs of RAM, and at least a 15" display. What do you guys think I should get?
And please don't say a MacBook. I don't buy anything from Apple, so don't bother.
I also need one with a good battery life. I don't know what the normal battery life is for a laptop, but it needs to get me through at least one lecture before I need to charge it again.
Thanks.
I almost forgot, I only have about $1000 to maybe $1300 to spend. I don't even know if what I'm asking for is possible in that price range, but I thought I'd ask anyway. Thanks again.
Answer
My answer is from a parentâs perspective: My daughter graduated with a Computer Engineering Major about 3 years ago. My son graduated with Computer Science Major last January.
What does your prospective school department recommend for a computer and software?
Are you going to be flying back and forth to school or driving?
Do you think that you will be doing your work in the computer labs and in your dorm room or in the library?
You might be happier with a desktop machine. I would recommend the Shuttle machines. They are quiet and well engineered (you do need to be careful not to overload the power supply with high power video cards). This would be a multiprocessor, 4 GB memory, 1 TB hard drive running at 3 GHz or so with full speed drives and memory bus.
For a lap top, I would recommend dual core low power lap top processor (Intel Core2 Duo) with 4 GB memory, 250 GB hard drive, and integrated graphics. You donât need high power graphics for computer engineering majors. You only need good graphics if you plan to play games on the machine. The laptops have slower memory bus and hard drive. They will be slower.
Caution: donât buy the laptops with throttled back desktop processors. You wonât have the battery life that you need. Spend a little more for the low power consumption processors designed for laptops.
You will also want a linux machine or dual boot.
My daughter started with a Mac desktop, added a Mac laptop, then a Windows laptop, and then a linux machine. When she graduated, she had four machines in her dorm room. Mac machines are based on unix and can be dual booted with Windows which makes them a viable choice.
My son started with a windows laptop which we could not keep working (bad hard drive, bad service from the store) and then switched to a Shuttle windows desktop, with the laptop for temporary use. When my daughter finished school and went to work for Microsoft, he got the linux machine that she had. He uses the linux machine as a play machine to learn how to setup web servers and learn the linux based tools. As a graduation present, we put together a four processor Phenom II, 3 GHz, 4 GB memory, 2 one TB hard drives and an Nvidia mid range video card in a mid tower case for about $500, shopping the sales at Fryâs over a period of three months.
Have fun deciding what works best for you and good luck in school.
My answer is from a parentâs perspective: My daughter graduated with a Computer Engineering Major about 3 years ago. My son graduated with Computer Science Major last January.
What does your prospective school department recommend for a computer and software?
Are you going to be flying back and forth to school or driving?
Do you think that you will be doing your work in the computer labs and in your dorm room or in the library?
You might be happier with a desktop machine. I would recommend the Shuttle machines. They are quiet and well engineered (you do need to be careful not to overload the power supply with high power video cards). This would be a multiprocessor, 4 GB memory, 1 TB hard drive running at 3 GHz or so with full speed drives and memory bus.
For a lap top, I would recommend dual core low power lap top processor (Intel Core2 Duo) with 4 GB memory, 250 GB hard drive, and integrated graphics. You donât need high power graphics for computer engineering majors. You only need good graphics if you plan to play games on the machine. The laptops have slower memory bus and hard drive. They will be slower.
Caution: donât buy the laptops with throttled back desktop processors. You wonât have the battery life that you need. Spend a little more for the low power consumption processors designed for laptops.
You will also want a linux machine or dual boot.
My daughter started with a Mac desktop, added a Mac laptop, then a Windows laptop, and then a linux machine. When she graduated, she had four machines in her dorm room. Mac machines are based on unix and can be dual booted with Windows which makes them a viable choice.
My son started with a windows laptop which we could not keep working (bad hard drive, bad service from the store) and then switched to a Shuttle windows desktop, with the laptop for temporary use. When my daughter finished school and went to work for Microsoft, he got the linux machine that she had. He uses the linux machine as a play machine to learn how to setup web servers and learn the linux based tools. As a graduation present, we put together a four processor Phenom II, 3 GHz, 4 GB memory, 2 one TB hard drives and an Nvidia mid range video card in a mid tower case for about $500, shopping the sales at Fryâs over a period of three months.
Have fun deciding what works best for you and good luck in school.
Laptop for a computer science major?
I already have a custom built pc that i will be taking with me it has hdd's one is for windows the other i could put linux on. It has 16 gigs of ram 2 tb's and runs windows 7
But i really want a mac laptop for college do you think this wouldnt be a problem since i already have that pc,
and as far as price, money is no object for this one
Answer
You can buy a Mac, but to be honest you probably would not really see yourself ever using it at all and just wasting a couple thousands of dollars.
The main thing is what you want your laptop to do. If all you are going to do is go on Facebook and take notes in class, that Mac will do it for you. However, if you want to do anything else that is more important or fun, you won't do it on that computer.
Computer science/programming and Mac do not go together at all. You will have to install Windows (a horrible experience with Apple's drivers) or Linux (which probably will not work properly) in order to get your school work done. In the end, you will just keep going back to your desktop. Getting on Facebook and typing? Your desktop and any other laptop will handle it easy as well. Gaming? Definitely going to be on your desktop. Creative work with video and audio? Probably going to be on your powerful desktop. There really is no use to buying a Mac which cannot accomplish much in your position.
If you want to do work on the go, I suggest getting a powerful Windows laptop like a Thinkpad W520 that can perform and have decent battery life. You will probably see yourself using a computer like the W520 more than your desktop.
You can buy a Mac, but to be honest you probably would not really see yourself ever using it at all and just wasting a couple thousands of dollars.
The main thing is what you want your laptop to do. If all you are going to do is go on Facebook and take notes in class, that Mac will do it for you. However, if you want to do anything else that is more important or fun, you won't do it on that computer.
Computer science/programming and Mac do not go together at all. You will have to install Windows (a horrible experience with Apple's drivers) or Linux (which probably will not work properly) in order to get your school work done. In the end, you will just keep going back to your desktop. Getting on Facebook and typing? Your desktop and any other laptop will handle it easy as well. Gaming? Definitely going to be on your desktop. Creative work with video and audio? Probably going to be on your powerful desktop. There really is no use to buying a Mac which cannot accomplish much in your position.
If you want to do work on the go, I suggest getting a powerful Windows laptop like a Thinkpad W520 that can perform and have decent battery life. You will probably see yourself using a computer like the W520 more than your desktop.
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Title Post: I need a laptop for college (Computer Engineering major)?
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