What is the best laptop for a college student?

yo its jos

I don't want a Mac, I was thinking about getting a Dell but I dont know what they are like?
I am gonna be using it for research, document processing, chatting and internet surfing.

I will also be using Photoshop a lot on it.

Answer
There's no best laptop. Certain brands have less instances of repairs than others (Sony, Dell, Apple being among the top, as rated by Consumer Reports), but otherwise it's the same basic hardware. It might have even come from the same factory in China. In my experience Dell is very quick to help you out, but that's only because they send you refurbished parts and not brand new ones. Make sure you get enough memory (probably 2GB, maybe 3 since you're doing a bunch of photoshop), and a large harddrive to store your photos. Try to get an nvidia or ATI graphics instead of intel, since that will be incredibly better for use, but it's not really required.

As far as security devices like a fingerprint scanner go; don't bother. Most fingerprint scanners even come with a disclaimer that it's for convenience rather than security. The reason being is that most of them can be tricked by just dusting for prints and lifting it off with tape. A person who stole your laptop would simply dust for a few finger prints, lift them off with tape, and then put white paper on the back. The fingerprint scanner would probably accept it then. The only way you'd get around this is if you wore gloves 24/7 for typing and handling your notebook.

I'd suggest lojack for laptops or something similar if you're concerned about security, along with a good lock. A lock won't do much to deter a true thief (they can just smack the laptop against something to break off the plastic holding the lock on the computer), but it is a visual deterrent. Lojack can help trace your computer if it gets stolen and then connected to the internet, and it's reasonably priced considering. It's like $50/year or $100 for 3 years, which may or may not be a good deal for you.

Basically just get a cheap laptop with those specs. On sale you can probably find something like that for $600-650. Try OfficeDepot/Staples/Bestbuy/etc, besides checking Dell's online prices.

Laptop Advice (New College Student)?

I am going to be going to college this coming up fall.
I currently have a desktop, but I need some mobility and versatility when entering college. Any possible college student discounts, or coupons or anything would be cool too :P

1_What is your budget?
<$1000 ~ +/- 200


2_What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
15-17in

3_What screen resolution do you want?
1280x800+

4_Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable/Notebook

5_How much battery life do you need?
3+, but the more the better.

6_Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
World of Warcraft, Guild Wars, Crysis Warhead (On high if possible..but thats variable the graphics card), Prototype - any of these games can be run on different settings, low if need be, but im looking for at LEAST 35fps on any of these - with medium graphics settings.
Basically I need a Graphics card thats:
512MB+. 1024MB would be great..but I can understand it be pricy'r.
Clock of 500/600Mhz+

7_What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing, surfing the web, playing music, watching movies, Etc.)
Photoshop, Lot's of music, a lot of internet browsing - but these catagories shouldn't be a big factor when considering a laptop

8_How much storage (H.D.D Capacity) do you need?
250GB+

9_If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post the links to them.

http://www.hp.com/
http://www.dell.com/
www.sonystyle.com
no Mac's or alienware, too pricy for my taste x.x

10_How long do you want to keep your laptop?
2-4

11_If you would like to mention some other things about purchasing your ideal laptop, post them.
Good Keyboard layout
Not too plain and stiff lookin
Not humongous 17.5in+, where battery gets killed really fast.
A key thing is 4GB Dual Channel RAM. Pretty important for me.

12_Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.

not alienware or mac
pricy

13_What country do you live in?

United States


But the key thing when buying this laptop/notebook is:
AMD processor hopefully 2.0Ghz+ 1.8 if 2.0 is too pricy.(But intel would be fine as long as it is a good replacement for amd. Currently I use a 3800+ AMD Athlon 64 x2, and I am looking for something a bit stronger)
4GB Dual Channel RAM
250GB+
512MB+ Graphics card, 600Mhz+ clock speed
15-17in Screen
Smooth and nice keyboard.
Budget is 800-1,200. Preferable below 1k though.
Anything is variable so you can make suggsetions of approximates the things I has as suggsted.
Thank you for the help in advance if anyone is able to reply or give me a link or even a brand.
So if you have an ideal company, type of PC, specific Graphics card I should look for, or a catagory of PC's - business, or extreme gaming..or high performance or something, I'd appreciate it
:D thanks

Answer
Well after reading everything you listed I found a great laptop for you. The Toshiba Satellite Laptop. Do't let the word satellite fool you. It doesn't have any satellite in it. It has every last bit of information you specified. And it was rated 4.3 out of 5.0 by the community at Bestbuy and MicroCenter combined. It has Windows XP installed for you.

Take a look http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=9263496&type=product&id=1218071605696

Impressive, huh? I hope you like it!

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