sydneyhorr
I need a laptop for college and I'm not sure which to get. I don't work, so I don't want something too expensive (maybe around $500ish definitely not over 1000) I like the windows 8 and MacBook laptops, but really anything will do. I want something that's light so I can carry it around easily, and something somewhat thin. I would like it to have a built in webcam to talk to family (and I'd prefer it to be of good quality). Something with speed and few problems. It will be used mostly for research. What do you think? What else do you think is important in a laptop for college? Thanks!
Answer
The first ASUS has a great warranty.
ASUS laptop.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230987
Core i5 3230M(2.60GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory DDR3 1600 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce Dedicated 2GB GT 610M 1 Year Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230416
Core i5 3210M(2.50GHz) 14.1" 8GB Memory 750GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce Dedicated 1GB GT 620M
These HP that can be customized to what you need, Bump the APU and ram for better performance.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C9W57AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000fb8mNv9y;sid=NID2W1inOb6JXwkRbh2qz4GoAJwzDmy78dUe8LW2AJwzDtPc7Kuhl6jI?HP-ENVY-15z-j000-Notebook-PC Starting at $530
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-Pavilion/D1H55AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000fb8mNv9y;sid=NID2W1inOb6JXwkRbh2qz4GoAJwzDmy78dUe8LW2AJwzDtPc7Kuhl6jI?HP-Pavilion-17z-e000-Notebook-PC Starting at $450 Your choice of 4 colors
These are not customizable
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2K91UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-Sleekbook-6-1110us
HP SleekBook AMD Quad-Core A8-4555M APU AMD Radeon HD 7600G 4 GB DDR3 500 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $700 Just 4.5lbs
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2N66UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-dv7-7230us-Notebook-PC
17" DV7-7230US laptop AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M APU AMD Radeon HD 7640G 6 GB DDR3 750 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $750
Brand buying advise
You get what you pay for. Systems with high end parts with low prices are to be viewed with suspicion. They have to cut corners somewhere to get the price down.
Apple makes a good quality laptop. The problem comes when it requires service or minor upgrades. It is near impossible to do anything with them. They even glue the battery and hard drive down so you can not change it. They solder the ram to the logic board so you can not increase it. They lock up most of the software so your stuck with what they approve.
Lenovo has serious stand behind their product problems. They bought IBM PC division and proceeded to drive the quality of the system into the ground. Their customer service is well below par. They even makes Dell customer service look good. The last and final thing to remember about them is they are a Chinese Government own company. It is up to you if you want to trust them.
Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony should be avoided because of their heavy modification of Windows and the drivers. If you remove some of the bloat they install, you can cripple the system.
Acer, Gateway, and eMachines should be avoided period. Low end system that are driving the race to the bottom.
Dell once made a good system and fell from grace. They are now struggling to regain their place in the market. Customer service is one of many problems with this company.
Alienware are glorified Dells and are more name then product. Priced extremely high for what you get. They do perform but you can get the same for less by looking around, just not packaged to be eye candy to the gamers.
Samsung has a history of using cheap parts in critical areas. Capacitors has been one area Samsung has a known history of going cheap, causing units to fail early. For that reason I would avoid them.
ASUS and HP do not modify Windows as bad as the other manufacturers. They have excellent build quality. They might add a lot of bloat but they also makes it easy to get rid of it.
Ultrabooks are the higher end of Wintel laptops but they have some of the same concerns as Apple. They make it next to impossible to change any hardware in them. Service of them will have to be done by the manufacturers. With most of them, you can not change your own battery or hard drive. They are designed to catch your eye but they are not any more special then other laptops except for the fact that they are slim or thin. Your paying for it being thin and slim. For the money your going to spend on it you can buy a much better laptop with more power.
Hybrids are the worse of the worse. The flip or detachable touch screens are just a disaster waiting to happen.
Choose wisely.
The first ASUS has a great warranty.
ASUS laptop.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230987
Core i5 3230M(2.60GHz) 15.6" 6GB Memory DDR3 1600 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce Dedicated 2GB GT 610M 1 Year Accidental Damage/30-Day Zero Bright Dot
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230416
Core i5 3210M(2.50GHz) 14.1" 8GB Memory 750GB HDD 5400rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce Dedicated 1GB GT 620M
These HP that can be customized to what you need, Bump the APU and ram for better performance.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C9W57AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000fb8mNv9y;sid=NID2W1inOb6JXwkRbh2qz4GoAJwzDmy78dUe8LW2AJwzDtPc7Kuhl6jI?HP-ENVY-15z-j000-Notebook-PC Starting at $530
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-Pavilion/D1H55AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000fb8mNv9y;sid=NID2W1inOb6JXwkRbh2qz4GoAJwzDmy78dUe8LW2AJwzDtPc7Kuhl6jI?HP-Pavilion-17z-e000-Notebook-PC Starting at $450 Your choice of 4 colors
These are not customizable
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2K91UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-Sleekbook-6-1110us
HP SleekBook AMD Quad-Core A8-4555M APU AMD Radeon HD 7600G 4 GB DDR3 500 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $700 Just 4.5lbs
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C2N66UA;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ0000ptFcn-Ce;sid=UfkUk5vYup7bi8p-xu5OB0LXZeXRxq_ElKxaT319WyKZOCFLk0_Q5UIX?HP-ENVY-dv7-7230us-Notebook-PC
17" DV7-7230US laptop AMD Quad-Core A8-4500M APU AMD Radeon HD 7640G 6 GB DDR3 750 GB SATA (5400 rpm) $750
Brand buying advise
You get what you pay for. Systems with high end parts with low prices are to be viewed with suspicion. They have to cut corners somewhere to get the price down.
Apple makes a good quality laptop. The problem comes when it requires service or minor upgrades. It is near impossible to do anything with them. They even glue the battery and hard drive down so you can not change it. They solder the ram to the logic board so you can not increase it. They lock up most of the software so your stuck with what they approve.
Lenovo has serious stand behind their product problems. They bought IBM PC division and proceeded to drive the quality of the system into the ground. Their customer service is well below par. They even makes Dell customer service look good. The last and final thing to remember about them is they are a Chinese Government own company. It is up to you if you want to trust them.
Toshiba, Panasonic, Sony should be avoided because of their heavy modification of Windows and the drivers. If you remove some of the bloat they install, you can cripple the system.
Acer, Gateway, and eMachines should be avoided period. Low end system that are driving the race to the bottom.
Dell once made a good system and fell from grace. They are now struggling to regain their place in the market. Customer service is one of many problems with this company.
Alienware are glorified Dells and are more name then product. Priced extremely high for what you get. They do perform but you can get the same for less by looking around, just not packaged to be eye candy to the gamers.
Samsung has a history of using cheap parts in critical areas. Capacitors has been one area Samsung has a known history of going cheap, causing units to fail early. For that reason I would avoid them.
ASUS and HP do not modify Windows as bad as the other manufacturers. They have excellent build quality. They might add a lot of bloat but they also makes it easy to get rid of it.
Ultrabooks are the higher end of Wintel laptops but they have some of the same concerns as Apple. They make it next to impossible to change any hardware in them. Service of them will have to be done by the manufacturers. With most of them, you can not change your own battery or hard drive. They are designed to catch your eye but they are not any more special then other laptops except for the fact that they are slim or thin. Your paying for it being thin and slim. For the money your going to spend on it you can buy a much better laptop with more power.
Hybrids are the worse of the worse. The flip or detachable touch screens are just a disaster waiting to happen.
Choose wisely.
How is the Dell Studio 15 laptop for a college student?
Ty
I am looking at laptops for college and have come across the Dell Studio 15 which looks pretty good. Does anyone know if this is a good laptop for college students? I will be a business major who is also obtaining prerequisites for medical school if that helps.
Answer
ok heres the breakdown:
Macs vs. PC's
You'll definately want a PC no doubt because Macs cause all sorts of problems with compatability (the last thing you'll ever want to encounter when handing in your thesis that was written on your Mac and deemed unreadable by your professor's PC). Macs are easier to use but are also just that much more uselessly expensive. You can get a PC for 1/3 of the price that apple offers at the same level of performance.
I own the studio 15 laptop. One major drawback is that its fan is quite noisy. Its not loud enough for anybody to hear it in the library, but its enough to possibly bug you if youre alone in your dorm room and are the sort of person who has pet peeves like that. However, its performance is excellent, and its design is also interesting. It is a rather heavy laptop, especially when the 9 cell battery is in place. As far as college goes, this baby is more than capable of handling your needs with or without upgrading, although i would highly recommend upgrading the hard drive, memory, and processor if you plan on doing more than email, word processing, internet, and music.
One thing i would recommend is to make SURE you buy the accidental warranty plan. It may be because i have been a bit too careless with my laptop, but the studio 15 is a rather fragile laptop. the body on it has been notorious for falling off (the screen, although this is rather uncommon) and the buttons on the side may malfunction. Overall, it will last, but I would rather be on the safe side than have a broken laptop the night before your presentation... mine is in the shop right now, and good thing for that warranty or else i would have to cough up like 500 bucks and its not even major damage.
please consider other brands, ESPECIALLY lenovo idea/thinkpads and sony vaios. i would buy them over the studio 15 because of the drawbacks and the customer service at dell (mine got delayed shipping for about 7 weeks) but it is not a bad laptop at all.
***EDIT*** in response to the mac user above: however long the computer lasts depends entirely on the user. MACS DO GET VIRUSES! they are simply less common because the vast majority (95%) of consumers on the market are all using windows NOT the joke of an operating system tiger/leopard/cheetah/lion/grizzly bear/puma/ or w/e wild animal you wanna throw in there. the aluminum case has been known to get dented easily, eventually leading to hardware failure. i am not familiar with mac support as users are usually much more careful with them because of their pricey nature, but i assume it cannot be worse than dell's. think of it this way though; if you dont break your laptop, you wont need customer service or warranty for the matter of fact. you're choice
BEST OF LUCK IN COLLEGE WITH YOUR NEW LAPTOP MAN!
ok heres the breakdown:
Macs vs. PC's
You'll definately want a PC no doubt because Macs cause all sorts of problems with compatability (the last thing you'll ever want to encounter when handing in your thesis that was written on your Mac and deemed unreadable by your professor's PC). Macs are easier to use but are also just that much more uselessly expensive. You can get a PC for 1/3 of the price that apple offers at the same level of performance.
I own the studio 15 laptop. One major drawback is that its fan is quite noisy. Its not loud enough for anybody to hear it in the library, but its enough to possibly bug you if youre alone in your dorm room and are the sort of person who has pet peeves like that. However, its performance is excellent, and its design is also interesting. It is a rather heavy laptop, especially when the 9 cell battery is in place. As far as college goes, this baby is more than capable of handling your needs with or without upgrading, although i would highly recommend upgrading the hard drive, memory, and processor if you plan on doing more than email, word processing, internet, and music.
One thing i would recommend is to make SURE you buy the accidental warranty plan. It may be because i have been a bit too careless with my laptop, but the studio 15 is a rather fragile laptop. the body on it has been notorious for falling off (the screen, although this is rather uncommon) and the buttons on the side may malfunction. Overall, it will last, but I would rather be on the safe side than have a broken laptop the night before your presentation... mine is in the shop right now, and good thing for that warranty or else i would have to cough up like 500 bucks and its not even major damage.
please consider other brands, ESPECIALLY lenovo idea/thinkpads and sony vaios. i would buy them over the studio 15 because of the drawbacks and the customer service at dell (mine got delayed shipping for about 7 weeks) but it is not a bad laptop at all.
***EDIT*** in response to the mac user above: however long the computer lasts depends entirely on the user. MACS DO GET VIRUSES! they are simply less common because the vast majority (95%) of consumers on the market are all using windows NOT the joke of an operating system tiger/leopard/cheetah/lion/grizzly bear/puma/ or w/e wild animal you wanna throw in there. the aluminum case has been known to get dented easily, eventually leading to hardware failure. i am not familiar with mac support as users are usually much more careful with them because of their pricey nature, but i assume it cannot be worse than dell's. think of it this way though; if you dont break your laptop, you wont need customer service or warranty for the matter of fact. you're choice
BEST OF LUCK IN COLLEGE WITH YOUR NEW LAPTOP MAN!
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Title Post: What kind of laptop is best for college?
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Rating: 100% based on 9998 ratings. 5 user reviews.
Author: Unknown
Thanks For Coming To My Blog
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