Carlos
I'm looking to a new laptop for my birthday but don't know what to ask for. I prefer it to be hp designed and with at least 4 GB of ram and at least 150 GB of drive space. I feel picky but these are my preferences due to to the music, video, and program storage I use on a daily basis on my PC. Also I'm coming to the point in school where I'm going to need computerized data to submit to my mentors. My parent's budget is $600.
Answer
I have some issues in your wording. A new laptop in the US was made within the last few months since inventory tends to move quickly, and there may be a few about a year old still waiting to be sold. 5 years ago, HP probably did make and sell laptops, and now, like Acer-Gateway-Packard Bell, they are a Procurement and Re-seller and they are designed and produced by several Taiwanese and Chinese companies with an HP label and a bit of shell customizing. All laptops are pretty much made by these companies in China. HP on some adds a Beats profiling and a sub-woofer designed into some models.
In the last few years, the HP reliability and quality surveys do not look good, although they still like HP and Dell in India for some reason.
Here is my documentation:
2012: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2020725/apple-macbooks-lead-in-laptop-features-and-reliability.html
HP in the bottom half
2011: http://www.pcworld.com/article/244419/laptop_reliability_and_satisfaction_macbooks_rule.html
HP second last
2010:
http://www.pcworld.com/article/211402/laptops.html
HP last place
The basic laptop sold in the USA today above $400, if not a solid state drive will have 500+GB HDD and 4+GB RAM
If you only want HP, even though Acer-Gateway, Dell home, HP-Compaq Home, Lenovo Essentials G series are mostly the same weaker results, and all other laptops under about $400 are also a bit questionable, there are good initial reviews for some HP ultrabooks.
Personally, I think Lenovo did a good job with the Ideapad Z400 Touch, that at Lenovo.com is $600 plus tax with an i3, and $660 as a better i5 model, as Windows 8 is aimed at Touchscreen technology, but you did say HP-Only. Maybe you have a long memory when they used to be better.
Again - all based on extensive surveys; not my personal experience other than Y/A issues reported with overheating and crashing. Google will also tell you a lot. The number of refurbished systems out there tells you something also.
Newegg shows about 18 HP laptops that are new and not open box or refurb
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=Property&N=100006740&IsNodeId=1&minPrice=400&maxPrice=625&Manufactory=1186%2C44242%2C1548&bop=And&Pagesize=50
Here is a basic one for $500 after rebate.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834256720
HP Pavilion g6-2260us Notebook Intel Core i3 3110M(2.40GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory 750GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi Intel HD Graphics 4000
HP is offering Touchscreen starting at $600. Is there a student registration for a discount? HP has all kinds of discount codes hiding on the internet to scour out.
http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/Laptops?SearchParameter=%26%40QueryTerm%3D*%26categoryusagelaptops_dte2%3DTouchscreen%26CategoryUUIDLevelX%3DjeEQxXjbj14AAAE0syxcZzOW%26%40Sort.TieredPricing%3D0&PageSize=15
Which laptop would be best?
Q. The next generation Lenovo W series (W530 ?) or the 2012 Macbook Pro?
-I'm a CS student btw.
Answer
If all you want to do is run Windows games, presumably the W530 would be a better buy.
But that's pretty limited, isn't it? Otherwise the 2012 Macbook Pro will certainly have better longtime resale value, and if past experience is any guide (and what is the point of experience if it doesn't?), it will have a lower cost of ownership...
Macs have better resale, are easier to use, make better (more efficient) use of the hardware, are more reliable, are more secure and their total cost of operation is lower than PCs.
PCs are cheaper, initially, than Macs. There are lot of people out there who know Windows so its easy to to find someone to comiserate with.
I have found noone with real experience in both platforms that prefers to use Windows for their desktop. Even if you're just going to use the machine for surfing the Internet, Windows and Internet Explorer are notorious for their security holes. The MacOS os layer (based on FreeBSD) is far far more securely written so it is harder to write viri for (and obviously, since Macs are a smaller part of the market, fewer people are writing viri for them to begin with).
In particular, once you understand generally how Macs do things, you can pick up new applications very easily. There is far more (needless) variation in how interfaces work across the Windows platform, so applications take longer to master.
The vast majority of large commercial software products out there have Mac versions, and its relatively easy to run either a virtual machine or "boot camp" (dual boot) if you must run Windows products on your Mac.
I have given members of my family Macs because I don't want to be their system administrator if I can help it. They can administer their own machines. If I had given them Windows, I basically would have been signing up for a no salaried system admin for as long as they had my gifts.
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