Please help me choose a laptop for University

[keving]

Hi guys, I need your opinions on a laptop purchase. I found this on another website and I thought it'd be nice and straightforward if I used it here, so here it goes.

General Questions

1) What is your budget?
800 CAD, will stretch to 900 CAD if absolutely needed.

2) What size notebook would you prefer?
Thin and Light; 13" - 14" screen preferred, 15.4" screen is OK

3) Tell us what country are you buying this in.
Toronto, Canada

4) Are there any brands that you prefer or any you really don't like?
I like HP-Compaq's style, I dont like Acers. No Sony or Apple either, too expensive .

5) What tasks will you be performing with the notebook?
I'm going to be a 4th year biology undergrad student, and will be doing a thesis, so I'll have many files of data to manipulate. Mostly word processing, excel spreadsheeting, internet surfing, journal reading, watching the occasional episode of top gear! Oh, and music, too.

6) Will you be taking the notebook with you to different places or leaving it on your desk? To and from university mostly (it's a long walk, so I prefer a lighter laptop)

7) Will you be playing games on it; if so, which games?
Processing power for games is not important, as I rarely play games, and when I do, I play starcraft!

8) How many hours of battery life do you need?
3+ for lectures

9) Do you mind buying online without seeing the notebook in person?
I would rather buy from a brick&mortar store.

10) What OS do you prefer?
Either Vista or XP.

Screen Specifics

11) Would you prefer standard or widescreen?
Widescreen

12) From the choices below, what screen resolutions would you prefer?
Looking through them all, it seems relatively unimportant to me.

Standard
a. XGA -1024x768 - Large and easy to read text + graphics icons, but you fit less stuff on the screen.
b. SXGA - 1400x1050 - Compromise resolution between XGA and UXGA.
c. UXGA - 1600x1200 - Very small text and graphics icons, you can fit lots of stuff on the screen.

Widescreen
d. WXGA or WXGA+ - 1280x768/800 or 1440x900; Wider viewing version of XGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.
e. WSXGA+ - 1680x1050; Wider viewing version of SXGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.
f. WUXGA - 1920x1200; Wider viewing version of UXGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.


13) Do you want a glossy/reflective screen or a matte/non-glossy screen?
Glossy screen for sure. They seem to give more vibrant colours, and I like the look.

Build Quality and Design

14) Are the notebook's looks and stylishness important to you?
Yes, as long as it's not butt-ugly. Also, I would prefer a slim and light laptop, I don't want to be lugging around a tank!

15) When are you buying this laptop and how long do you want this laptop to last?
Sometime in August, or whenever a deal comes up. I want this laptop to last at least 1 year, or until I get into Dental school, which I will then give this laptop to my sister.

Notebook Components

16) How much hard drive space do you want; 40GB to 200GB?
Over 80GB, but 120GB preferred

17) Do you need an optical drive? If yes, a DVD-ROM, DVD-CD/RW or DVD-RW drive? Prefer a drive that can read DVD's. If it can write DVD's then great!


I found this laptop at futureshop.ca, and it seems to have everything I want. However, I don't know anything about the processor and if it's any good... so any suggestions is appreciated. Also, it has a 100$ discount until the 26th.

HP Intel Celeron M 520 1.6GHz Laptop (DV2402CA)

Thanks guys! Any help/suggestins/links would be greatly appreciated!

[FATMOUSE]

Originally Posted by keving

1) What is your budget?
800 CAD, will stretch to 900 CAD if absolutely needed.

Don't know if it's in the budget or not, but I'd recommend a Lenovo/IBM Thinkpad.

2) What size notebook would you prefer?
Thin and Light; 13" - 14" screen preferred, 15.4" screen is OK

You can never have too much screen resolution.

3) Tell us what country are you buying this in.
Toronto, Canada

e. WSXGA+ - 1680x1050; Wider viewing version of SXGA, good for movie viewing or spreadsheets.
16) How much hard drive space do you want; 40GB to 200GB?
Over 80GB, but 120GB preferred

Using a laptop with this screen size, am very satisfied.
If you can, get a 7200rpm drive...and at least 1GB of RAM.

Try this:

Lenovo T60, with:
1.8GHz Core 2 Duo
Vista Home Basic (piece of poop)
14.1 WXGA screen
Integrated graphics
1GB PC5300 DDR2 RAM
100GB 7.2kRPM Hard Drive
CD-RW/DVD-ROM Optical Drive
Wireless LAN (a/b/g)
4Cell Battery

Total: $940 US
http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/c...%3A0000014F%3A
(DVD-RW -> +$50, Big Batteries -> +$40)

[Adunaphel]

Originally Posted by keving

13) Do you want a glossy/reflective screen or a matte/non-glossy screen?
Glossy screen for sure. They seem to give more vibrant colours, and I like the look.

Keep in mind that glossy screens tend to be highly reflective, so you will be unable to work when there's a bright lightsource (e.g. sun) behind you, and the glare can get irritating when working in bright areas.

[Mopar Man]

I'm using an HP notebook, works well, I know a lot of my classmates have Compaq's/Dells/Gateways and they always have fuckups on them

[jensked]

I have a VERY good experience when it comes to TOSHIBA laptops...my mother's Toshiba can do 2h45min even when I scan for virusses and that laptop didn't even cost 800 euros.

[jeffy777]

If I ever buy another laptop it will be an ASUS

[keving]

Thanks for the suggestion, FATMOUSE. Unfortunately that's a bit out of my price range as I'll only be using this laptop for 1 year, and I'm a starving student. I went ahead and got the laptop from my link for 699 CAD, and so far, so good i guess! Thanks for all your help, guys (Y)

[epp_b]

800 CAD, will stretch to 900 CAD if absolutely needed.

Before or after taxes?

I like HP-Compaq's style, I dont like Acers. No Sony or Apple either, too expensive .

I just bought an HP / Compaq nc8430. I love it. It is their business line, so I paid a bit over a grand-and-a-half for it. Business-line notebooks tend to be better built, more reliable and include better warranties and support.

For your budget, you're not going to find a business-line notebook. Dell's consumer-line notebooks are pretty good and Dell seems to be on a roll these days.

I'm going to be a 4th year biology undergrad student, and will be doing a thesis, so I'll have many files of data to manipulate. Mostly word processing, excel spreadsheeting, internet surfing, journal reading, watching the occasional episode of top gear! Oh, and music, too.

A basic notebook should be able to handle that with proficiency, so long as you don't use crap like Office 2007 (which is hugely bloated with overblown effects and graphics).

Processing power for games is not important, as I rarely play games, and when I do, I play starcraft!

I just looked the requirements for that game. Any modern laptop, cheapo performance or not, will be able to handle that game

I would rather buy from a brick&mortar store.

Well, from what you've mentioned so far, I was going to suggest a Dell, but they still sell only online (with a few exceptions, I think...not sure)

Either Vista or XP.

Whatever you do, STAY AWAY FROM VISTA. You will be completely infuriated with any laptop you can buy within your budget that runs Vista. It will be unusable and suck away the battery life.

Widescreen

Pretty well every laptop these days have wide-aspect screens, so that should be easy enough.

In your budget, you're not likely to find something with a higher resolution than WXGA (1280x900).


Would you consider buying a used laptop? A Dell Inspiron 700M is a nice, light, well-built and small notebook (12 or 13 inch, I think) with a full-size keyboard, glossy widescreen display and good battery life (as long as you get a better battery than the stock 4-cell).

[jeffy777]

Originally Posted by epp_b

I just looked the requirements for that game. Any modern laptop, cheapo performance or not, will be able to handle that game

lol, yeah....and alot of ancient laptops will play that game. I used to play it back in '98 on my old Compaq Presario. It had something like a 300Mhz CPU, 32MB of RAM, and a 4MB video card A dinosaur by today's standards, but the laptop still runs last time I checked, haha.

[Adunaphel]

Hell, that's still a million times better than my first laptop. Pentium 233, 64MB RAM and 1MB vidcard. And it still ran Starcraft like a champ on the uni network. And those oldschool concrete grey Toshiba Satellites were as solid as a block of concrete. My friend once dropped one down a flight of stairs when it was booting, and after he picked it up it was almost at the windows desktop

[jeffy777]

You had twice the RAM though, and actually my Compaq only had a 233Mhz CPU as well and a 2MB video card. I was listing the specs off the top of my head earlier.

[keving]

Whatever you do, STAY AWAY FROM VISTA. You will be completely infuriated with any laptop you can buy within your budget that runs Vista. It will be unusable and suck away the battery life.

How would I go about installing XP on my laptop? I do agree that Vista is pretty resource-heavy, and since I won't be having a top of the line computer, it'll be even more painful. Do I have to buy a laptop version of XP? Do they exist? And would it work with all the hardware of these current-gen laptops? I don't wanna run into driver problems and not having something work... As you can tell I'm not that great with computers. Thanks for all your help guys!

[I<3myV8]

IBM Thinkpads are awesome, but they are expensive.

You can buy new laptops with XP from Dell. You choose if you want Vista or XP.

I would get a Dell. However, I would get a Lattitude instead of an Inspiron. Lattitude are business laptops and are better quality. I find that consumer laptops are often very poor quality.

The prices on Dell's site always change. I would wait for a sale. Just a week ago the basic Lattitude was $669 instead of $819.

http://www1.ca.dell.com/content/prod...bsd&cs=cabsdt1

[jeffy777]

Originally Posted by keving

How would I go about installing XP on my laptop? I do agree that Vista is pretty resource-heavy, and since I won't be having a top of the line computer, it'll be even more painful. Do I have to buy a laptop version of XP? Do they exist? And would it work with all the hardware of these current-gen laptops? I don't wanna run into driver problems and not having something work... As you can tell I'm not that great with computers. Thanks for all your help guys!

No, you don't need a "laptop version" of XP. Any copy of XP will work, but you'd have to check if the manufacturer provides XP drivers for all the hardware (touchpad, sound, etc.). Go to their support site, look up the model number and see what drivers they have available for download.

[NecroJoe]

For those who missed it...he already bought a laptop. :-p You don't have to keep offering suggestions.

Originally Posted by keving

Thanks for the suggestion, FATMOUSE. Unfortunately that's a bit out of my price range as I'll only be using this laptop for 1 year, and I'm a starving student. I went ahead and got the laptop from my link for 699 CAD, and so far, so good i guess! Thanks for all your help, guys (Y)

I was at a resturaunt once, where the waiter came over about 10 minutes AFTER we had ordered, and told us what the specials were. Didn't do us much good then, did it!

[keving]

Hey thanks alot jeffy777, although I have one more question. Where's a good place I can find good laptop bags? What's a good company? My friend has an "incase" laptop bag and its pretty useful, its the same size as a sleeve but it has handles. I want one with handles, but not as bulky as a briefcase or something... Any other brands out there that will do?

That dell you suggested looks pretty nice, V8. Maybe if I don't like the one I got I'll give that dell a whirl. Thanks for your suggestions

[73GMCSprint]

Originally Posted by keving

How would I go about installing XP on my laptop? I do agree that Vista is pretty resource-heavy, and since I won't be having a top of the line computer, it'll be even more painful. Do I have to buy a laptop version of XP? Do they exist? And would it work with all the hardware of these current-gen laptops? I don't wanna run into driver problems and not having something work... As you can tell I'm not that great with computers. Thanks for all your help guys!

Personally, I wouldn't go by what you've heard. If I were you I'd see if I could try Vista out before you decided. I really don't think it's nearly as bad as a lot of people are making it out to be. Sure, you'll have to get used to some changes from XP, but then we did when we all switched from 98 to XP too. Vista does have some nice features included. It does have a couple annoying things but you can always turn them off. I think you'd have more problems trying to install XP on a new laptop than just going with Vista. If you really think about it, we'll all be switching eventually anyway, whether we really want to or not. I'll be switching with my next computer build.

[Adunaphel]

Originally Posted by keving

Hey thanks alot jeffy777, although I have one more question. Where's a good place I can find good laptop bags? What's a good company? My friend has an "incase" laptop bag and its pretty useful, its the same size as a sleeve but it has handles. I want one with handles, but not as bulky as a briefcase or something... Any other brands out there that will do?

That dell you suggested looks pretty nice, V8. Maybe if I don't like the one I got I'll give that dell a whirl. Thanks for your suggestions

I'd say go with Crumpler. They're a tad on the expensive side, but they have one of the largest choices of laptop bags that i know of, and i have yet to see any bag that rivals the quality of my Crumpler laptop bag.

[epp_b]

For those who missed it...he already bought a laptop. :-p You don't have to keep offering suggestions.

Doh! How did I miss that?

Anyway, what did you get, keving?

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