Infoseek: Laptops

[cherry]

As I know a great many of you are more knowledgeable on the subject than I am: I am quite possibly getting a laptop for grad, and I was wondering if there were any words of wisdom -- or suggestions, or recommendations, or just plain anything I need to know.

It's going to have to last me four or five years. University, of course. I'd like to be able to use it to take notes in class, as I type so much less slowly than I write. A burner would be nice, but I can always get an external and hook it up -- With my music addiction, I'm going to be saving money in the long run. I don't know what I'm going to need for power, for RAM or anything. As far as I know, all laptops are fully compatible with printers, so that shouldn't be much of a concern.

I'm comfortable working with both Mac and IBM compatibles, and I really don't have a preference for either one.

Any thoughts/suggestions/pointers/warnings/funny stories involving laptops hurtling through fifth story windows?

Comments

[dreagoddess.livejournal.com]

My one piece of advice is this: whatever you do, DON'T let the cat knock over a bottle of water on it. *sigh* It will cost you waaaaaay too much to fix.

Seriously, I've had a Gateway for three years and it's been very nice. Most people I know with laptops have Dells, and everyone's had good things to say about them. I liked Gateway because I walked into the store, handed them my list of requirements (from the school) and said, "I need a computer with this." And they gave it to me. :)

[pixelarious.livejournal.com]

I have mixed feelings about my Vaio, but that's only cuz it's 4 yrs old. They're good computers, but not quite built to last more than maybe 2-3 years. (For example: the dvd/cd-rom drive is busted and freaked my puter out whenever I'd try to play something.) However, they are smart little machines and often come nicely loaded, esp in the middle range.
A kid in my Poli Sci class has one of those little Macs, the lil lil ones, and he uses it to take notes. Bad part about that is if the professor writes a graph or something on the board (as it's a research methods course, he does a lot of scatterplots and whatever), you can't do the same on your laptop. I think if you do want to use one in class, you should also have a pad of paper that you use for all classes, just to be on the safe side.
What my dad made me do before I bought mine, and altho it was annoying it was also extremely helpful, was make a spreadsheet of all the laptops I was looking at. I'm a bit of a technogeek (a mild one, to be sure, but I know more than most), so I was rather particular about what I'd be spending my hard-earned babysitting money on. I recommend doing that, with categories like price, memory, speed, whatever you find important.
Good luck- hope this helped : )

[dkphoenix.livejournal.com]

I've got a Dell Inspiron 5000, and I've been happy with it. I'd buy a Dell again.

The two big things to consider about a laptop are weight and battery life. A smaller, lighter laptop is much easier to lug around, but will have a smaller battery and therefore less battery life. Ultralight laptops also often only have space for one hard drive, and only one drive bay, which means you have to swap out the CD/DVD drive for the floppy drive, if you need to use it. (That's how mine is.) I'd suggest getting one with at least 3-4 hours of battery life. Mine has two, and that's really not enough. I'd also make sure that it has at least two USB ports, so you can hook up both the printer and an external mouse/keyboard if you need one. (You probably won't need the keyboard, but you probably will want the external mouse sometimes.) Also go for the internal modem/network card combo, as opposed to a cardbus one, and get one with a wireless networking card as well if you can. I'd also get the internal burner... they're worth it. You can never have too much RAM, and I'd get more hard drive space than you think you're going to need, because you always need more ;-)

[cgilmore.livejournal.com]

Speaking as someone who supports laptops professionally in a collegiate environment...

First, decide if you want a PC or a Mac. This is mostly personal preference, but it might be worth talking to the schools you're looking at to see if they have any recommendations. A lot of engineering programs are built around PC's, either with Windows or Linux (or both). Most writing programs are geared towards Macs. Getting a Mac if you're going into a PC environment (or vice versa) will mean that you spend a lot more time in the computer labs than you would otherwise.

There aren't really many more options if you're looking at a Mac - "any color, so long as it's black" and all that. Personally, I'm drooling over the 17" PowerBook G4, but you'd probably want something a little less over the top.

On the PC side, make sure you get what I fondly refer to as the "drop kick warranty" - not every vendor offers them. It's basically a no questions asked, whatever you do to it is covered policy (actually, it's probably more accurately described as "Don't ask, don't tell"). Dell calls this "Complete Care" or something to that effect. If you can get an extended warranty (something that'll see you through the end of Uni), you might want to get that as well.

Now look at the features. Throw as much money at it as you can for the things that are expensive to upgrade or can't be upgraded at all. Get the burner now. Get the bigger hard drive. Go light on RAM (256MB would be the minimum on the PC side, but 1GB isn't unreasonable for engineering apps) if you need to cut costs a little - vendors charge an arm and a leg for RAM, but 3rd party upgrades are dirt cheap. (I recommend Crucial - www.crucial.com - for almost all RAM needs.) Don't pay 10% more for a processor that is only 2% faster. Don't get a big-ass, high resolution display unless you think you're going to need it (CAD, video editing, etc). Do get a spare battery. If you like having a real keyboard and/or mouse, consider getting a port replicator for your dorm room/home/wherever. Get integrated wireless - 802.11b or 802.11g - a lot of campuses are making wireless connectivity available in common areas.

I recommend Dell. We use them almost exclusively here, and haven't had any major problems.

Um... That's all I can come up with off the top of my head. Feel free to IM me if you want more detail or have any other questions.

Chris

[totallysoftcore.livejournal.com]

Okay, I came across your livejournal because you wrote my remix story, and I was digging around your website :) You'll be getting an e-mail from me later about that.

I bought an ibook last year for college and I love it. I love it so much it's sad. It's worked great besides one little problem with the battery that they fixed for free in one day and I bought an ipod to go with it and that also rocks.

Plus apple gives great discounts to students.

[cherryice.livejournal.com]

::Waves hi::

I actually ended up with an iBook. Jaguar OS, whatever the number is. I love it so far.

It's just so cool to have a computer that's all mine!