College Laptop

[Nilesjones]

Hey guys, I don't truely need a laptop for home of course since I've got my desktop. Although it would be nice to go to college and be able to spend time in the library doing my online computer course while I wait 2 hours for the next class.

I was wondering if you guys had any recommendations for a laptop that would open Office 2010 easily, run powerpoint and that sort of thing. At the moment I'm studying Office 2010 for the computer class that I'm in which is the reason I need a decent laptop to run these applications.

My range for price is quite limited since hours have been cut at work and I'm only working weekends. It's exactly what I wanted so I'm not complaining at all lol

I don't know when I'm getting my Pell Grant refund and I plan on using some of that money for a laptop. This is the reason my price range of 300-500 will be so low. I'm not trying to cut corners, but I'm trying to save as much of that Pell Grant I can for the next semester I go into.

I talked to alot of people at college and it seems they're attending that semester just to get the money from the Pell Grant to use it on other things like a new car. Not sure how they're going to pay for college after they get that new car, but that's none of my concern.

I know I'm going to need a laptop for college in the future, so that would be my reason for wanting one. Okay, enough of my rant, I would like to know everyone's thoughts here.

If I've asked this question in the past and created a thread about this, I want to apologise in advance. I didn't know where I had placed the thread, therefore was the reason for me creating this thread haha.

[Duke{CLR}]

Got to Newegg and search for laptops in that price range and see whayou will get. At that price range you will be looking at a core i3 with 4 gb of ram. I'm not sure about what AMD offers so it would be worth it to do a bit of homework. Got to Newegg and sort out the laptops by your pricve range, pick out a few laptops that look good and compare the components. If you find a model you like go to Amazon and see if you can find it cheaper there.

Helpful links.
Notebook / Laptop Reviews and News - Notebookcheck.net (great for comparing components)
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ (HUGE site full of reviews and some forums. )

Do some home wok pick out a few then post them up here.

[Dead...Again]

I would recommend something between 13" and 15". It will make it much easier to lug around campus. Any new laptop you get will easily handle standard Office apps. You just won't be able to game on it; internal graphics just can't handle gaming.

[Nilesjones]

Yeah I'm definitely not worried about gaming on it. The only reason I asked here is to have personal opinions and experiences everyone here has had with certain laptops. I could do all the research in the world, but specs don't explain to me how reliable the product will be.

[Dead...Again]

I got my wife a small Dell last christmas, and she really likes it. I have also had good experience with Sony. My latest laptop for work is an HP, seems nice but I can't really rate it yet.

[Duke{CLR}]

I would get a brand that has a warranty for the length of time you want to use it. I have had good luck with Toshiba, Gateway and a Dell XPS. With Dell you would want to upgrade the warranty which would cost more. You can also look at Best Buy and get a warranty when you buy form them, this way you just bring it there to get it fixed.

Post up a few examples and I would be happy to look into them.

[Zantheus]

I would suggest HP...When my wife was in University, I picked her up an HP and she still has it to this day with no isses. I know they have a few in your price range and they would be more than able to run all the programs etc you need to run

[Nilesjones]

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/...1400/list.true

Here's one that is awesome! Well looks awesome anyway. I am going to check out HP. I've always had great luck with HP products in the past. I don't know what I didn't think about that lol

But I'm loving this Sony! Well I'm thinking about getting it anyway. 600 isn't that bad. I've just got to map out the price for tuition next year.

[Duke{CLR}]

The video is integrated and it says that it shares the memory so 8 Gb may be better. You may want to check out how many SODIMMS there are and how easy they are to access. This way if you run into issues it can be an easy upgrade.

[Duke{CLR}]

Here is one on newegg for a similar price. Newegg.com - ASUS A53E-NH51 Notebook Intel Core i5 2430MCD-RW Intel HD Graphics

[Nilesjones]

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Satell.../dp/B003MVZ8DI

So I got this laptop for free! The only problem is that it doesn't have a harddrive or an OS. So I've got to buy a harddrive and an OS lol

It's got a Harddrive in there, but the laptop doesn't read it. So once I get a new HDD, I'll be able to laptop myself to school!

[Duke{CLR}]

Nice! You should look into the SATA connection and see if you can use a SDD.

[Dead...Again]

awesome!

[Nilesjones]

See, laptops honestly lose me. I'm almost completely literate when it comes to desktop hardware, but when it comes to laptop hardware I become illiterate.

SSD drives are quite expensive though. Should I go with that instead of a normal HDD? This computer seems sensitive and I'm afraid a bump could cause some bad things to happen.

The person that gave me the laptop stated that he had dropped it an inch and the HDD malfunctioned which is the reason he gave it to me.

[Dead...Again]

SSDs are more durable and won't crash if you drop the laptop. That being said, today's laptop HDDs are pretty durable. They have a mechanism to protect from drops as long as the HDD isn't spinning when it is dropped.