What is a great laptop for an incoming college student?

[RyanPm40]

My laptop seems to be having more and more problems lately... freezing up completely including the mouse so that I need to hold power down to shut it off on a daily basis, sometimes multiple times in a day. I'm going to college next fall and I'm hoping for my graduation gift I will acquire some cash!

Right now, I use an HP Pavilion dv2500t laptop with a 14.1 inch screen, 2GHZ Processor, 2GB RAM, 140 GB Hard Drive, and Windows Vista Home Premium 32-bit edition.

The hard drive space is just far too small for me. It's a pretty slow computer, and was good when I first got it (For $958 around 3 years ago) and the graphics card in it is so basic it can't even run COD2 and barely plays Sims 2. I'm not a hardcore gamer, but it would be cool to experiment and run some games that my friends recommend for me... Amnesia seems like a cool game. I'm doubting I'd even get Minecraft to play without lag XP.

I'm happy to see that laptop prices have gone down SIGNIFICANTLY because I cannot afford to pay what I did for this laptop again.

Any advice and cool laptops that would be reliable, quick, and fun for a student going into the nursing program next fall!? I do realize that by the time I graduate, there will probably be better computers, but I'm a geek and like to drool over laptops, and I'm not sure what are considered to be good deals anymore!

Thanks!

[Ads]

[razor02097]

HP does make some nice laptops. I use an HP laptop at work that has FMS (field maintenance software) for machines...It travels around the hospital a lot so it is pretty decent on battery. It is also pretty durable it does see it's share of bumps and bruises so no worries there. There are also quite a few macbook airs the doctors use. They are still user friendly and weighs about 2 lbs....so if you want good portability and are okay with going to a different OS....might be something to keep in mind.

I have always been partial to Sony but I got my current Vaio mostly because I really wanted a blu-ray player I could take with me. I do have to ask though...Is giving your old laptop new life out of the question? I mean reinstalling windows or putting a free linux OS on there?

[RyanPm40]

It sort of is out of the question only because I don't like the low hard drive space and the low RAM and Processing speeds, and the graphics card is so basic it can't run any decent games. I'm really a diehard windows fan, and I'm not so sure I'd be able to happily run a linux or mac OS

Macs are fun to play around with but I think it'd take too much time to get used to, and anything from apple is just far too expensive for me. I kind of don't want to go too far past 600 dollars, and the lower the better XD.

My battery on this laptop lasts about 5 minutes unplugged, too. I think it has a bug, because whenever the AC is plugged in, it will say like 10%, Plugged In, Not Charging. Neeevver charges. Wasn't the best battery life when I first got the laptop either, and it would be cool to have one that I could sit around campus with if I wanted.

[razor02097]

Gotcha

In that case I can only suggest to do some research to figure out what would be right for you... it is really easy to go in a store and get talked into something you don't need. Brand isn't necessarily everything since they all use very similar if not the same hardware.

[htc(hot-taco-cheese)]

I am looking at laptops, too. Currently, I am interested in Lenovo (IBM's new computer branch) and HP laptops. Once I get one, I will dual-boot it with Ubuntu right away.

[panz]

i know this is probably out of the question too, but if you want an increase in power to play games you might want to go desktop and get a netbook for portability.

You could build a semi-decent desktop for $400 if you build it off newegg ($550ish with a monitor) and you could then get a netbook for $250, so your final price tag lands somewhere around $800.

I'm doing something similar. Sold my HP G60t Laptop to my uncle for $400 and just ordered all the components to build a nice gaming rig (spent $750, but that was becuase I got a really good deal on my monitor should have been $850). I'll probably then go buy a Nook Color or a Netbook for portability, once I can afford it. (Signed up for the Chrome Netbook beta, still got my fingers crossed.)


Edit: Check this link out for a cheap PC meant for occasional gaming and primary web surfing. http://www.hardware-revolution.com/web-pc/

[panz]

er, i guess i forgot that the price will go up a bit if you have to purchase a new OS.

[s197]

Check out Fatwallet Forums - Hot deals, finance, freebies, more in the computers section. People are always posting good deals there for all price ranges. I've had good experience with Toshiba, they're heavy but inexpensive are very reliable in my experience.

[jj26meu]

I purchased a lenovo off of newegg with 4gb of ddr3 ram (newer ram...the older ram is ddr2) it has 350gb of hdd @ 5200 rpm (7200 rpm is fastest for regular hdd and 10000 for SSD drive) 2.2 ghz processor dual core...(they go up to 6-core now but I think its only for desktops) lenovo is a good brand for a college student although it is very poor on graphics. If you want both then you need to look for an AMD motherboard with a dedicated graphics card...(of course gonna cost more) They have shared graphics cards which are usually crap on games unless your highest graphics game is solitaire and dedicated which means it has a built in GPU (Graphics Processing Unit) and a seperate GPU just for 3d graphics. Hopefully this helps and by no means am I an expert with computer hardware, just a hobby. I built my desktop pc for 550 bucks off newegg.

[EFINIncredible]

I am looking at laptops, too. Currently, I am interested in Lenovo (IBM's new computer branch) and HP laptops. Once I get one, I will dual-boot it with Ubuntu right away.

I currently have a Lenovo ThinkPad, it is pretty nice, I have also had some great use from Dell laptops, if you call their online / refurb dept, you can also possibly get a Student Discount along with a great deal on the refurbed unit. Their service is out of this world too, just in case you have an issue in the future...