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General discussion

laptop for future college student

Jan 16, 2005 7:23AM PST

im getting a new laptop for college and would like any input you have about my current considerations or any other laptops you would like to suggest. basically i want a fairly light and thin notebook that doesn't sacrifice speed for the kind of work i need.

1) im a debator and frequently need to be able to open many huge files like pdfs and large text documents without causing the comp to slow down terribly. (we're talking like 10mb+ text files in some cases) and my desktop gets really slow when im working on too much stuff, and i know from trying to work on my dads laptop (a dell, p4 2Ghzish) it has a hard time and gets really hot.

2) im majoring in computer science. this should be close to irrelevant since coding doesn't stress the system as much as the other stuff i do will, but if anyone who is involved in computer programming has any advice, tha'd be good to hear.

3) i do alot of picture taking and editing with photoshop, and i've heard some people complain about using laptops for photoshop, so anyone who has knowledge about how large photoshop jobs run on certain systems, that would be helpful.

the 2 main competitors on my list right now are:
ibm thinkpad T42
apple powerbook (15")

and since other places that i've posted i get alot of comments about how students should get dells b/c of the support... i would like to say that i am good with computers, and when i have helped friends with their dells and had to deal with their people on email and on the phone i found them all to be useless, and i dont like that dells ship with stuff on them that acts to keep you from being able to fix problems on your own.

thank you in advance for any help.

Discussion is locked

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laptop for future college student
Jan 16, 2005 11:30AM PST

>and since other places that i've posted i get alot >of comments about how students should get dells b/c >of the support... i would like to say that i am good >with computers, and when i have helped friends with >their dells and had to deal with their people on >email and on the phone i found them all to be >useless, and i dont like that dells ship with stuff >on them that acts to keep you from being able to fix >problems on your own.

What do Dells ship with to keep you from fixing them yourself?

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for the student
Jan 18, 2005 10:39AM PST

Hello, I am a first year law student; as such I do everything on my laptop, including taking class notes and doing all my research. Last Wednesday my IBM ThinkPad?s hard drive fried during one of my classes. I had the computer for five years and was sure that it would happen sooner or later. Needless to say, I need a laptop that I can take to class with me.

I was looking for something reasonably priced (as I am not an attorney yet), great performance (Pentium M; Centrino), lightweight (I stress this because my last laptop was 8lbs and was getting very heavy to lug around everyday), relatively small footprint (as I would need to take it to class everyday and there is only so much space on the desk), and preferably a 14.1 in or greater widescreen (just for fun).

I found all this in the Gateway M210 series. I have to tell you that this little machine had everything I was looking for. I customized it on the Gateway website with a Pentium M 1.7 GHz, XP Pro, Ultrabright Screen, etc.

I would not go with IBM if I were you, the customer support is not even as good as Dell (I have a Dell Desktop, and trust me, I know the Dell customer support, it is not all that great). When my hard drive fried, they told me that the best thing to do was to buy a new computer; they didn't even want to fix it. Well, that is exactly what I did . . . I bought a Gateway.

As for Apple, I'm a PC guy, but those PowerBooks are pretty good. However, to get one with the specs that I wanted, I would have to spend almost twice as much as I spent on my Gateway.

In any case, whatever you get, make sure the specs are to your satisfaction, and make sure you buy it through the manufacturing company. Do not go through a retail store (ex: Best Buy). The price may seem better at a megastore, but the service you will get from the company itself is second-to-none. (See www.bestbuysux.org if you do not believe me!)

Well, good luck in your endeavors. Take a look at the Gateway M210 series; it is a beautiful, well crafted, well supported, well endowed machine.

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Get new Sonoma Pentium M or Athlon 64 Turion
Jan 18, 2005 10:55AM PST

The only thing wrong with the post above is that you have the same manufacturer warranty and support whether you buy over the internet or whether you buy retail. Perhaps the person above was referring to a manufacturer EXTENDED warranty versus a Best buy extended warranty -- in that case the Manufacturer extended warranty is preferable but you have a 1 year limited manufacturer warranty at least either way.

The Sonoma Penitum M upgrade is poised to release tomorrow 1/19 -- do not buy one of the older models that is not the new Sonoma chipset, faster RAM, superior integrated video, new wi-fi radio, etc... Dell has a new model on the website already but others will post them tomorrow or very soon.

Or, the Athlon 64 low voltage Turion notebooks are slated now for mid 2005 -- see USA today article I posted today separately (1/18/05)

Again, don't blow it and buy one of the existing notebooks stock unless you are extremely price sensitive as the Sonoma Pentium M notebooks and the upcoming Athlon 64 low voltage notebooks are significant upgrades.

Finally, get a 15.4" widescreen as that is beneficial for writing code as you can see more of the code lines from left to write. You also may want to order an SXGA LCD (or UXGA but that is extreme) instead of the Standard XGA resolution (smaller pixels but more on screen). You can get an Pentium M Centrino notebook currently in the 6 pound range so it can still be carried on campus in a notebook backpack.

The Athlon 64 models with the Turion low voltage are 64 bit and this should get battery life and notebook weight closer to the Pentium M's (with better performance for the future with 64 bit) but it remains to be seen how much battery life and how light the notebooks can be -- current Athlon 64's weigh close to 8 pounds and have battery life much less than the current 3.5-5 hours or longer battery life with Pentium M Centrino