good laptop for college

[uncfanforlife07 10+ year member]

Im heading off to college this year ( NC State - mechanical/aerospace engineering ) and I will need a laptop. I honestly dont know much about computers, so I thought I would ask for some of your advice. The school has some specifications that it must meet but Im sure most new laptops will meet these. My parents and I looked at the apple macbooks and these met the specifications with room, i cant seem to find the sheet that has the exact specs. I am sure my parents would like to keep the laptop around the price of the basic macbooks ( ~$1000 before all the other things i will need ). I really only use my computer now for music ( limewire and itunes ), instant messaging, email, internet, and the occasional game but nothing serious in that area. Any imput would greatly be appreciated, im wanting it to be easily portable, have nice features that can come in handy, and as problem free as possble. I can try and answer any other questions if I need to. Thanks in advance!

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[tRiGgEr 5,000+ posts]

Make a stop at Best buy. Almost ANY laptop they carry will fulfill your school requirements. Honestly internet access and the ability to run Office, are the only requirements.

 

[UCF52 10+ year member]

very subjective topic, but i like my laptop because of its portability (size and weight). my roommate has a huge as laptop that never leaves his desk because its ****ing huge and the battery dies after like 30 min., so i dont see the reason for not getting a desktop. but anyways, i have a Dell Inspiron 700m and got the larger battery and man it lasts like 6 hrs. it has the x-brite widescreen and i think a 2.xx ghz processor. if you are planning on taking the computer to class, just make sure get the extended battery. look for something with 1gig of RAM and a processor > 2.00ghz. i hear nothing but good things about the mac computers, i just am not a fan of the OS. but they seem to be very personable (prob sounds weird) computers. just my .02

 

[UCF52 10+ year member]

Make a stop at Best buy. Almost ANY laptop they carry will fulfill your school requirements. Honestly internet access and the ability to run Office, are the only requirements.

true. pretty much any computer these days has all the crap you'll need. and yea wi-fi is a must!

 

[bk12321 10+ year member]

keep an eye on slickdeals.net

daily deals are posted, I found my laptop from dell configured at $2500, on that site. Shipped to my house with tax was $1200. You can find some crazy good stuff on there.

 

[youngfu 10+ year member]

Just don't buy anyting bigger that 14" screen. Big notebooks will be pita carring around.

 

[uncfanforlife07 10+ year member]

yeah i forgot to point out before but you guys already did, the battery life and portability is very important to me. I will be taking it to class so i cant have the battery crapping out or it being to big for my backpack. thanks for the imput, keep it coming

 

[big_mofo 10+ year member]

Just don't buy anyting bigger that 14" screen. Big notebooks will be pita carring around.

theres nothing wrong with a 15. only other size is 17, an that is way to big. my gf has one an it is way to ****in big for her to carry around.

 

[bdawson72 5,000+ posts]

Just don't buy anyting bigger that 14" screen. Big notebooks will be pita carring around.

I've got a 15 and that really isnt a problem to carry around at all.

 

[mapolley07 10+ year member]

actually for engineering you will need a pretty powerful laptop because you will need to run some very taxing programs like AutoCAD and SolidWorks/Inventor.

those programs take up tons of system resources, so lots of RAM is a MUST. for engineering i would say bare minimum:

2GB RAM, 200GB Hard Drive, 15.4" screen or bigger, highest resolution you can find, Minimum 256MB graphics, ATI radeon or NVIDIA will be fine, probably Intel Core2Duo fastest you can afford, and WindowsXP Pro is a MUST, many engineering programs will not work with Vista yet.

Go with the absolute best laptop you can afford. You might want to buy one through the Engineering Department at your school, because then it will be designed for running drafting programs.

If you are studying engineering you CANNOT cheap out on a computer. Try to spend at least $1200 dollars if you can afford it. watch back to school sales that are coming up, you can get a $1600 laptop for $1100-$1200

 

[mapolley07 10+ year member]

trust me, i have taken like 3 years of drafting/engineering class and you will want a HUGE screen, especially for detailed drawings. you will kill yourself if you try to get by with anything smaller than a 15.4" screen. honestly i say buck it up and get a 17" screen. you will also have a full keyboard with a numeric keypad. you will need that because AutoCAD requires you to type in TONS of numerical coordinates, and it is a pain without a numeric keypad.

at the very least, buy a big monitor, a full size keyboard, an external HDD, and a nice mouse for your dorm room

 

[faulkton 5,000+ posts]

Inspiron 1720 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache)

Operating System Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Premium Edition

System Color Ruby Red RED

MEMORY FREE! 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 at 667MHz

LCD Panel Anti-glare, widescreen 17.0 inch display (1440 x 900)

Video Card 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 8600M GT

Hard Drive FREE! 160GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)

Network Card Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem INTNIC

Optical Drive CD / DVD writer (DVD+/-RW Drive)

Sound Card High Definition Audio 2.0

Wireless Networking Cards Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini-Card

Camera Integrated 2.0 Megapixel Webcam

I just bought this laptop for my mom. $1310 with a printer/scanner/fax, router, and a logitech mouse. Not a great deal, but not too bad.

 

[bamaboy 5,000+ posts]

i think 17" defeat the purpose for a laptop

not all engineers use autocad and such

 

[andytb 10+ year member]

toshibas **** my girl got one for christmas it had no sound so she got another one and the screen just went out

 

[bombledmonk 10+ year member]

Not saying people don't know much about laptops around here, but head over to http://www.notebookreview.com and get some advice that from people that will really help assess you situation and come up with a solution tailored to your needs. They know their stuff over there.

On a side note, I'm an EE engineering student so I have little use of 3D modeling, but from my observation at least at my school, almost all modeling is done on school's computers unless you pirate your own copy of whatever CAD program the school is using. The need for a "CAD" worthy computer doesn't really exist if the school doesn't give you/require you to have a copy of the (super expensive) programs you need. I'd personally recommend a computer with a screen smaller than 17" if you plan on moving the computer at all. I've owned an e1705 for the past year and a half and don't regret buying, but find myself wishing I had smaller much of the time. I originally bought it for gaming, but then all my time for that got eroded away and I was left with a luggable that's not really useful for schoolwork unless I'm going to someplace to camp out and study for many hours on end.