<p>I'm going to be an information systems major and I've been trying to decide which laptop to buy for the fall.</p>
<p>I've been browsing through the threads and the thinkpad comes up a lott! I'm surprised that i've never heard of the thinkpad before - Is this generally really the best college laptop?</p>
<p>I'm not an intense gamer but I've gotta play my CS so I gotta know- Are they good with games?</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=SoCurious]
Is this generally really the best college laptop?
[/quote]
Yes, it is. I’m a freshman this year, and got an HP because I was too cheap to buy a ThinkPad at the beginning of the year. I regretted it almost immediately. It ran too hot and had a ton of hardware problems.</p>
<p>Over winter break, I replaced it with a ThinkPad T400, and it’s worked amazingly well ever since.</p>
<p>And CS:S works fine for me on it.</p>
<p>I have a Lenovo ThinkPad R61.</p>
<p>ThinkPads are nice laptops. On the exterior, their design is a true classic - always classy, never gaudy. Function-wise, all have three mouse buttons, which means you can open tabs with one button (c.f. right-clicking and selecting “open new tab”). Although a recent design change to the keyboard resulted in some bad press, a review from [last</a> week](<a href=“TechnologyGuide - TechTarget”>TechnologyGuide - TechTarget) suggests that the problems have been fixed and the keyboard’s legendary status is still there.</p>
<p>I have used Thinkpads for many years and they are great machines. My 2nd laptop at MIT was a Thinkpad.</p>
<p>There is no hype with ThinkPads. Just pure quality.</p>
<p>The best laptops you can buy are Apple and Thinpad. The reason is they have very similar engineers. When IBM sold off its pc division apple snatched up 50 of the think pad engineers and the other 50 stayed in RI. </p>
<p>The best part about Lenovo/IBM is the support.</p>
<p>Why is it that you can get a Dell (Studio 17) with 3GB RAM and 250GB HD for the same price as a Thinkpad T400 with only 1GB RAM and 160HD?</p>
<p>I am on a limited budge so around the $700-800 range is all I can get right now.</p>
<p>Would it be better for me to get the dell, since it has 3 times as much RAM than the thinkpad, and a larger hard drive?</p>
<p>Wouldn’t I be selling myself short if I got the thinkpad?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Why should you buy a BMW when a Ford gives you more space and better gas mileage for the same price?</p>
<p>You get what you pay for. Dell has a lot of quirks, such as a proprietary power supply - If the motherboard doesn’t detect the control signal from the power supply, it doesn’t run in full power mode. The BIOS/OS works more cleanly on the Thinkpad.</p>
<p>If you are budget minded, and can work around the quirks, then it is a great buy. However, businesses want a solid computer where time is money.</p>
<p>BTW: I would upgrade the RAM on the Thinkpad, and buy an external drive. You need the external drive for backup anyway. 160gb is more than enough for the main drive (one you carry around).</p>
<p>
[QUOTE=knightforum]
Why is it that you can get a Dell (Studio 17) with 3GB RAM and 250GB HD for the same price as a Thinkpad T400 with only 1GB RAM and 160HD?
[/quote]
First of all, the Dell Studio line is aimed at consumers, while the ThinkPad line is aimed at businesses. A better comparison would be the Dell Latitude line to the Lenovo ThinkPads, or the Dell Studio line to the Lenovo IdeaPads.</p>
<p>More importantly, the ThinkPads provide a degree of durability and quality that even Dell’s business laptops simply cannot match. I thought I was OK with a cheap laptop with slightly better specs, and got a 17" HP for less than $900. But after just a few months, I realized what a big mistake I’d made, so I ponied up the cash and got a ThinkPad. It was most definitely worth it.</p>
<p>I own noobs in cs_office with my thinkpad all the time</p>
<p>There are tons of superb older Thinkpads on eBay. You can get a very nice refurbished T43, for example, for under $300, then you can do whatever upgrades you need. Thinkpads rule.</p>
<p>My mom breaks her Thinkpads all the time.</p>
<p>…But then she doe take her computer in her purse and fly all around the country.</p>
<p>Whatever, I personally don’t like the design (it looks so bulky and old!), but it’s the standard in many sales organizations, so if you’re going into that it might be helpful to be familiar with the system. Also, they have drain holes for if you spill liquid on them, I think, which is pretty freaking cool.</p>