Laptop Criteria

<p>i'm probaby the only incoming student to CIT that really cant tell the difference between laptops..i'm going to be majoring in civil engineering..for now..wut should i be looking for when i go buy my laptop</p>

<p><a href="http://www.cmu.edu/computing/documentation/buy-computer/buy-computer.html#pcmac%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.cmu.edu/computing/documentation/buy-computer/buy-computer.html#pcmac&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>although I would recomend higher specs.</p>

<p>Check dell they had 35% of select insipions, not sure if they do anymore but you can find good deals everyday</p>

<p><a href="http://www.dell.com/CMU%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.dell.com/CMU&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>duz it matter which brand i choose...is hp any good?</p>

<p>HP is good, in fact I have one and I love it. (HP nc8430)</p>

<p>I am going to insert my obligatory plug for Apple here.</p>

<p>Get a MacBook Pro, use Mac OS X for most things, and you can put Windows on it in case CivE requires the use of Windows-only programs. If you're so inclined, you can go for the hat-trick and put Linux on it too. It has high performance and a bunch of bundled software. And, of course, it just works. And looks nice.</p>

<p>base criteria: DONT pay too much!</p>

<p>1.83ghz core duo, 1gb ram, video card, 14.1" screen, 80-100gb HDD should not cost more than $1200, if not less.</p>

<p>Here is my input -- I have something closer to the minimum specs for my laptop, 1 Ghz Celeron, 512 MB Ram, some crappy video card, 60 GB hard drive. I am a CS major, and it has served all of my purposes very well. Like the above post says, you shouldn't need to spend a ton of money to get a laptop</p>

<p>I'd definitely recommend more than 512MB of RAM, though. In this day and age, 1GB is practically standard in all but very low-end computers.</p>

<p>I agree that 1GB RAM is a good idea, especially with resource-hog Vista on the way (if you're a Windows person).</p>

<p>i am not too sure if 1 gb RAM is good enough for aero vista...</p>

<p>Then don't use Vista. It's not going to be out by the time school starts, anyway. And it's probably not going to be worth the price even when it does come out.</p>

<p>When you get a laptop, make sure you get one that is "Vista Compatible" so you can support Windows Vista whenever it comes out & becomes the new standard Windows OS. But don't hold your breath, Vista is really buggy & a complete resource hog... from what I've seen, it's nowhere near being released as a stable version. 512MB RAM is good to start, make sure you can always upgrade it later though. It doesn't have to start out being expensive. </p>

<p>A word of advice though - get a 4 year warranty, it's well worth the money. If you're getting a Dell, spend the extra $40-100 (whatever it's going for this week) for Complete Care. If you spill stuff on your laptop, drop it, whatever, they'll fix/replace it. I think the only reason they won't fix things is if there are hammer marks.</p>

<p>"vista capable" is a joke, don't even buy into it. But yes, vista is a hog, just from boot it uses (this is build 5384 though) about 700mb, and quickly rises to around 950 - 990 when firefox and an app or two are in use. </p>

<p>It is fast and good looking though, but not anything huge.</p>

<p>buy a macbook pro.</p>

<p>any engineering or compsci student who does not buy a mac should be kicked out of the school for incompetence... unless they run linux or illegaly run OSX ;p</p>

<p>it's going to be HP dv6000z for me i guess...heres how it looks like:-</p>

<p>OS: Windows XP Professional
Processor: AMD Turion 64 X2 Mobile TL-56 (1.80GHz/512KB)
Display:15.4" WXGA BrightView Widescreen
Graphics Card: 256MB NVIDIA GeForce Go 7200
Memory: 2.0GB DDR2 SDRAM (2x1024MB)
Hard Drive:80 GB SATA 5400 RPM
Primary CD/DVD Drive: Super Multi 8X DVD+/-R/RW w/Double Layer Support
Networking: 802.11a/b/g WLAN & Bluetooth
Misc.: HP Mobile Remote Control, Microphone + Webcam </p>

<p>Price: $1,350 (including taxes)</p>

<p>i think it's a good enough deal...</p>

<p>yeah that looks like a good deal...I wish they offered the x2 with the x1600 though</p>

<p>
[quote]
any engineering or compsci student who does not buy a mac should be kicked out of the school for incompetence

[/quote]
</p>

<p>lol, an interesting stance</p>

<p>Lbtg47: exactly. What other laptop exists that can run Mac OS X, Linux and Windows? Oh right, the MacBook. And that's it.</p>

<p>well any laptop can run all three if you know how to get OSX to boot up on non apple computers</p>

<p>but i think linux is good enough without OSX</p>

<p>but seriously though... get a macbook and use OSX!! <3</p>

<p>
[quote]
Lbtg47: exactly. What other laptop exists that can run Mac OS X, Linux and Windows? Oh right, the MacBook. And that's it.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Actually just about any laptop with the right chipset can run all three of those OS's, including OS X ( <a href="http://www.osx86project.org%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.osx86project.org&lt;/a> )</p>

<p>Not to mention the issues with overheating, whining, and various bugs and irregularities present in tons of macbook pro's (go to any mac forum, they aren't hard to find). The macbook pro is an interesting machine and OS X is certainly a good OS but to be honest I wouldn't want to run windows on a mac laptop. Besides the aformentioned issues as of yet apple has yet to release drivers for the "iSight" (aka webcam) and the keyboard backlight for windows. Not to mention that you'll have to carry around an external mouse whenever you want to compute because of the lack of 2 mouse buttons (mac's only have one) or suffer from further reduced functionality. If these issues are resolved then it would be a good option to consider, but right now I'd only use it to run games and other apps that OS X cannot run.</p>

<p>btw macconnection is offering the 1.83ghz mbp for 1500 after rebate for any interested</p>

<p>Macs aren't <em>built</em> to run Windows. The reason Apple is pushing the ability of Intel Macs to run Windows is so that Windows users can feel some measure of safety investing in a Mac, knowing that they can still use their Windows apps while getting accustomed to OS X. They're not trying to become a Windows PC vendor.</p>

<p>Running OS X on non-Apple hardware causes more problems than running Windows on a Macintel. Bad idea, really.</p>

<p>Mac Pros announced today...holy crap...</p>