<p>when is the best time to buy a laptop? do you have any recommendations under $600?</p>
<p>Check your college website for their suggestions. This summer has the best deals (end June/July…). MAC or PC- depends on what your major is, your school. At UW-Madison they suggest to go with what you know unless your major has specific requirements, their DoIT site gives various configurations for Apple and Dell.</p>
<p>At $600 it’s hit or miss - add $100 more and buy a Dell or HP for the free Xbox360 :-). </p>
<p>Also check Lenovo, they have some nice discounts.</p>
<p>Bought our son a computer waaaaay back in 2006. The engineering major surprised me by wanting a mac. Bought it for him and, 5 year’s later-- short story, DS’s analysis is: this is the best technology purchase you have ever made; I have never asked it to so something it couldn’t do.</p>
<p>Now that DS is graduated and on his own with a good paying job, he would like to have an excuse to upgrade, but that laptop we bought in 2006 is chugging along just fine.</p>
<p>Agree with Wis75, check the college website to be sure that whatever laptop you buy conforms to the university’s requirements. If your student will be far from home its worth it to buy through the college, for the tech support and insurance. </p>
<p>Bought middle of the road PCs for both sons, with the assumption that there will be some spilled beer/coffee/Mountain Dew/shampoo/name your poison “events” during their undergraduate years. Promised a MAC or higher end PC when they graduate.</p>
<p>son’s computer took a direct hit from a soccer ball in his dorm room (go figure!). I was pleasantly surprised that our home owners insurance covered the repair.</p>
<p>IN his dorm room? :eek:</p>
<p>Computer prices may be going up in the second half of the year. The tsunami in Japan has resulted in some component sourcing issues (similar with cars) and there’s a water shortage in Taiwan resulting in potential rationing for Fabs to make chips.</p>
<p>Yes, IN his dorm room.
sigh.</p>
<p>My experience with computers for college. </p>
<p>Bought my son a mid range HP laptop. Had tons of problems with it. HP doesn’t have the quality they used to and their help line is half way around the world. They were a step above useless. And the laptop barely left his room. He ended up getting a docking station, a separate mouse, keyboard and monitor. So it was like an expensive desktop machine. It then had major problems just before finals and I ended up driving up to school to drop off my laptop so he would have a working PC. Ditched the laptop that summer and he put together a good desktop machine for himself. (He had always built his own desktop machines before he got the laptop). </p>
<p>Daughter just got thru he freshman year. School provides “workrooms” for the student group projects that comes with a PC in the room (and a big wall mounted monitor). You can keep a lot of files on the school server so they can be accessable. Ended up getting her a Dell desktop (she isn’t into building her own) and a netbook for when she absolutely must be mobile (which isn’t often). I also put a TV tuner card into the machine and, with Windows Media Center, used her PC as her TV and DVR. She was in a triple and her two roommates both had laptops. Daughter told me that only once did one of her roommates take her laptop out of the room other than to go home.</p>
<p>So, think seriously about how much you will really need a laptop over a desktop machine. Check out the school and see what resources are available that would help make the desktop/laptop decision. Desktops can be much cheaper and easier to repair because you don’t need specific components to fit you specific laptop. Or, you can get more machine for the money with desktop.</p>
<p>BTW, I am not totally against laptops. I have one for my consulting business as I have to be mobile. It is a Toshiba as I have found them to be the most reliable. If you check the reviews make sure you are looking at current (or near current) models and service reviews as some manufacturers (like HP) used to be good but have taken a big nosedive in the last few years with all the “off shoreing” going on.</p>
<p>I, personally, carry my laptop to almost all of my classes (unless it is a math course or the professor is against the use of computers, etc. in class).</p>
<p>If you are looking at the mac (which I use and recommend to most everyone), the samsung laptops have similar looks and specs, but run on windows and cost hundreds of dollars less. </p>
<p>I’m attaching Bestbuy’s link for Samsung laptops: [Samsung</a> : Laptop Computers - BestBuy](<a href=“http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olstemplatemapper.jsp?id=pcat17080&type=page&qp=q70726f63657373696e6774696d653a3e313930302d30312d3031~~cabcat0500000%23%230%23%2311a~~cabcat0502000%23%230%23%23o~~nf510||53616d73756e67&list=y&nrp=15&sc=abComputerSP&sp=-bestsellingsort+skuid&usc=abcat0500000]Samsung”>http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olstemplatemapper.jsp?id=pcat17080&type=page&qp=q70726f63657373696e6774696d653a3e313930302d30312d3031~~cabcat0500000%23%230%23%2311a~~cabcat0502000%23%230%23%23o~~nf510||53616d73756e67&list=y&nrp=15&sc=abComputerSP&sp=-bestsellingsort+skuid&usc=abcat0500000)</p>
<p>I purchased the “Today’s Special” from Home Shopping Network (HSN) on Saturday. It was an Acer laptop for $599. It is now around $650+/-. I’ve used an Acer laptop the past 6 years without any problems. But wanted a new one for my birthday. HSN offers flex-pay, e.g. 4 monthly payments of $125.</p>
<p>One other consideration. Check with the school (or maybe other students at the school, if you know any) and see what software they use. Publishing, art, etc seem to favor the mac where there is a lot of software CAD and math related that I use (and you would in engineering schools) that is Windows only.</p>
<p>{and not to make the mac fanatics go crazy, I know that there is a lot of equivalent software for the mac and there is also a windows emulator for the mac. But why get a mac if you just want to run windows based software?}</p>
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<p>Style and form factor. There’s nothing out there like the MacBook Air 11 inch.</p>
<p>There are few 15 inch laptops with 1680x1050 resolution. There are few 17 inch notebooks with 1920x1200; most are going to HD (1920x1080). Matte screens are getting harder and harder to find - Apple offers glossy or matte. It’s a real pain that many vendors are abandoning the high-end market.</p>
<p>I’d go with a mac. They definitely cost more initially, but I watch my friends regularly replace their laptops, and need to buy new hardware, get viruses etc, while mine is still going strong after 2 years, and I see no reason I won’t still be using it when I graduate in 2 more. I’d wager the cost is equal, or possibly even less, over time. If you wait a few months, apple offers a discount for college students. I believe its $200 off plus a 8gp Ipod touch (which is $200 or so regularly)</p>
<p>I just bought my daughter a MAC as a graduation present… wow, it would have been nice to receive that discount and of course that Ipod touch. LOL</p>
<p>The Mac discount also came with a HP printer when I bought it last year. Thought they were doing it again this year.</p>
<p>CMIRA003, Did you give it to your daughter yet? If not, you could return it and wait until Apple starts the deal–usually sometime in June. I’m assuming they’ll offer it again this year.</p>
<p>Did you buy it through the Apple Site? On the Apple Site, there’s a link to their Educational Purchase site. This is where you get the educational discount. The educational discounts are available throughout the year, but the student can only purchase one laptop via the discount per year.</p>
<p>When Apple runs their laptop/free ipod touch/free printer special, you also get the educational discount on top of it. You pay upfront for the ipod touch and the printer, fill out a simple online rebate form, and then get the rebate check in the mail from Apple.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s just me, but for what a high end MacBook Pro costs I’d get a netbook for taking class notes and 10 hours a day battery life and invest the rest on a very powerful small form factor desktop (Shuttle). Obviously that works in some cases only (can’t run AutoCAD or Matlab on an Atom) but if most of the work is to be done at the dorm / apartment…</p>