I’m going to be majoring in computer science and I need recommendation for laptops. I have never owned a laptop before or used it too often, I always have used my desktop when I’m at home. Below is a list of what I think should be enough for my laptop.
I'm trying to keep the budget below $500, but if it is absolutely necessary I'll go above that.
I don't know what size screen I really need for my major, but I'm thinking 14'' or 15'' (you guys tell me which is better). I also need the laptop to be lightweight.
Battery life should be decent as I'm going to be taking it with me to classes obviously.
I prefer Windows 8 OS, but Windows 7 will also do.
I do prefer this laptop last at least 4 years for college.
I'm thinking 500gb hard drive is enough (if needed I can buy a external hard drive). I dont need a SSD because they usually tend to cost more.
I'm thinking 4gb RAM should be enough.
I'm not sure what type/kind of processor I need but hopefully i3 is enough?? <-- (I don't even know if that made sense to you guys)
If your doing programing I would seriously recommend stepping above the $500 price point and getting something with an Intel Core i5 or i7. The 13" Macbook Pro Retina is the obvious choice for anyone going to college but since you stated your preference for Windows and a sort of price point I guess that’s off the table. I would also say that you really don’t need a 14 or 15" screen, 13" will do just fine. If could possibly go up to about $1000-1200 then you have some really great options including all the Macbooks, the Lenovo Yoga Pro, the Microsoft Surface Pro and the Dell XPS 13.
This laptop could work; http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/lenovo/flex-series/flex-3-14/?sb=:000001C9:00014B7D:#tab-tech_specs
A few notes:
-You won’t keep it below $500 if you want to do any effective CS work on that computer. Bare-minimum processor should be a quad-core i5, and that alone is going to knock the price above $500. I’ve seen Cmake use 100% of my i7-4700MQ for several minutes straight (granted, I did tell it to use all 8 logical cores… but if I hadn’t done that, it’d probably still be compiling an hour later).
-Windows preinstalled is definitely going to get you the best hardware for the price, but once you have it you should dual-boot some kind of GNU/Linux. I used to program on Windows, now I program on Linux, and it’s far better. An easy way to start is Ubuntu or similar.
-4GB RAM isn’t going to be enough. If you’re running services like MySQL along with various other stuff, your RAM usage will easy hit 2-3GB while idle, and I imagine some assignments (or hobby programming) will eat a couple more GB from time to time.
I don’t have a specific recommendation, but keep the above in mind when you’re looking.
I’m going to suggest you put this thread in the CS/Math section.
That said, at 500$ you aren’t going to get a great laptop. You would be much better off building a DESKtop because you can get a lot of horse power if you do a custom build for 500$. You can try and build a good laptop but parts are limited in comparison to a desktop.