<p>Hi, I want to buy a laptop that will serve me well for my four years at Michigan.</p>
<p>I intend to use it primarily for academic purposes and the usual internet browsing. I don't play any computer games but I do like to download music and movies. I guess I would need a fairly large hard drive.</p>
<p>I was thinking something along the lines of Core 2 duo T-5000 or T-7000 series processor, 1-2 GB DDR Ram, and 150+ GB Hard Drive. But I'm not very good with computers/laptops. </p>
<p>Any suggestions?</p>
<p>(My Budget I guess would fall somewhere between $1200-$2000)</p>
<p>If you aren't going to be using it for games, then an apple laptop suits you well. If you aren't going to be doing extensive video editing, then I suggest the Apple Macbook.</p>
<p>Just got a Macbook Pro myself, loving it. Apple has a student discount, and if you buy during the summer you get a free iPod via rebate. Might look into it :)</p>
<p>Get a light notebook, if you aren't into gaming and you can live with looking at a smaller screen. I have a Dell 710m which is 12.1 inches and i love it. I can take it pretty much anywhere. The portability is well worth it in my opinion, even though the screen is a tad smaller. </p>
<p>I would suggest a Dell XPS M1210, it's fairly inexpensive as it starts at 1K and you can easily upgrade it. I would suggest upgrading the ram and the 9-cell battery upgrade.</p>
<p>I'm extremely lost when it comes to upgrading a laptop. I was under the impression that it's easy to modify PC ram but laptops are hard to mod. Also what is a good battery life per charge?</p>
<p>I'm afraid to get myself a macbook because I've been using PCs my whole life, so accustomed to the general display and keyboard commands (not to mention the two click mouse).</p>
<p>laptops are a tad harder to upgrade than desktops, although it can be considerable cheaper do to so on your own. When I upgraded the ram on my laptop, I had to take a screw driver to the underside of the casing and screw it into where its suppose to go. </p>
<p>I would suggest buying a laptop off the dell website because you can easily customize your laptop. If you buy any upgrades, Dell puts them in for you, so you dont have to do any work. </p>
<p>My laptop gets 4+ hours of battery life per charge, and I believe thats pretty decent. I have a 9-cell battery, so that contributes to the battery life. 9-cells wll make your laptop a bit heavier, but IMO its worth it. </p>
<p>If you have been using a PC for your whole life, and you are fine using it, don't get a mac. Don't listen to the apple fanboys.</p>
<p>Yeah, both of them would be good computers. I would say 6a is the better choice, just because it has a bigger screen with everything else the same, for the same price. Those are good deals because of all the software that comes with them.</p>
<p>Personally, I wouldn't buy anything from there. You can get those computers much cheaper straight from the manufacturer. For example, they have the Dell Inspiron 6400 listed for $1300, while you can get it for less than $700 off the Dell website.</p>
<p>I've found that corporate/student/friends and family "discounts" usually end up being higher prices that what you can get if you wait for a sale or from the many coupon websites you can find online.</p>
<p>Try googling "Dell Coupons". Dell always has coupon codes that are like $300 off a laptop $1000 and above. Wait until this happens and then order.</p>
<p>When you order, order a fast processor without spending too much. Also a decent graphics card. Order a big hard drive, but a slow RPM speed. Since you won't play games on it, a faster drive speed won't help that much and will only make it more expensive. Also, order the minimum ram possible. It is cheaper to go to a reputable online seller like Newegg.com and buy separate sticks of ram -- 2 gigs of ram is like $75 now on newegg. Swapping out ram is a breeze, even my clueless girlfriend did it in under 10 minutes. Dell would charge you about $200 to upgrade from 1 gig to 2. Get the 2 gigs from newegg and sell the 1 gig on ebay or give them to your friends. You need 2 gigs though to run Vista. Finally, do not get drawn into extended warranties on computers. The standard warranty is just fine. Computers, like most electronics, either crap out during the warranty period or don't, unless you abuse them. </p>
<p>IMO, no college student needs a laptop over a grand anymore especially if all you're doing is writing papers and surfing the web. In fact, the average sale price of a laptop these days is less than a grand.</p>
<p>Here's an example of a deal (which is actually pretty good IMO):</p>
<p>Buy one of the Sony Vaio CTO Series notebooks. They are specially manufactured for portability and are very powerful. Most importantly, its integrated biometric fingerprint sensor will sure to make you orgasm. I personally own one and it has served me perfectly.</p>
<p>I need to buy my laptop from circuit city as I hold a $500 gift certificate. So I've been browsing their online laptop section. </p>
<p>So basically are Sony and Toshiba quality manufacturers?</p>
<p>Unfortunately, Circuit City doesn't have any Dells. </p>
<p>I've basically decided to go with an Inter Core 2 Duo processor but I can't decide what series to go with. Would you say 2.00 ghz cpu speed is a must, if I intend to keep my notebook for hopefully all of college? If so I need to go with at least a T7200 processor (a T7100 processor is 1.83 ghz or somthing around that).</p>
<p>From what I've learned, upgrading Ram shouldn't be a huge problem, so I guess I go with a 1 GB Ram notebook and then buy another 1 GB stick from newegg? Or do I have to buy a 2 GB stick and get rid of the 1 GB stick already in the laptop?</p>
<p>I'm goin to probably go with a 13 inch screen size or a 15 inch (if its much cheaper).</p>
<p>Sony and Toshiba are fine. HP and IBM are fine as well. HP is the current leader in PC laptop market share I believe. That is probably indicative of something. IMO, Sony is often a little overpriced for what you get. You have to remember that most laptop manufacturers use fungible components -- they use the same Windows OS, same Intel processor, same hard drive from Seagate, etc -- so there is no real reason for one laptop to be much more expensive than another, when the specs are really the same. My advice is find a reputable brand, then compare specs and buy on price.</p>
<p>In terms of processor speed, any of the current dual cores will probably suit your needs for college. Don't buy the cheapest and definitely don't buy the most expensive. For the applications you've cited, there will be almost no noticeable difference. Advances in speed are not occuring as much as they used to. In fact, companies like Intel and AMD are foresaking speed advances to achieve cooler running and more battery efficient processors. That's why many processors purposely run slower when you run the laptop on batteries.</p>
<p>If you get a laptop with 1 gig of ram, it will most likely be two sticks of 512 mb. Usually the specs will indicate this. If you want to upgrade, you'll have to replace 1 stick or both sticks. So you would have the choice of upgrading to 1.5 gigs or 2. 1.5 gigs would probably suffice, but I would prefer two.</p>