<p>Hey All, Considering buying a laptop at one of these two stores. Not too sure about Geek Squad at Best Buy although 2 min from my daughter's school. Microsoft store has a cheaper protection plan $99 for 2 years with online support. Microsoft Store is 45 min away if needed. i5 vs i7 ???? Any opinions? Do students carry laptops around a lot? Asus Balz14" vs Sony Vaio S 15.5" ??? Opinions? Major is not a consideration. Thanks for your time.</p>
<p>Splurge a little and get her a Thinkpad with an i7… It’ll last her long past graduation!</p>
<p>You’ll get lots of opinions but here are some of mine - </p>
<ul>
<li><p>Get the best price you can on whatever laptop you’re looking for but including the protection plan - ideally covering accidental damage for 4 years to get it through college. Consider getting the ‘on-site’ coverage so the laptop can be fixed at your D’s location rather than taking it somewhere which usually means it’ll get shipped somewhere and have a multi-week turnaround time.</p></li>
<li><p>Don’t count on the Best Buy store being there for long - these electronics retail stores are getting closed right and left, including Best Buy. </p></li>
<li><p>She doesn’t need an i7 processor unless she plans to do heavy duty processing - something most aren’t doing (consider it if planning to major in computer science).</p></li>
<li><p>Opt for smaller and lighter (within reason) vs bigger and heavier - I’d go with a 14" over a 15.4" but some of this comes down to personal preference.</p></li>
<li><p>Check to see if the college she’ll be attending has any special deals on certain PCs. It’s possible a better deal can be had there although not necessarily.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>A lot of students who bring their laptops to class aren’t really using it for class - they’re using it to Facebook, cruise the internet, do email, IM, play games, etc. Really!</p>
<p>Don’t count on her needing it in the classroom. My kids were computer science majors and they never really brought their laptops to class since it easier taking pencil/paper notes for math/science types of classes. They did, however, sometimes bring the laptops to labs or meetings with project partners and they used them heavily to write programs on while in their dorms, visits home, etc.</p>
<p>I would go with the bestbuy and the best protection plan you can get. Bought one for S1 and it has paid for itself. They give you one free battery and one free power cord which pays for 2/3rds of the plan on its own (our son is 1500 miles away so we just got his serial # and went and talked to the Geek squad lady, she sent him a new battery and cord no questions asked (and shipped it for us)). I would go i5/i7 with as much ram as you can get (8gb at least) and with a minimum of a 750GB HD. I agree with #3, go with a smaller screen and if possible you can get a computer with hdmi port and then get a cheap 20" monitor to use when the 14" is too small. As a plus they can use the monitor as a tv (if you buy a cheaper tuner card or a usb tuner or use Netflix).</p>
<p>I would say, you probably don’t need the i7. i5 is fine. However, don’t just buy the cheapest laptop you can find because you think your kid won’t need more. It might (probably) work for school, but it won’t last much beyond that. </p>
<p>I’d also avoid tablets. They’re light and portable, but I’m just not sure how they’d work for writing 100 page reports. </p>
<p>I’ve never seen a Microsoft store, but the Geek Squad guys seemed like they’re just salesmen in different uniforms. </p>
<p>One last thing: I went into a major that almost required a Mac. I ended up sitting in their computer lab until 4 am (when they kicked us out) and then walking back when they’d let us back in at 8. I love my PC, but that wasn’t fun.</p>
<p>I would have your daughter contact the IT help desk at whatever college she is attending and see what they suggest, i.e., the ones they are most familiar with fixing. Most colleges have some kind of laptop/computer repair service either “free” (included in your fees, etc.) or for a very low cost.</p>
<p>As for the Geek Squad, aren’t they splitting off from Best Buy?</p>
<p>wow!!! You all really seem to know what you are talking about. Thank you so much. This kind of information is what I have been searching for.
SteveMa and GladGradDad…Yes…I too am under the assumption that bestbuy is not going to be around for long, which is the only reason I was leary of buying from them. I do like their prices. Where did ya’ll buy your students computers? Didn’t even know there was an onsite coverage. But…I do now. We were thinking of an Asus balz7 versus Sony Vaio S series. Both really light weight…under 5 lbs. Asus is i7 8gb and the Vaio is i5 4gb. Any opinions or other options? EliKresses mentioned the Lenovo Thinkpad. This is better than any info I have received in a store or online. Thanks again.</p>
<p>I’d scratch the Sony Vaio off your list if you want a reasonably well-built machine to last 4+ years. </p>
<p>Sony Vaios may be aesthetically pleasing, but my experience in IT and from having several friends with Vaios is that they are flimsy and break down at the slightest provocation. </p>
<p>This ranged from a friend who had to have his LCD screen repaired twice within the 1 year warranty period to very recently when a friend’s Vaio had its DVD-RW drive tray door literally break/fall off without anyone/anything touching it. Very poor build quality/QC IME.</p>
<p>Heard good things about ASUS notebooks and if you can go for a Lenovo…definitely consider it.</p>
<p>If you can afford then buy a laptop with a solid state disk (SSD hard drive have no moving parts) instead with a regular disk (using mechanical rotation and easy to get damage disk surface). This will save a lot of time and money. SSD is faster and a lot more reliable. It also makes the laptop cooler because it consumes very little power.</p>
<p>I would not buy protection plan more than 2 year long because the life time of a laptop now is around 2-3 years.</p>
<p>We have gotten our kids’ laptops from Dell through the school discount programs. We got the onsite coverage plans with them for things that couldn’t be fixed. They have held up very well and will buy our next two Dells as well (although DD wants a Mac-so who knows).</p>
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<p>That’s only the case if you’re a gamer, someone who works heavily with multimedia creation/editing, programmer, or anyone else whose computing demands the latest/greatest in system resources. </p>
<p>If you’re talking that’s how long an average laptop lasts before they completely fail…that’s not been my experience or those of most friends. </p>
<p>Then again, we tend to avoid buying budget/consumer grade or low-end corporate notebooks precisely because we prefer paying a little more for something that’s reliable and well-built. With us, we have no problems using the same machines for 5-8+ years and beyond. </p>
<p>If your laptop’s failing after 2-3 years, either the notebook was bottom of the barrel to begin with and/or the user is subjecting the notebook to excessive abuse.</p>
<p>Gosh you guys and gals are awesome. My daughter is going to be away at college in L.A. I want to get her a RELIABLE (haha…keyword) laptop with an i5 4-8gb. i7 would be great but i5 might be cheaper. DVD player, webcam. She really likes the 15" but the 14" would be great too. We definately want a good protection plan. Really like the onsite coverage. Microsoft store does not offer it. Buying the student microsoft suite $99. Great deal. Must be lightweight. Wanted to spend about $1200 out the door. College only offers the micosoft student suite for $99. No other deals. Go ahead and list your preferences and where to get if you are so inclined. I am going to look like a pro when we buy thanks to ya’ll. Love CC.</p>
<p>mum4college-I would not buy the Microsoft suite until you check the school tech website. At our oldest son’s school, they could download all of that for free once they got to school and logged into the school network.</p>
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I disagree with this statement. There’s no reason that the laptop wouldn’t suit the student to last through 4-5 years of college. Even most businesses aren’t going to replace all laptops after 2 years. The protection plan (warranty plus accidental damage) for 4 years ensures the laptop will be operational throughout. Both of my kids used the same laptop (each their own laptop) throughout their undergrad years and they were fine and these were CS majors who used their laptops much more intensively than most students.</p>
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I disagree with this statement as well. Hard disks today are very reliable and most people won’t have an issue with them in the 4-5 years they’ll likely use the laptop so I don’t think it’ll save a lot of time for most people and an SSD would ‘cost’ more for most people because they’re more expensive than a spinning disk. If the person buys the warranty coverage for the entire laptop then the disk will be included in that so there’s no additional expense if it needs to be replaced. I’m not anti-SSD since they faster and have the power advantages but just commenting on the ‘save a lot of time and money’ statement.</p>
<p>OP - You asked where we purchased the laptops. Both of my kids used Dell laptops. One was purchased at the campus bookstore because the price was better than online through Dell. by the time the second kid started college the price online was better so we purchased it online. Both laptops lasted through college but they had a weak area in the hinges which had to get fixed under warranty. I think one of them also had an AC adapter issue which was also replaced under warranty.</p>
<p>One kid recently started grad school and since her laptop was now over 5 years old the kid bought a Sony Vaio (12"). Within the first year it had an issue with the display I think and it had to be fixed under warranty. </p>
<p>I use a Lenovo laptop and it seems to be constructed fairly well and I haven’t had any issues with it but I’m not rough on it either since it doesn’t get moved around a lot.</p>
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I agree with this - wait and see what the school offers in free or discounted software before buying things like Office, etc.</p>
<p>^ Your experience is different than mine. In the last 2 years I have to replace hard drives 4 times: 1 on my home desktop, 2 on my kids’ laptops, and 1 on my work laptop. 3 were on Dell, 1 was on HP. Hard drive replacement is very costly. Software has to be re-installed, data could be permanently lost, productivity is lost,… A lot of time new software has to be purchased because you cannot find the old software disk anymore. </p>
<p>I will not spend $150 to $300 more for warranty on a $800-$1000 computer. If something breaks I will buy the part through eBay or BestBuy to replace it myself. If it’s not fixable I will toss the computer and buy a new one with better hardware and lower price. My junior college kid already spent money for 2 more computers after leaving home, 1 desktop and 1 laptop.</p>
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<p>This is what backup is for.</p>
<p>It’s easier on Mac OS X because you can do a point-in-time restore based on file restores. Windows doesn’t allow this so you do full image backups and incrementals and so a restore would involve a full image restore and roll-forward. An alternate approach would be full backups from time to time along with regular data backups or the use of applications and data storage on the cloud. Another approach would be a redundant RAID setup.</p>
<p>We ordered our son’s laptop through Costco. The customer service and related support are outstanding.</p>
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<p>[Study:</a> Hard Drive Failure Rates Much Higher Than Makers Estimate | PCWorld](<a href=“http://www.pcworld.com/article/129558/study_hard_drive_failure_rates_much_higher_than_makers_estimate.html]Study:”>http://www.pcworld.com/article/129558/study_hard_drive_failure_rates_much_higher_than_makers_estimate.html)</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/hdd-reliability-storelab,2681-2.html[/url]”>The Durability Standard - Study: A Look At Hard Drive Reliability In Russia | Tom's Hardware;
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<p><a href=“http://www.crucial.com/support/ssd/hard_drive_failure.aspx[/url]”>http://www.crucial.com/support/ssd/hard_drive_failure.aspx</a></p>
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Wow - that certainly is much worse than my experience with many laptops through multiple manufacturers. Were these definite HDD failures? I’m asking because I know that some HDDs get replaced when there’s actually a software issue rather than a hardware issue. Some laptops, for example Lenovo, have built-in things to help reduce HDD failures such as shutting off power to the HDD if the laptop senses it’s being moved too rapidly (i.e. dropping).</p>
<p>Still though, SSDs are more expensive than spinning disks but if one is willing to pay the additional cost and is willing to live with the lower capacity then an SSD can be good.</p>
<p>Yes, they were true hard drive failures. I used diagnostics software to check. Sometimes the drives did not spin regardless swapping power cables or disk slots (on desktop), sometimes the boot bios did not detect any drive, sometimes I got warning from system telling that the drive fails, need to back up and replace ASAP.</p>