My Laptop Suggestions Thread!

Student Lounge College Life
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<p>I’d say this guide is an excellent starter. I disagree with a couple things and have a little to add, though.</p>

<p>On Dells - most of their products are crap. However, you’d be surprised to hear that I’m probably never ordering another Thinkpad and wish my next laptop to be from Dell. Sound odd?</p>

<p>Here’s the thing: Dell cuts corners on most products, but they have multiple lines of products. They have two lines of quality business-level products: Latitude and Precision. Both are top-notch products which aren’t available thru normal consumer channels. The precisions are just top-notch high-performance machines that cost a very pretty penny, so they’re probably out of consideration for most. Meanwhile, the Latitude is one of the best-built laptops you can get - they’re slightly more rugged than Thinkpads, have a modern (but very professional) design and high-quality metal finish, have long support cycles, and are much more throughly tested than their consumer stuff. The design and support pushes this above the Thinkpad, and I’m getting the Latitude E6510 (refresh of E6500) once it comes out.</p>

<p>So, what about Thinkpad? Well, I have a T500 and I have to say that it’s an excellent machine that has been very reliable and survived lots of abuse. However, Lenovo poses a huge problem: the company is a completely braindead bunch of outsourced idiots, full on with supply-chain issues and inefficient global collaboration that they don’t get anything done. They: messed up my order three times (even when digitally submitted), took SIX WEEKS to deliver my laptop, mutated billing details, indefinitely delayed an order due to permanent supply chain changes, advertised inaccurate and inconsistent specs (HDMI instead of DisplayPort), took 72hr to charge my CC (and have it fail a couple times because their credit processing department is in Brazil, customer service in India, and order fulfillment in China – all which do not modify their hours to work together). Not to mention, when I needed a replacement RTC battery (not the Li-Ion), it was almost impossible to find support, and when I did, that tiny thing arrived in a box half the size that my laptop was originally delivered in and was layerd with three smaller boxes inside – all with poor packaging. Also, the quality of Thinkpads have been degrading, and ever since their remotely pushed spyware incident, I can’t trust Lenovo to deliver me a clean system, even after reimaging.</p>

<p>There’s many sides to this, and I’d like you all to be aware of this before jumping straight to Thinkpad or straightout avoiding Dell. So, in summary:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>If you’re going to get a Thinkpad, see one in person and verify the specs yourself. Then, never order directly from Lenovo and treat it as-if it came with no warranty.</p></li>
<li><p>If you’re thinking about a Dell, pay very close attention to the product line. Even between Latitudes and Vostros, the quality has such a huge difference that they might as well be made by completely different companies.</p></li>
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<p>Oh yeah - alternative OSes should have been mentioned. Whenever a friend asks for a recommendation, I direct them to Mac, but I wouldn’t get one myself. Thing is - by running Linux (or BSD), I can get the stability of Mac with the cost and freedom of a PC. I know how to operate it, and with my setup, I find it easier to use than a Mac. That’s after a huge learning curve though.</p>

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<p>wait… so let me get this straight: You advise against dedicated graphics cards except for gaming and media, then for your own build that you just take to class for notes, you have a dedicated video card?</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1064061333-post12.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1064061333-post12.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>@Arctic92, why does a car enthusiast use a sports coupe for daily commutes to work? The people who would reference this thread aren’t very tech literate, and are likely looking for the cheapest possible solution.</p>

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<p>@Arctic: That was a typo. The Intel 4500GMA I have is an integrated, not dedicated graphics chip.</p>

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<p>Ah, okay. my mistake.</p>

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<p>Can you even get a dedicated Intel graphics chip? I think they’re come exclusively as integrated chips on motherboard chipsets.</p>

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<p>You can’t, and I think they scaled back plans for the one they were developing (according to wikipedia, lol).</p>

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<p>haha ok man. </p>

<p>if you just want to browse the internet, type up papers, listen to music and watch movies, learning how to use linux or *bsd is a waste of time. those operating systems aren’t really designed with ease of use in mind.</p>

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<p>You don’t have to learn Linux/*BSD to use it. A properly set-up system with a good desktop environment can be more intuitive to use than Windows and be as easy as a Mac.</p>

<p>However, I personally feel that the extra stability/predictability in Linux/*BSD alone is reason to learn how to use it for music/movies/papers. I’ve had friends who complained about how their system have odd quirks that they just put up with. I am less tolerant of these issues than most Mac people I know. This is why I have a very minimalist setup on Linux – it’s to cut down on points of failure.</p>

<p>Also, I personally find Linux/*BSD to both be much easier to use than Windows, for pretty much any purpose except connecting to a wireless network. It’s how to get it set up the way you like it and the learning curve that proves to be very difficult.</p>

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<p>Only 1 poster to ruin this thread.</p>

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<p>For notetaking purposes, get a small notebook or a netbook. I have an HP elitebook 8530W, and it is a pain lugging it around. </p>

<p>“This is because your primary concern is upfront cost, not long-term benefit.” </p>

<p>I have to call BS on that one. Macs use the same internals as any other notebooks, and if you think they stand a chance durability wise against similarly priced business laptops, well, you’re just plain misinformed.</p>

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<p>Dude there is no way that KDE or GNOME is more intuitive or well-polished than the Windows or Mac desktops. Your bias is showing, bro.</p>

<p>And Windows is pretty stable now. I don’t see how that’s a problem.</p>

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<p>It’s really quite subjective. In fact, if you’ve been using any of the systems you’re judging for a significant amount of time before the other, the system you learn first will always feel more intuitive since it’s more difficult to unlearn than to learn from a blank slate. For me, I started with DOS and quickly moved to Win 3.1. To this day, I’m actually most comfortable with Fluxbox – and yes, there’s much more in common between Fluxbox and Win 3.1 than there is between any other system. The bias shows on all sides, and we can’t truly remove the bias unless we have someone who’s never used a computer before.</p>

<p>Additionally, I’ve never said anything about Mac. It’s an extremely well-polished system, if expensive. My main point is that I feel that Windows is non-intuitive because from my personal experience with people with absolutely no experience with computers - they can easily figure out GNOME (but not KDE) and OS X, but not Windows!</p>

<p>The stability and predictability I refer to actually comes from the usual update cycle of things. With Windows, there’s an almost incomprehensible backlog of backward-compatibility tweaks that cause the specs to be complicated in various areas. Automatic updates are known to inject things like WGA and WAT. This type of opaqueness and complexity inheriently leads to unpredictability which leads to instability in practice. People just deal with it. On the other hand, I never make any changes to my system without knowing exactly what’s going on.</p>

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<p>So… are you willing to give recommendations?</p>

<p>Looking for a laptop.</p>

<p>I need the power to run Photoshop, a CAD program, and probably a music editing software primarily; maybe some gaming (Halo, WoW, not much else or anything really hardcore if anything at all.) Fastness is preferred. Windows preferred but not adverse to Mac (Can use both).</p>

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<p>I don’t know what you are trying to say here. The acronyms that you namedropped aren’t really that big of a deal for people who don’t freak out about the maintenance of their computer. Automatic software updates are the same deal. I really don’t see how these sorts of things lead to unstability–you are just asserting that without any reason why.</p>

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<p>Haha I’m sure you read the documentation for every library and program that you install on your computer.</p>

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<p>Reincarnated, I replied to your PM.</p>

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<p>You do a great disservice to your readers when you confidently espouse misinformation about Apple computers. You obviously have not personally investigated Apple’s full line of computers for the purpose of purchasing one. You have relied on old folk tales and assumptions that just are not true.</p>

<p>You have completely ignored the valuable software that comes with the Mac which is useful to the great majority of college students. Purchasing any Windows Operating system PC will give you no significant software other than the OS itself. I suggest you investigate all of the iLife software which is included with the price of a Mac. These are not merely trial versions but actual highly functioning and very useful program application. after doing so , you will understand why the Mac is NOT over priced at all. In fact, Mac continue to be virus free since your original posting on this topic.</p>

<p>I am a college educator and I hope you will consider you will rectify the misinformation you are disseminating and clear the path for those students who want and need a reliable, reasonably priced laptop computer with an array of capabilities the great majority of students expect.</p>

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<p>I have Windows 7, and it too has remained virus free since the time of the original post. iLife isn’t exactly essential productivity software, and apple computers remain much more expensive given the hardware you get.</p>