<p>I need a laptop for a summer program +high school (junior here) but since more college student s have laptop, can you guys clue me in on laptops?</p>
<p>i need laptop, can you guys give me some rec's?
-screen size, between 12-15 inches
-less than $ 1,000
-wireless internet
-battery power, more than 4 hours
-dosne't get hot
-DON"t need DVD/games/music/gaming/PS2 port
-good screen resolution
-fast
-5 poounds or less
-new
-has USB/printer ports
-a CDdrive that also functions as a re-write
-decent memory</p>
<p>I'm mostly gonna use this for writing/journalism/web browsing, but i need one with a pretty good speed, light, good/decent memory.</p>
<p>Does this kind of laptop even exist?
I want the faster speed,plus the lightweight and long battery, but all the laptops i've seen that have those features also have bunch of gaming/DVD/music burning/graphics features that i'll NEVER, EVER, use, and plusthe raise the price ofthe laptop to over1,500! Does this kind of laptop exist or am i dreaming?</p>
<p>Hey...just wondering what problems you guys have had with Dells... I've never had much trouble with the ones I've dealt with, but I do have strong predilections against Comcraps (Compaqs) due to multiple hardware and software failures on new models...</p>
<p>Yeah I've had pretty good luck with Dells, and utterly horrible experiences with Compaq/HP (among other things, I had to replace a floppy drive in a Compaq - took forever because I had to disassemble the entire laptop; the drive was stuck underneath everything and there was no easier way to get to it)
For the price you're asking, you would be stuck with a Celeron processor and a pretty low-end computer, which is not a good combination. Spend an extra $200 - it will be well worth it. If you have no distaste for Macs, look into the iBook series - at my university, they start at $949.</p>
<p>I just bought the one that fendergirl listed today. I got it for $800, and it's usually $1030. So far, it's working out pretty good. The screen resolution is pretty good, and it's quite fast. It also has an internal wireless thingymajig (can you tell I'm not a computer person?), so you don't need to buy a wireless card, according to the sales guy.</p>
<p>One thing is that it doesn't have a floppy drive, which doesn't really matter to me since I use an USB memory stick. Of course, if that's a problem for you, then you might want to consider spending $200-$300 more and get alot more for your buck.</p>
<p>Oh, even though it's 6.6lb, it's not that heavy.</p>
<p>The honest truth is that macs are way better than pc's so I'd def get one. Very likely you can get an ibook for cheap enough that is still really powerfull and just generally sweet</p>
<p>Get a PC- If you get a Mac, you'll spend your entire college career wondering why nothing works on your computer and searching for the reason for its extremely slow speed. Don't listen to SailorMax, the kid's on crack.</p>
<p>First of all, you're probably going to have trouble finding a laptop with everything you want for less than $1000. I'd recommend the iBook personally -- if you get the 12inch and add on wireless and an extra 256MB of memory (which I strongly recommend), it's about $1250. Since it sounds like you don't need to use a bunch of extra programs (i.e. computer games), you will rarely have a problem with not being able to find mac versions of programs. (In fact, Microsoft Office for Mac is far superior to the version for PC.) As for speed, I've never had any problem, and I tend to run a million programs at once. The battery life is also better than I've seen on any of my friends' laptops (4.5 hours with regular use to their 2.5). The one annoyance for me is that the text smoothing isn't up to PC standards. It's not really noticable with most fonts, but smaller ones (such as Times New Roman) look kinda blurry. But that hasn't bothered me much since the first couple weeks of owning my iBook.</p>
<p>See if you can find anything out there, if not, post your question there.
These are die-hard laptop fanatics and, no offense to anyone, probably know much more about laptops than most people here do/</p>
<p>to whoever asked about problems with dell laptops:</p>
<p>their hard drives tend to die after about a year (3 of my good friends have dell laptops, all 3 of their hard drives died and had to be replaced), one persons motherboard fried, two other peoples fans died.. all after the one year warrenty was up.. if you get a dell, make sure you get the 3 year warrenty.. that's all i'm saying...</p>
<p>as for HP and compaq's... their screen's tend to blow pixels and or break.. </p>
<p>and, i'd just like to throw out, that the new celeron processors aren't crappy.. they have gotten a bad rap from the previous versions.. but the new ones are quite fast. :)</p>
<p>I had a Dell, which I had to return because of constant problems with everything from software to the actuall body falling apart. I had to wait hours for technical support and they couldn't do anything. I sent it to them for repairs three times. Then they wouldn't give me a refund so my dad had to go to their head office and force them to give us a refund. </p>
<p>I then bought an Apple Powerbook and will never, ever switch back to a PC even if I was offered a ton of money. Macs are much more stable, faster and never crash. PC's are the exact opposite. And contrary to popular beliefs, almost every piece of software for PCs is available for Macs. I had a Mac at my school, which used PC's on a wireless network. I've never had any compatability problems whatsoever. So, go with the ibook!!</p>
<p>Macs are in no way better than PCs. Contact an experienced computer engineer and ask him why... I don't have the patience for stupid people.</p>
<p>By the way, dell makes excellent laptops with good battery life. <a href="http://www.cnet.com%5B/url%5D">www.cnet.com</a> offers reviews on most major laptops. Check them out and choose for yourself.</p>
<p>all the scientists/math geeks/profs I know use Macs. They may have to use windoze as well but the powerbook is the one that they haul around and use at home when they have a choice. No comparison for quality and service.</p>
<p>it doesnt matter if dell laptops have excellent battery life if the hard drive fries after a year! one of my friends actually was filing a lawsuit against dell.. he had a lawyer and everything, and dell finally buckled and gave in.. because they knew they were wrong.</p>
<p>Marines920, I am a computer scientist, and I love my iBook. (Note, the powerbook is much much better than the iBook, but my budget will not stretch quite that far.) I grew up on a Mac, switched to a PC when I was 16 because that's what everyone else had, and then I was jumping for joy when I finally convinced my parents I needed a new comptuer and I was able to switch back to a Mac. I go to a school filled with math/science geeks and when I got back to school this year I assumed I'd be in the minority with my iBook. But instead everywhere I look, I've found my friends are switching to PowerBooks and iBooks, especially those people that are heavy computer users. The Macs have changed a lot in the past year or two, especially now that they have the G4 in the laptops. Be careful about sticking to old judgements.</p>