<p>Right now im basically trying to decide between two laptops. The Dell Latitude D610 PM 2.0 ghz 1 gig ram dvdrw and the dell inspiron 600 series. The dell 610 weighs 5 pounds and has a 14.1 inch screen. For all you in college would you have prefered having a small notebook or a large powerfull one. Is it worth spending 500 dollars more for a lighter smaller laptop with better battery life?</p>
<p>A small and light laptop is your best bet. The key advantage of a laptop is mobility. So why would you want to purchase something big? It will weigh more and be more cumbersome to transport.</p>
<p>If you really want power, maybe you should consider a desktop.</p>
<p>Yeah, get anything bigger than a 15 inch screen and you're going to find yourself less inclined to lug it around- may as well get a desktop</p>
<p>and you don't want to carry a laptop around without a case- have you seen the cases for 17 inch models? Huge</p>
<p>Also if you want to be able to use your laptop on battery for quite a while, then thin & light will be best for that. Larger "desktop replacements" (they are called that for a reason) are quite short in batt life (although the Inspiron 6000 seems to be an exception to that, as far as I've heard)</p>
<p>Both laptops you're looking at are good. But if you decide to get the d610, then also consider the IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad T42 or T43. They are also thin and light like the d610, but....well, they're ThinkPads: The climax of quality and reliability in a laptop! Dell's are decent, but if you ever have to call their support, I wish you the best of luck! :rolleyes:</p>
<p>I have a larger laptop, and it suites me just fine as I don't tote it around much. Do you think you'll be taking it too many places? Is $500 a big consideration? At least at my school, there are very few students who ever take laptops to classes. Having a laptop is easier for me just for going home on break and saving space/cords.</p>
<p>ima a pretty quick typer so i would probably bring a laptop to take notes. Or mabye play games if its a boreing class that requires attendance hehe</p>
<p>Personally, i would recommend ibuypower.com. Great stuff, at great prices. I have heard great reviews about their purchses. I will buy my new laptop there. im going to consider a top of the line processor/motherboard/video card. It might weigh 7 pds but who cares.</p>
<p>How would one purchase a Dell Latitude? The Dell representative at a local shopping center asserted that only business employees/employers are able to purchase them (on the Dell Business website). Dell Home/Home Office does not seem to have the Latitude series.</p>
<p>akluftxcl, you can buy the Latitude from Dell's University website (<a href="http://www1.us.dell.com/content/router/lookup.aspx?c=us&cs=2236&l=en&memberid=US17970622&s=eep%5B/url%5D">http://www1.us.dell.com/content/router/lookup.aspx?c=us&cs=2236&l=en&memberid=US17970622&s=eep</a>). Also, check with your university bookstore to see if they have their own special contract with Dell, then you can save a little extra.</p>
<p>Rarely, the Dell Business website might have a coupon for the Latitudes. In that case, just type in your own name as your company when you purchase.</p>
<p>I think both small/light and big/powerful have their advantages but right now, I'd lean towards big/powerful. Reasoning: most students think they'll bring their laptop to class but when you get to most schools very few do. You can still bring any laptop to the library occasionally but with the ease of usb storage drives and networks, using the provided computers can be pretty easy. </p>
<p>Most of the time you'll probably be using your laptop while it sits on your dorm room desk... you'll love the 17 inch screen at that point. When you're walking to the library you'll regret you went big, but once you get there and flip open the big roomy screen and true full sized keyboard, you'll love it all over again.</p>
<p>If you have the $$$, I'd recommend a cheap desktop pc so you can enjoy a larger, more powerful system in the dorm.</p>
<p>And a small and light laptop to take to class/use at Starbucks/use at the library/use in the local campus center/etc... etc...</p>
<p>What do you need your laptop for? If you really just need to write papers and stuff, go for light & sleek. If you need to do graphics, video editing, animation etc. always take big & powerful. I´m going nuts because every laptop right now is produced for manager types who want to write e-mail or do powerpoint presentations on the go, so they´re going for long battery power and being as wireless as possible. You just can forget the graphics card.</p>
<p>check out the latitude D610 it has a radeon x300</p>
<p>impactangel,
Are you recommending buying both a desktop and a laptop? Would it be a bother to transfer information between them?</p>
<p>sure...if you have the money, two computers couldn't hurt</p>
<p>as for transferring information between the two, there are many ways to do it (it'll probably be bothersome but you can always think of it as having a backup for all your important files)</p>
<p>of the top of my head, to transfer information between the two, i can think of using those usb thumb drives, network drives provided by the school, web hosting space provided by the school, aim transfers between the two computers, email transfers between the two computers (gmail works well for this), etc... etc...</p>
<p>I think he is :)</p>
<p>Personally I would reccomend a powerful desktop and an acceptable laptop (I bought a lease-return IBM for $550 and even then it is better than the cheap dells and such).</p>
<p>For transfer, its pretty easy. Either you can store important things on the school network or sync them between computers. I woudl reccomend simply keeping a copy of everything on each computer. To do that (both computers will already be on the campus network), look into a free program called SyncBack (they have a free version and a pay version, just get the free). I use it right now to sync all of my music ever time I make a change as well as my documents as a backup every once in a while. It can work trough many setups but hte easiest is windows filesharing, you just share the drive on on of hte computers, select what should get synched and hit go. If it is something you do all the time (like your documents folder), you can drag a shortcut onto your desktop and it will run automatically in the background whenever you click it.</p>
<p>Best sync program I've ever used (and I tried a lot of them).</p>
<p>What do you all think of the HP DV4000 Notebook?</p>
<p>Well, the dv4000 is a decent laptop, but I'd go with the Dell Inspiron 6000 instead for better build quality, better batt life, better components, and better support.</p>