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I have Dell's heaviest one that they make and it is only 5 lbs or so.
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<p>I have an Inspiron 9100 (bought in July) and it is almost 10 pounds. Which one do you have?</p>
<p>joev</p>
<p>The Dell Inspiron 9100 weights 9.16 lbs
<a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1572365,00.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1572365,00.asp</a></p>
<p>The Dell Inspiron XPS weights 9.8 lbs
<a href="http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1627687,00.asp%5B/url%5D">http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1627687,00.asp</a></p>
<p>Since you have a small laptop from your father, it might be wiser to upgrade it rather than buying another laptop for your dorm room. Adding more memory and a larger hard drive is a better way of spending your money. If you have 256 meg of memory, you can add another 256. Already have 512 meg? Thats enough to efficiently run Windows XP. If you plan to do Photoshop stuff, you might want to go to 1 gig. If you have a 40 gig hard drive, consider switching to an 80 gig. Have a computer store do the work and youre probably looking at less than $300. </p>
<p>F youre a pc gamer, then you may have issues. Most laptops dont have the video ram necessary for a good gaming experience. There are gaming laptops, but theyre expensive as compared to a desktop computer which can get the job done for at least $500 less. Its much more cost effective to bring along a gaming console (Xbox, PS2 or Gamecube).</p>
<p>Finally, as the UVA student wrote, hardly anyone uses a laptop in class for taking notes. The desk you sit at in high school will be the same as the ones in college. A typical 15 laptop will just fit with no room for anything else. Do a search on CC and the CC archives for laptops/notebooks and youll find that few students use their laptops in class. Desks are small, battery life is an issue, your typing may be distracting to other students, laptop fans vary in loudness and laptops are useless in math and science classes since equations and chemical symbols arent readily available from your keyboard. As for using it outside, most laptop screens wash out in direct sunlight. Take your laptop outside and see how well it works. Now youre left with the library and the coffee shops. Is it worth it to lug around a 4-6 lb. or more laptop to the library or killing time at Starbucks on a daily basis? Your call </p>
<p>There is an alternative: the Tablet PC. What is it? Its a laptop with a swivel screen (with a single hinge at the bottom) which allows the screen to swing around and lay flat (screen side up) against the keyboard. Now it looks like a thick legal pad. Why is this important? Tablets come with a stylus (like PDAs) that you use like a pen or pencil. You can write on the screen. The Tablet captures your notes in your own handwriting in MS Journal or OneNote (two programs that come with the MS Tablet PC operating system (actually a part of MS XP Pro). All Windows XP Pro has the Tablet PC components included. These components only turn on if you have a Tablet PC. You can keep your notes in your own handwriting or you can convert them to text. Either way, you can do searching on your notes to find common occurrences of special terms or names. And Tablets are incredibly useful in math and science classes where you can jot down formulas and equations just as you would on paper.</p>
<p>Go to: <a href="http://studenttabletpc.blogs.com/%5B/url%5D">http://studenttabletpc.blogs.com/</a></p>
<p>This is a student website on Tablet PCs. You can get an excellent overview of what Tablets can do for you in school. Tablets are hard to find in stores and are more expensive than regular laptops. Toshiba has a new model coming out soon that will cost in the mid teens. Check Ebay for bargains. While not for everyone and they be costly, you ought to look into it to see if Tablets might be an option.</p>
<p>people don't sit outside with their laptops on nice days, and they dont take notes on them in class. some people take notes on a tablet pc, but never on a laptop. (at least not at my school). i do understand the point of having two, i actually had two last year. one olddddd laptop and one new one. i took the old one to campus a few times to work on stuff while hanging out with friends, while leaving this one here at my place.</p>
<p>I was also thinking about taking two laptops to college next year. One of them is inexpensive and old, but weighs very little so I can take it to class or the library without much hassle. Also, since it is very cheap, I would not have to worry about it banging around in my backpack or being stolen while I'm in the library or something. I would then buy a more expensive, faster laptop that weighs slightly more for dorm use. The more expensive one would still be portable, though, just in case something happened to the old one.</p>
<p>Is this crazy? No one in my house is even using the cheap laptop so I think it would be convenient just for note-taking and very basic use.</p>
<p>"...the same reasons why I(and many other people) want a 17(and even 19) inch monitor on their desktop..." which is?</p>
<p>my dad bought me a laptop without my knowledge, and he got me a 17in monitor. and to be quite honest, i don't find it necessary, i actually find my laptop a bit annoying since it's so big. 17in screen and weighs around 8 pounds, it's heavy, bulky, and i really wanted something a bit more mobile, but i'm stuck with it, so i guess it doesn't matter now.</p>
<p>having two laptops is stupid...there is no point....if you say that this is just incase one breaks down, dont forget, the university has computers to help you out until you can get your other computer to work again.....and computers dont go bzzerck very often unless you do something wrong, or download files etc....</p>
<p>For note taking, it is much better to do it by hand because if the teacher is describing something, and its difficult to write this down, you can always draw pictures/symbols etc. to help you out.....it will take you quite a long time to draw pictures or stuff on a computer...</p>
<p>How would you get your laptop stolen? By not paying attention to it when you are at a libaray? Its just like the airport advice- look over all your stuff and make sure it is in your site always.....and in your dorm room, only your roomie can take your laptop, and you obviously would know that he/she took it if its missing....</p>
<p>My advice is to just get one good laptop, and if you want to use it for notes, take it to class.....it might get a little annoying to have to keep transfering data back and forth to a computer.....</p>
<p>also, if you are worried about viruses, get an extra hard drive on your computer that is solely for storage...you dont use it for anything else, and so it is free of viruses and stuff......</p>
<p>Couldn't you buy a regular sized monitor and attach it to your laptop at home? Even if you have a small TV at home you could use that as your monitor with an s-video cable.</p>
<p>actually this kinda is funny.. i just posted about having two laptops.. My boss sent me home with his old laptop yesterday! so now i have three. I'm going to give his old one to my six year old cousin.</p>
<p>they want a 17 or 19 inch monitor to put on their lap, duh. How could you ask such a question xbisoubisoux? lol</p>
<p>at my school, some people take notes on laptops, but not that many. But on nice days, they definitely take them outside (especially since the whole campus is wireless)</p>
<p>I have two laptops here at college. At the engineering department here at Vanderbilt we use our Dell's and share info. So I use the Dell working in groups etc. I have a powerbook that I use for personal use. Why? Because I do not want anyone to be able to access the stuff on my powerbook and I know that someone will try just because they could when we are sharing info on the Dell.</p>
<p>Yeah, two laptops seems very pointless. Unless you plan to routinely (like every day) sync all the files on each computer... but even then, I don't see the point</p>
<p>The tablet PC looks neat but aren't most of them lacking in terms of speed and memory? I'm off to look at some and answer my own question but that might be a decent idea. </p>
<p>Thanks for the input!</p>
<p>Most laptops have two memory slots. If the machine has 512 megs of memory, it is usually the case that both slots are occupied with two 256 meg sticks. To get to 1 gig, youd have to take out both sticks of memory and replace them with either a single 1 gig stick or with 2 512 sticks. Either way, you lose the 2 original memory sticks. Just a fact of life for most kinds of laptop upgrades which are more expensive than upgrading a desktop machine. </p>
<p>Speed: virtually all Tablet PCs came with the Intel Centrino M chips which range in speed from 1 to 2.0 g. These M chips were specially designed for both speed and long battery life. Typically, you get around 4 hours running time. As compared to Intels Pentium 4 desktop processors, typical M chips run around Pentium 4 2+ ghz speeds. And the latest generation of the Centrino chip (Dothan) gives you even more battery life. I wouldnt worry about speed to run most software and Internet-related activities. Youll have enough power to play music and dvds, surf the net, do e-mail and play some games (Toshiba/HP Tablets can play some games other makers dont do well with games, but youre going to college to learn and study, right?)</p>
<p>Speed is relative. On laptops and desktops, the amount of memory you have, the speed rating for that memory, the speed rating for the motherboard, the amount of video memory on board, BIOS settings and the hard drive speed all contribute to how fast your computer will appear. On any laptop (Tablet PC or regular ones), the hard drive speed will make a big difference on your perception of speed. Hard drives can be 4500prm, 5400rpm or 7200 rpm. When shopping, look for at least a 5400 rpm hard drive. It will make a difference.</p>
<p>Tablet PCs in an educational environment makes a great deal of sense. You can use a stylus and simply write down your class notes to your screen just like you would on paper. Theres a program called Gobinder which was designed, in part, for Tablet PCs. You can create notebooks for each of your classes. Keep a syllabus and a calendar and much more. Starting that program will give you either a white or yellow pad screen (just like a standard legal pad). Whats not to like?</p>
<p>Still, Tablet PCs are not a big force in notebook sales. The only models you can see and touch at the big box stores (Best Buy, Circuit City. CompUSA and others) are the Toshiba and maybe the Averatec. Most of your shopping will be done on the Internet. Acer, HP, Gateway, Fujisu, Sharp and Viewsonic all have Tablet PCs its just that you cant go and play with them at the computer store. This makes it a tough sell for people who have an interest and need for such a laptop. And theres still the premium over what you would pay for a regular laptop. If you or your parents can step up to the plate, I think youd be pleased with your choice. Lots of kids are pushing for speedy and expensive laptops to help them with the demands of college studies (i.e. I want to play Doom 3 ). Most Tablet PCs wouldnt play Doom 3 very well, if at all, but for school work, theyre great.</p>
<p>2 Laptops is a silly idea.</p>
<p>My choice is a used laptop (top of the line IBM from a few years ago) that is much more reliable and well built than comparably priced new laptops (I payed ~$550 and with big rebates and stuff, comparable systems still cost ~700 minimum and come from crappy people like compaq). I choose to run linux on it but windows works just fine. I also have a powerful and upgradeable desktop that has plenty of storage and power. The laptop can be used anywhere on the wireless network, but when it comes to powerhungry tasks like the occasional game (or if you are a math/science type student and need some more stable power for your classes) the desktop reigns king.</p>
<p>Total cost for this combo is always going to be less than a high powered laptop (desktop built from newegg) and provide more flexibility.</p>
<p>michuncle... thanks alot for all the info on tablets! I found some "convertible" laptops which fold so they're fully functioning tablet PCs and also laptops. </p>
<p>ottothecow... thanks for the insight </p>
<p>Obviously I'm not going to be buying anything until I decide on a school because so many of them want certain brands(models) or operating systems. With me going into engineering, reliability is a big concern and I'm still not convinced that I don't need a backup machine... but I'm also no long believing that I NEED two laptops although I don't think it's THAT bad of an idea. </p>
<p>Thanks again to all.</p>
<p>apple has a cheap 500 dollar computer that is portable but it needs a monitor to be hooked up to (the laptop screen is perfect for that).</p>
<p>If you arent up to the task of building your own computer from parts, find a friend who can helpyou (or a website, its not too much more advanced than assembling legos from directions). If you build a desktop with quality components rather than the awkward motherboards and low-bid ram that Dell and such provide, it should be a rock solid system and if there is something you cant fix, there will be plenty of people at your school who can help you. </p>
<p>As for good deals on used laptops (lightly used corporate leases usually), look for little local computer stores (there are probobly some good ones around your state university). They can provide great systems that come off or corporate leases--and as such are usually ThinkPads--for prices less than ebay (and with a warrenty and you can make sure its good before you buy).</p>
<p>As for a desktop... I will be flying to and from home most likely and it is too much of a pain to lug a desktop. I know that some will disagree, but I intend on bringing home my higher dollar items when I go home for breaks because to be honest, I don't really trust my peers. (Although it would be quite hard for a person to walk off with a full sized desktop computer :) ) I got my last laptop off of a corporate lease type deal and it's worked great. My father's company gets the option to buy out the leased laptops when the lease is over and normally its really cheap... but normally his aren't high end multimedia type... not that I need that but it'd be nice.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>