<p>Also, turning off your wireless card when not in use should increase battery life.</p>
<p>HP Business nc8430 (1680x1050 15.4 ABA version)</p>
<p>magnesium-alloy reinforced frame (you can push the back of the lcd without effect, very durable)</p>
<p>2.0 ghz yonah (core duo)
ati x1600 256
80gb 5400rpm HDD (this will be upgraded soon enough :D)
1 gb DDR2
1.1 inches thin (barely .1 inch thicker than the macbook pro...very thin)
4hr reported bat life...supposedly you can get much more or much less depending on what you do</p>
<p>basically this is a T60P but with a 15.4 widescreen, better looks (imo), and x1600 video instead of the firegl (same chip different firmware). Oh, and about 1k less...page computers has it for $1575 right now (HP is selling them at about 1750). I can play FEAR and BF2 at 1680x1050 (native) with the settings jacked with no problems....if you play games and have a budget like I had (around 1500) there is nothing better imo....the Asus Z96J would be a better value for gamers if you don't want to pay for the durability of this machine however.</p>
<p>i bought mine at another website so I can't vouch for pagecomputers (though I think i might have bought some random thing from them a long time ago...) but currently they have the lowest price for it</p>
<p>noooooooooo don't confuse me more!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>im a prospective CS major and have no idea whatsoever what everyone here is talking about (*** is core duo)????. </p>
<p>and i dont even have a laptop.</p>
<p>"core duo" or Yonah is the name of a processor type from Intel, it is a 32bit, dual-core processor, its successor will be out septemberish (named core2 duo or Merom) and will be a 64-bit dual-core.</p>
<p>I guess CMU sent (at least to the archies) a minimum computer reqs guide, and let me tell you my computer meets those reqs, but doesnt exceed them any place but ram. Scary.</p>
<p>I recently purchased:
Dell e1505
2.0ghz intel core duo (Yonah)
2GB ddr2 ram 533mhz
100gb 5400rpm hard drive
ati x1400 256mb gpu
15.4inch SWXGA+ (1680x1050) screen
9-cell 85 kwhr battery -- I honestly get 5.5 hours batt life
TV Tuner, remote, WinXP MCE
4 years accidental damage
$2970 - 35% - 12% - $200 = $1540 ... the reason I bought it instad of waiting for core2 duo</p>
<p>Desktop (also bringing):
Pentium 4 3.4GHZ (Prescott)
1GB ddr ram
120, 160, 200 GB Western Digital caviar hard drives
nvidia 6800ultra
hauppauge pvr150</p>
<p>that one is for file storage, tv recording.</p>
<p>its suddenly seeming to be more practical to buy a dell or an hp having better configs for 1500 bucks than spend another 300 on macbook pro....</p>
<p>An important thing to keep in mind for any of you thinking about purchasing a computer, is what operating system you want to run. If you are doing CS, or maybe engineering you should think about installing linux, as it will help you get through your classes much more easily if you are familiar with it. I can't help you Mac people because I don't know anything about them</p>
<p>FOR YOU WINDOWS PEOPLE --
keep in mind Windows Vista is coming out in January (supposedly). If you want to run this instead of WindowsXP, you will most likely need to spend around $2000 on a laptop, or get a desktop. I have some friends working at Microsoft, and the new windows system is supposed to be quite the resource hog.</p>
<p>Macs are convenient for some of the CS-y stuff because you can always just open the terminal and do stuff (like ssh) instead of having to install another program like you do on Windows.</p>
<p>cant choose b/w macbook and macbook pro.</p>
<p>dexter, there was an article smwhere dat if u compare wat all u gt a similar macbook pro and dell come out to be the same cost.</p>
<p>So I'm definitely brining a laptop (it's an... acer...? i don't know it's stats.) but uhm, should I bring a desktop too? or just a laptop... I'm gonna be in CS.. if that makes a difference.</p>
<p>and if i do bring just a laptop, should I bring like.. an extra mouse/keyboard/speakers/monitor... something?</p>
<p>There are clusters all over the campus you can use if you want a desktop. I wouldn't recommend bringing one if you don't need it.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Macs are convenient for some of the CS-y stuff because you can always just open the terminal and do stuff (like ssh) instead of having to install another program like you do on Windows.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>well you could just use linux on any pc - arguably the hassle of the rosetta performance issues with the new macs va the hassle of using linux as an everyday are equal</p>
<p>
[quote]
cant choose b/w macbook and macbook pro.</p>
<p>dexter, there was an article smwhere dat if u compare wat all u gt a similar macbook pro and dell come out to be the same cost.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This article sounds misleading because apple's hold their value and are less prone to drop in price as they become obsolete...then when a new apple comes out they finally do. For instance look at my pc (specs above)...a few weeks ago it was around 1800 to even 2000+ everywhere....now I can find it for around 1450-1600 without breaking a sweat. Macbook pro prices haven't quite moved as much despite new revisions and versions with faster CPU's being released. This is simply because they don't really have to, whatever rebel/cool factor attractiveness that they have means that people will buy them at slightly inflated prices. I'm not saying that all macbooks are a complete ripoff...their education discounts are more than fair. It is worth it to many for whatever reason to pay for apple (and the premium isn't as much as it used to be) but don't be fooled into thinking that they are pricing them in accordance to other vendors.</p>
<p>And it's probably misleading because the price on the Dell website is not the best price you can get... with coupon codes, you can get up to $750 off. However, Apple uses better components (my Dell had bad RAM... it was replaced with more bad RAM... which was replaced with working RAM).</p>
<p>I would recommend bringing (or purchasing when you get to school) a mouse and keyboard. Some of the desks in the dorm rooms are kind of high and it is uncomfortable (for me) and bad for your wrists/arms to type on a high keyboard. Bring speakers if you don't like crappy laptop speakers and will want to listen to music without using headphone, and bring a (LCD) monitor if you want to have a dual monitor setup or a larger sccreen.</p>
<p>I guess I'll post mine...</p>
<p>HP dv5000t
15.4" screen
2.2 GHZ AMD Turion 64
1024 MB RAM
5400 RPM 80 GM HD
DVD Burner/ Light Scribe.. etc
a/b/g 802.11 Wireless card
128 MB graphics card
12 cell battery. (Lasts about 6 hours)
That's all I can remember now.. heh. But I like it a lot! It's quicker than the desktop I have and it was a pretty good deal ($1066)</p>
<p>are there many CS students who use apple??</p>
<p>What about a pda? (in addition to a laptop) Do many CMU students use them?</p>
<p>I would say that 20% of CS students use Apple computers, and in general they're quite vocal. Sometimes it seems that, in CS, there's more support for OSX than there is for Windows. Not a problem at all to have a mac. :)</p>
<p>If you have a pda, bring it, but don't go out and buy one.</p>
<p>good. mac it is then. :)</p>
<p>I would say that if you are doing CS and are trying to decide between Mac and windows, choose mac. In my opinion, you should stick to linux, because it is freer and more fun, but it isn't for everyone. At the least, the unix background you can get from using a mac over using windows will help you out in the later CS courses when you will almost be required to use a linux cluster computer</p>
<p>macbook pro</p>