A laptop for a student, $2000 budget

[Zukatah]

I've saved quite a bit of money during the summer to buy a car in next April but I also have my eyes set on a laptop so I thought I could spend some of my car money for a laptop. This laptop would be mostly used for taking notes in class, doing homework while on the go and browsing the web. What I'd like is a good solid notebook that I won't mind travelling with and that has wireless internet, a CD-RW and a DVD would be a plus. Battery life is also important as I'll be using it in places where I can't plug it (bus, subway, some places at school). I never had any experience with Macs but some of my friends are really sold to them for laptops and I've been looking for the 12" powerbook and also the iBooks on their recommendation. Will I notice a big speed difference or in build quality between a Powerbook and an iBook and would a PC be better for my needs and budget?

 

[BudAshes]

Id recomend the thinkpad x's if you want something that is portable and not for gaming much. They have nuts battery life and IBM is known for making durable laptops.

 

[NeoMadHatter]

i use a dell inspiron 600m. for my notes when i'm taking them in class i'm using MS OneNote 2003. ( Beta 2 version until office 2003 comes out). if i had that budget though, i'd love to get me a ibm thinkpad t40 or t40p. how sweet those are.. mmm.......... t40..........

 

[Zukatah]

How do you like your 600m? I've read quite a few complaints concerning the keyboard and the screen, are you experiencing those? It's probably the best bang for the buck on the market right now though.

 

[sk560]

the 12" PowerBook has a 867MHz G4 (w/o L3 cache) .... while the fastest iBook has 900 G3. i don't think u will feel the speed difference.

as for the build.... the 12" Powerbook is better... more solid.

check out ur bookstore..... there r some discounts for students.

 

[kayatai]

Originally posted by: Zukatah
How do you like your 600m? I've read quite a few complaints concerning the keyboard and the screen, are you experiencing those? It's probably the best bang for the buck on the market right now though.

I have a 600m as well. Screen wasn't as vibrant as I was used to, but this is my first real LCD. It's only slightly less vibrant than my wife's sony laptop. other than that, the screen has 1 dead pixel and 1 stuck pixel.

Keyboard quality is good, it doesn't seem to have the problems that other keyboards in some of the inspiron line are having. Actually I did stick a small folded piece of paper under the left side of the keyboard over the pcimca slot, it's probably about 1inch by 1/2 inch, 4 slices of paper thick. This fixes the slight bounce that that side of the keyboard had.

Other issues include the power button seeming pretty cheap. It doesn't depress straight down, it goes down and to the left. I have played with a latitude d600 which is essentially the same components with different outer casing, the power button on that was much nicer, rubber instead of plastic, pressed straight down, backlight when power was on.

These are minor issues to me, however, and I have been completely satisfied with my 600m so far and I have had it for about 2 1/2 months now. I had screen envy for about a day when my wife got a 15inch screen on her laptop, but the noise her laptop kicks out really put me off to it anyway. The 600m is nice and quiet, pretty powerful, and has about a 3 1/2 hr battery life when just doing office applications and web browsing on the single battery.

 

[Zukatah]

Thank you very much for your reviews of the 600m which is very attractive for me due to its relatively low price. I checked on Dell's website for the D600 and it ends up being only 100$ more but I think it doesn't have the same videocard right?

As far as Macs are concerned, there are indeed very attractive deals at my bookstore: a couple of price cuts and an iPod for 99$ CAN... but I'm not too sure about going the Mac way as software is harder to get and battery life seem comparable to Centrinos....

 

[chuckwagon]

Is that 2000 CAN or USD? But anyways, check out dell's refurb section. They are just returned notebooks that someone bought, but returned. My brother bought a 600m refurb and can't be happier. It's really small, but performs well. 1.3 Pentium M. The battery life could be better, only about 3.5 hours. If you are worried about it being a refurb, i does come w/ the standard dell 1 year warrenty so you can rest assured. Hope this helps.

BTW, i just picked up a dell 8600 and can't wait for it to come in. it'll be about 1,450 usd after rebate/coupon/phatwallet cash back/and dell preferred account. the 8600 has a 15.4in screen, 1.4 Pentium M, 128 Geforce fx 5620, good stuff.

 

[Zukatah]

That was $2000 usd but of course the cheaper it gets, the happier I am! The sad thing about being in Canada is that I can't order from Dell US website and I can't have all the rebates you guys get which just plain sucks.