A student looking for some laptop recommendations

[MigAce312]

I've been going to college for a year now and I realize what an essential tool a laptop is. I'm thinking of buying one in September or October....or maybe even waiting till "Black Friday". I'm looking for a laptop with the works but with a price just a bit under $2000. The laptop that I find interesting right now is the Dell Inspiron 8500. I customized it and it came out to about $2000. I need a laptop that isn't going to become obsolete in a matter of months.
Something else I was looking into was a tablet PC. I used one in Best Buy and absolutely loved it....but I dont know about "$2100 loved it". Seems way underpowered for the price. As a student, what features of the tablet PC would be essential?....the field I'm going into is Aerospace engineering. Any students out there making full use of the tablet PC features?

So what laptops would you people recommend I take a look at? Will laptops really get that much better from here to late Fall?

 

[MercenaryForHire]

I recommend you don't buy a laptop. Pretty much everyone in my dorm who had one, it stayed on their desk after the first two weeks - at least those who didn't get them stolen.

- M4H

 

[brunswickite]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
I recommend you don't buy a laptop. Pretty much everyone in my dorm who had one, it stayed on their desk after the first two weeks - at least those who didn't get them stolen.

- M4H

i agree, i know 2 people who got there laptop's stolen in college

most of the time they would stay on your desk anyway,

But if you really want a laptop, i would buy it at the end of the summer, and buy a Pentium M/Centrino, good deals come up in the hotdeals forum.

 

[Shalmanese]

Well, *I* am apparently one of those rare people who DO use a laptop as they are meant to be used. Partially because my uni has a wireless network. If your uni does, then seriously consider getting one. If it doesnt, then take a look at why you need one.

 

[MigAce312]

Originally posted by: MercenaryForHire
I recommend you don't buy a laptop. Pretty much everyone in my dorm who had one, it stayed on their desk after the first two weeks - at least those who didn't get them stolen.

- M4H

I agree. Thats why I didn't buy it when I started, but I used my girlfriend's laptop for a whole year and its a great tool. You can write papers, surf the net, and kill time with it just about anywhere. And now most, if not all, colleges require that you have a laptop. I believe my school of choice, Georgia Tech, requires that every student have a laptop. So right now that I'm in community college, I can afford one. I know my budget is gonna be really tight when I'm paying about $26,000 a year in GAtech. So any laptop in particular worth looking into?

 

[xizor]

I disagree w/ the first 2 replies, I wish I had bought a laptop when I was an undergrad (got a tablet for my graduation present =P)

I don't know anyone who had their laptop stolen from their room, so its not a security risk to me. If anything get a docking station and lock it to your desk.

I have an Acer TravelMate T102ci hybrid tablet and absolutely love it. Tablet is definately the way to go for notes and schoolwork. But for my purposes its still a suppliment to my desktop which is necessary for downloading, storing and burning files (off the school's nice T1 connection) and for games. The Acer is only 800mhz which is good enough to play media and do office applications. It doesn't have DVD or CDRW so you need to buy extra drives which might be a negative for you. I paid $1400 for mine in March and I've loved it, but I could never use it as my main computer.

The best features of my tablet are that its light and extremly portable. If you have a 8lb notebook, it will probably sit on your desk 99% of the time b/c its a pain in the ass to carry. My school has an excellent wireless setup in the campus buildings so bringing my tablet to class and using it between class is a great benefit. The tablet Ink will allow you to go paperless and helps in organization and a lot in homework (never need to erase w/ a pencil, changes are simple to make, etc.). As for an engineer, at my school, students have to use certain paper w/ a mechanical #2 penchil and make exact measurements for diagrams. I don't know if you could do that easily on a tablet, which would defeat the purpose of going paperless.

Tablets are good for portability, paperless environment, and staying connected whereever you are.
Tablets are bad for power features (games, dvd), price/power ratio.

If you do choose a tablet definately get a 2nd gen. one w/ a Centrino for better battery life.

 

[GoHAnSoN]

save the money and buy yourself a gaming desktop.
you'll probably play more games than you use MS Word.

 

[johngalt9999]

agree. Thats why I didn't buy it when I started, but I used my girlfriend's laptop for a whole year and its a great tool. You can write papers, surf the net, and kill time with it just about anywhere. And now most, if not all, colleges require that you have a laptop. I believe my school of choice, Georgia Tech, requires that every student have a laptop. So right now that I'm in community college, I can afford one. I know my budget is gonna be really tight when I'm paying about $26,000 a year in GAtech. So any laptop in particular worth looking into?

I attend GATech, and I am enrolled in da COC, no req for laptop for student, although i think 60-70% of COC students own a laptop.

 

[ProCoolingKevin]

Lindows Mobile PC... $777 from www.sub300.com
-Kev

 

[newuser]

Originally posted by: Shalmanese
Well, *I* am apparently one of those rare people who DO use a laptop as they are meant to be used. Partially because my uni has a wireless network. If your uni does, then seriously consider getting one. If it doesnt, then take a look at why you need one.

I agree with this. The wireless on campus rocks. You can surf the net while in class, play games, look up stuff. Here a lot of people use AIM to chat with people in the same seminar.
Then again, the laptop sort of sucks once you get to your apartment or dorm. Smaller screen, tiny keyboard, not very upgradeable.
I suggest you get a laptop + a desktop.
What Brand laptop? Toshiba. I suggest you set it up for some internet sufring, mild word processing, dvd's, burning, light, a decent sized HD, a 2.0+GHz CPU. 256MB Ram
Desktop? Set this up with a large HD, dvd, burning, full office package, graphical analysis utilites, etc. 2.5+GHz CPU, 512MB RAM

That's what I would do

 

[Black.Lotus]

not so sure about the tosh rec. their screens aren't so good (except their newest one w/ the radeon m9600) and they're more spendy than dell+coupon. If you go lappy + desktop, why deck out the laptop? for the price of a 2x dvd+ 2.5" you could get a 4x dvd+/- and an external enclosure. Not sure how often you'd want to burn dvds on the road

Get a centrino laptop (they'll get cheap by july) and a good desktop. I don't see the point in getting desknote unless you want to upgrade often. A p4 3.06 with 45 mins battery life won't be too exciting a year from now, but 4+ hours of basic internet/schoolwork capabilities is just plain useful.