Advice on laptop/desktop

[Mo0o]

I'll be going off to college in 1 year id almost sure ill need a laptop. What im wondering is, should i get a really good laptop and hav that double as my desktop? or should i get a low version laptop and get a relatively good desktop? Oh, if you have any good suggestions on laptops you have/have had and that you are/were satisfied with, please tell me.

PS. you hve no idea how hard it is to post w/o a mouse.

 

[vi edit]

My advice - get a mid grade, easy to carry laptop for around $1000, then spend another $1000 on a decent desktop. Use the laptop for your travels, and use the desktop in the dorms for games, web browsing, ect.

 

[axelfox]

find out what your needs are and go from there.

But just off the top of my head, I would go with a laptop, since you can lug that around when you need to do work outside your room.

 

[Spike]

I took the path of a kick butt desktop (at the time ) and no laptop, though now I am looking to buy a low-end one for myself. axelfox is right, you need to figure out what your needs are first

 

[gf4200isdabest]

my advice:

if you're a gamer: low end laptop as cheap as you can go...maybe even an ebay auction! High end desktop. Wait for an ATI 9700 or NV30...depends on how much patience you have...

if you're not a gamer and need this for web/word processing/standard programs: Get a nice laptop and make sure its light and is easy for you to carry around.

laptops are nice but they are not for users who always need more power (ie: gamers)

Hope that helps!

 

[Mo0o]

thx for teh advice. iil look into it.

 

[vetteguy]

Just don't buy a laptop until you're ready to go, otherwise you'll spend 20-40% more than you would for the same unit a year from now, and if you're not going to use it much until then you'd be wasting the extra money. I agree with the laptop/deskop combo, it worked well for me. A piece of advice though, if you can, try for one of the slimmer laptops, as it is much easier to carry one of those along with books, etc.

 

[MWink]

Last year I went with 2 desktops (one at home and one at school) and just took a hard disk back and forth. This year I am going to use just a laptop (no desktop). I bought a Dell Inspiron 8200 as a desktop replacement and I am very happy with it. I really like the fact it is fully upgradeable (CPU, video, etc.).

Most people still don't believe you can really game on a laptop but believe me, you can. This laptop is at least as fast if not faster than my desktop when playing games. I suggest you look into getting just a very high end laptop. The Dell Inspiron 8200 is the only one I think really fits the bill.

BTW, if you are like me and you just get a low end laptop and a desktop, you will never use the laptop. I've had a Dell Latitude XPi and I almost never used it. I just had no use for a low performance portable.

 

[HiTek21]

I would buy a laptop with a docking station, that way you can unhook the laptop and leave the other accessories behind without having to disconnect your devices each time.