Seaching for Laptop- need advice

[Benhine]

I'm a college student looking for a laptop, and so far i have found nothing that really excites me terribly, If anyone has some advice or info on great deals that would be great. Here's what i need-

1. $1400 max
2. Good Battery Life - preferably 4+ hours
3. either Wi-fi or a PCMCIA slot
4. Small- preferably an ultraportable or subnote - i know that limits my options a lot, but i wouldn't carry around an 8 pounder with a 15"

All i need it to be able to do-
1. Digital Music - means a decent sized hard drive
2. Wifi - preferably support for 802.11g or at least possible to upgrade to
3. Classwork - programming, notes, and papers... nothing too processor intensive

Any suggestions would be appreciated, thanks
Hook 'em Horns

 

[AluminumStudios]

I recommend AGAINST Dell Inspiron laptops. I've been buying them at work and watching the craftsmanship steadily decline. The Dell Inspirons have become flimsy and weak and feel like mass produced plastic toys. Not to mention I'm having more and more support calls related to shotty craftsmanship (ie - integerated Ethernet ports that don't work and such.)

 

[Dark54555]

check out winbook, they make a sturdy laptop. IBM and toshiba are two other options.

 

[jkresh]

vpr matrix 175b4
I just bought one of their higher end machines last week and have found it to be extremely solid. Well made, unbelievable screen ( I have an sgi 1600sw 17.3 inch widescreen flat panel and the screen on the 200A5 is not that far behind it) nice speed, good baterylife, cant say anything about the model I linked to as it is configured quite differently but if the machine I have is any indication they make really solid stuff. I bought it over a dell or gateway, micron... because it was the only light machine (mine is 6.4 pounds) with a good screen (1280 by 864) non integrated graphics, USB 2.0 and or fire wire, that was price under $2300 (paid $1600), never would have bought from best buy or any retail store for that matter if it wasn?t for the spec issues, but after my experience so far I wouldn?t hesitate to recommend them or buy from them again.

 

[Benhine]

Really? cause C.net loved the new inspirons (the blue ones)... has dell shaped up with these or are they still bad?

 

[bigshooter]

Dell is releasing a new inspiron pretty soon, they just released a wide screen inspiron 8500, the other day, but its pricy and not what you want. I'm personally going to go with Toshiba when I purchase a laptop this summer, but they are expensive. Is this goign to be your main computer? If it is you probably don't want a sub note book. I guarantee you'll miss desktop performance that you give up for a smaller machine. If you need bang for the buck, get an inspiron 8200/4150. They are both pretty good, and you can configure to suit your needs very easily. They both offer 40/60 gig 5400 rpm drives so you get high performance (for a notebook) with large capacity. Almost every notebook has a pc card slot, so you don't need to worry about 802.11g, you can buy a card later. The battery life issue is tough thgouh. Unless you get a subnotebook, or wait for centrino and pay a bunch more, you're not going to get 4+ hours on a single regular battery. My friend uses two batteries in his inspiron and can do it, but that adds a lot of weight (8 lb's really isnt that much though). Another friend has a vaio (the really thin one) with an extended battery for it and it goes over 3 hours, but 4 horus is tough.

 

[dolph]

fujitsu p2000. enjoy

 

[Gibson486]

Really? cause C.net loved the new inspirons (the blue ones)... has dell shaped up with these or are they still bad?

Cnet is not really a good source anymore. They loved the new inspiron, but you notice how, in the review, they try to downplay the cons? For example, they say that teh notebook has a flimsy key board, but in the review itself, they make no mention of it.

 

[Spicedaddy]

Wait for Centrino notebooks if you want more than 3 hours of battery life with good performance.


I also recommend an internal Wireless NIC, the PC Cards are annoying because they have the antenna sticking out... Dell's notebooks come with the antennas already built-in, so you can just add an internal Mini-PCI card later on. (that's what I did, bought it on ebay...)