Want to get a laptop, need help..

[PrimoTurbo]

I?m in University and use paper/binders to keep notes. For people who use laptops to keep notes are you generally productive? Do you keep up with the whole lecture?

I?m in Toronto, never had a laptop before what are my options? Good brands/companies to buy from? My budget is $600-700 CAD if necessary I can go up to $1000+, and I?m planning to buy in August/September. I want a new PC laptop, Dell comes to mind since so many people use it. Suggestions?

I?m planning to use the laptop for notes, internet, video/music, gaming (I want it to run Half-Life2/CS:S at least) I don?t want a very big laptop, don?t want a widescreen, really important that it has decent battery time. Also is it possible to upgrade laptops and is it worth it? Any ideas?

 

[simms]

Depends on your major. If you're in eng, no. if you're in bio or life sci or commerce, yea, you can keep up with notes.
IBM and Dell are mainly my two favourites.
IBM support and durability is better, Dell is cheaper. Take your pick.

MOST IBMs can run CS, but I don't know about HL2. A T-series or one of the new dualcore Dells would be good.
Yes you can upgrade, sometimes it's worth it (RAM, HDD, CPU).

 

[Ionizer86]

I find that taking typed notes on the laptop works great for text-based classes (psych, lit, philosophy etc), but I stick to the pad for anything with lots of equations and diagrams (econ, chem, etc). So I say that a laptop is better for an English major and less so note-wise for someone in Chem, Bio, etc, though these majors would probably use some scientific programs from time to time.

Are there good deals on Dell 600m's in the True North? Those are about 5lb, 14" nonwide screen, Radeon 9000, etc. Swapping in a pentium m in lieu of the celeron m would get you good battery life. The slowest few retired P-M's are pretty cheap on eBay (under $80 USD).

Yes, it's possible to upgrade laptops. In fact I favor buying a Celeron M laptop and upgrading to a Pentium M yourself to save lots of money. If there's only 256MB ram, add some more ram in too, then if you wish to you can swap the hard drive too.

 

[PrimoTurbo]

Political Science here, all talk some powerpoint.

 

[6000SUX]

Originally posted by: Ionizer86
Yes, it's possible to upgrade laptops. In fact I favor buying a Celeron M laptop and upgrading to a Pentium M yourself to save lots of money.

I don't. You won't save a lot of money (maybe any) unless you're getting ripped off to start with, you won't be able to easily sell the Celeron to recoup costs, you'll definitely void your warranty, and sometimes even nowadays the chip is soldered in. It's not like swapping out a processor in a desktop. I definitely wouldn't counsel just anyone on a message board to do this; I think it's horrible advice.

 

[modedepe]

Originally posted by: PrimoTurbo
Political Science here, all talk some powerpoint.

A laptop should work fairly well for you then. I type much faster than I can write so it works great for me in classes such as history where there's lots of talk. Being able to use search to quickly find a topic that was discussed is pretty handy too.