Which laptop to get?

[Saint Nick]

Well, I am selling my gaming PC and going to buy a laptop for college. All I do on it is use the internet, type stuff, and use iTunes for music. I would like the best laptop for the money. the budget will be up to $1800.

Features I would like to have:

[*]1.7GHz - 2GHz (don't care about pentium or AMD, either is fine)
[*]1024MB RAM is necessary (unless you guys can convince me otherwise)
[*]60GB or more HD (7200rpm would be nice, but i'll settle for 5.4k)
[*]DVD+/-RW is necessary
[*]wireless support is necessary (whatever a college campus would use 802.11g? i don't know)
[*]ethernet jack of course
[*]extra video slot for another monitor is a plus too
[*]i'd like to have a lightweight one, at least as lightweight as it can get.
[*]long battery life is a must.

A friend of mine showed this one to me:

Acer Notebook @ NewEgg

Otherwise, I have been looking at HP notebooks and they look good . . . any suggestions anyone?

 

[Trippytiger]

Well, you've got a lot of options with that budget. It would be helpful to know what size of laptop you're looking at, though, and if you need portability, or a long battery life.

The 'best' laptop manufacturers are generally considered to be IBM/Lenovo, Fujitsu, Asus, and Apple, so I'd start by looking at any one of those.

 

[Saint Nick]

Originally posted by: Trippytiger
Well, you've got a lot of options with that budget. It would be helpful to know what size of laptop you're looking at, though, and if you need portability, or a long battery life.

The 'best' laptop manufacturers are generally considered to be IBM/Lenovo, Fujitsu, Asus, and Apple, so I'd start by looking at any one of those.

I didn't know Asus made laptops... thats crazy. I'll check out all those except the Apples. Aren't Apples a lot more expensive than a PC?

 

[Busithoth]

Originally posted by: jndietz

Originally posted by: Trippytiger
Well, you've got a lot of options with that budget. It would be helpful to know what size of laptop you're looking at, though, and if you need portability, or a long battery life.

The 'best' laptop manufacturers are generally considered to be IBM/Lenovo, Fujitsu, Asus, and Apple, so I'd start by looking at any one of those.

I didn't know Asus made laptops... thats crazy. I'll check out all those except the Apples. Aren't Apples a lot more expensive than a PC?

You should be able to find an apple laptop in your budget that would do everything you like.

 

[Saint Nick]

Originally posted by: Busithoth

Originally posted by: jndietz

Originally posted by: Trippytiger
Well, you've got a lot of options with that budget. It would be helpful to know what size of laptop you're looking at, though, and if you need portability, or a long battery life.

The 'best' laptop manufacturers are generally considered to be IBM/Lenovo, Fujitsu, Asus, and Apple, so I'd start by looking at any one of those.

I didn't know Asus made laptops... thats crazy. I'll check out all those except the Apples. Aren't Apples a lot more expensive than a PC?

You should be able to find an apple laptop in your budget that would do everything you like.

Is your Thinkpad really good? I can't say I have used anything but Dell/HP notebooks . . .

 

[Danijel]

I have an Acer 1694 with 2ghz and 1gb ram and 256mb graphic card, and i could say that is a very good notebook, and can about 4-5 hours work...
The Notebooks has also very good features, for example: bluetooth, Wireless lan and a very good TFT

Thats the link:
http://www.hastecomputer.de/product_info.php?products_id=471


Bye Danijel

P.S.: Sorry for my bad english

 

[Preti9cboi]

I'd get an asus barebone and just build your own. Save about 100-200 bucks. There was a review on core duo on the anandtech page earlier and i found out that asus makes laptops for apple and dell. So an asus would be a pretty good buy.

I'd say go for an ultraportable around 3 pounds. Much easier to carry around with the other books that you'll need around school.

 

[NewBlackDak]

I have an Acer TM4404WLMi. I absolutely love it. It's a solid machine. The 15.4" screen is a little large, but I couldn't find a 14" with the same specs for that price.

 

[rstove02]

Second vote for
TM4404WLMi.

It's a recently released laptop that is the same as its cousin the TM4402WLMi (which has good reviews), but with a faster processor, 2x the memory and 20GB larger hard drive.

 

[shuttleboi]

Originally posted by: jndietz
I didn't know Asus made laptops... thats crazy. I'll check out all those except the Apples. Aren't Apples a lot more expensive than a PC?

Check out this price comparison between the Dell 9400 and the Apple Powerbook Pro.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/02/14/pricecomparison2/index.php

 

[jdkick]

At the moment, I like the Compaq Presario V2000 line. They're built well and have a good feature set, even the "entry level" Sempron-based models (14" WXGA, 512MB and DVD±RW).

http://www.hp.ca/products/static/presario-notebooks/

 

[Commodus]

When do you need this laptop? If it's not right away, you might want to see what Apple does to replace the iBook. There are indications that the replacement (which will probably be called the MacBook, since the PowerBook's replacement was the MacBook Pro) will arrive sometime in the spring - think April or May.

We don't know much about what it will be like, other than many suggestions that it will have a widescreen display (likely 13.3" 1280x800), use the Core Solo or Core Duo processor, and will cost a lot less than the MacBook Pro does (probably $1499 at the high end). It could potentially be an excellent computer for what you want to do, especially since the Mac is iTunes' home turf and you wouldn't have to be as cautious about Internet security as you would be with a Windows system. Odds are the system will come with 512 MB of RAM standard, but if it really is $1500 then you could get an extra 512 MB stick from a 3rd-party in addition to a copy of either MS Office or Apple's iWork 06 (which can open and save Word-compatible documents).

 

[railer]

Originally posted by: shuttleboi

Originally posted by: jndietz
I didn't know Asus made laptops... thats crazy. I'll check out all those except the Apples. Aren't Apples a lot more expensive than a PC?

Check out this price comparison between the Dell 9400 and the Apple Powerbook Pro.

http://www.macworld.com/news/2006/02/14/pricecomparison2/index.php

Well, they jacked up the Dell specs (and price) to meet the Apple. I wouldn't buy a laptop from Dell that way.

My 9300 was like $1100. Gig of Ram, 6800go, 7200RPM 60 gig, 17" UXGA.
I'd wait for a similar 9400 with a 7800go. You should be able to snag one for <$1300 without too much trouble.

 

[BladeVenom]

Ever wonder why so many Apple users want to you to switch? http://www.mightymcpilgrim.com/films/brokemac/