$700 College Laptop for Electrical Engineering/Computer Science
23 replies, posted
OK - so new direction. Moderate gaming on it (LoL, Civ V, moderately demanding FPS's), but mostly focused on ergonomics. I'll be doing developer work on it and would like a lot of utility. Does not need touchscreen. Nice keyboard, battery life, speakers (optional) etc. Any suggestions? $700 is my budget.
Oh, and I might need to dual boot or run a virtual machine on it, so I'm hoping for some decent hard drive space (at least 500 gb to work with).
Thanks. I do not know much about laptops, but there appears to be all this hype about haswell and stuff. Suggestions are appreciated.
[editline]13th August 2013[/editline]
This caught my eye, but its GPU seems kind of subpar... [URL]http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&kc=&oc=fndnu177h&dgc=BA&cid=266740&lid=4859195&acd=12309183969360129[/URL]
It's safe to say that you ain't gonna be running anything too intensive on that GPU, although good for light use.
Your best bet in that price range would probably be to check out Back-to-school sales instead of manually configuring laptops.
Unfortunately, at that pricerange you can't really get a do-everything-go-everywhere laptop like the Zenbook UX51 ($1700) or MBP, so you'll have to do with sacrificing some things to meet standards for a good developers' computer (a good screen is a must).
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
Also, mobile i5 / i7 ultra low voltage processors (processors with a U suffix) are dual-core and not the fastest but instead are for battery-life-oriented computers, fyi.
If you go with a Dell on their store, I just got a coupon from them for 10% in the mail you can have.
Also, in terms of an alternative what you listed, check out the [url=http://www.rakuten.com/prod/acer-aspire-s7-391-6413-13-3-touchscreen-ultrabook-1920x1080-intel/252608991.html]Acer Aspire S7 - it's on sale for $679 on Rakuten.[/url].
This is an ultrabook with a great 1080p touchscreen and extreme portability, but rather mediocre performance and battery life (4 hours).
Also, it only has a 128GB SSD but USB3 1TB hard drives are like what, $60 now?
snip
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
Bleh, I do not know how useful a touchscreen would actually be now. Hmm... can anyone testify to its usefulness in lecture?
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
Looking at this now: [url]http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/ideapad/u-series/u410-touch/?sb=:000001C9:0000E965:#techspecs[/url]
How's it look?
It looks like you're paying $200 extra just for a touch screen to me. I can't really see how they'd be useful if the pc isn't one that converts to a tablet.
[QUOTE=Shadaez;41832570]It looks like you're paying $200 extra just for a touch screen to me. I can't really see how they'd be useful if the pc isn't one that converts to a tablet.[/QUOTE]
Yup, that's what I thought. I also realized I can just get a writing tablet if I really need to draw things.
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
Edited the OP
I recently bought
[url]http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Series-NP500P4C-S02US-14-Inch-Laptop/dp/B009LL9V6S/[/url]
from Amazon Warehouse and I'm satisfied with it. It's an amazing value, throw in 4GB RAM and it's really good.
Mine only came with 2GB for some reason, but Amazon refunded me $70 which was enough to purchase 8GB which was nice.
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
It has a 630m and the speakers in it are really good considering they're laptop speakers, runs most things medium-high to max at its smallish resolution.
I bought a laptop with an i7-2670QM and 8GB of RAM at the start of last year when I was beginning my CompSci degee at university thinking that it would need to be put to use. I have discovered that you can get away with almost anything because you won't be doing anything that intensive.
What you want is a laptop with 4GB+ RAM (VMs and shit) and a decent battery. Basically an ultrabook if you can find one cheap
[QUOTE=Shadaez;41832613]I recently bought
[url]http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Series-NP500P4C-S02US-14-Inch-Laptop/dp/B009LL9V6S/[/url]
from Amazon Warehouse and I'm satisfied with it. It's an amazing value, throw in 4GB RAM and it's really good.
Mine only came with 2GB for some reason, but Amazon refunded me $70 which was enough to purchase 8GB which was nice.
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
It has a 630m and the speakers in it are really good considering they're laptop speakers, runs most things medium-high to max at its smallish resolution.[/QUOTE]
Wow, that's a really good deal. I CAN stretch my budget though, maybe add a SSD or something
Yeah you'll probably either want to just get the laptop with the best dedicated GPU you can afford or get the one with all the nice features you want and integrated, especially if it's Haswell. HD 4000 and up really aren't that bad and can run most games on at the very least low, if not medium and sometimes high.
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
There's this [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834216539[/url] with a 740, it's pretty large though.
[url]http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V5-572G-6679-15-6-inch-Laptop/dp/B00DKFFFXO/ref=pd_cp_pc_3[/url]
[url]http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V3-771G-6485-17-3-Inch-Midnight/dp/B00AVYPPHI/ref=pd_cp_pc_0[/url]
[url]http://www.amazon.com/Acer-Aspire-V5-572G-6679-15-6-inch-Laptop/dp/B00DKFFFXO/ref=pd_cp_pc_3[/url]
As far as i can tell, these would fit your reqs. Also slightly below your budget.
[QUOTE=Shadaez;41832696]Yeah you'll probably either want to just get the laptop with the best dedicated GPU you can afford or get the one with all the nice features you want and integrated, especially if it's Haswell. HD 4000 and up really aren't that bad and can run most games on at the very least low, if not medium and sometimes high.
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
There's this [url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834216539[/url] with a 740, it's pretty large though.[/QUOTE]
Thanks, these are great. I can't seem to find a decent Haswell laptop in my range though.
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Shadaez;41832613]I recently bought
[url]http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Series-NP500P4C-S02US-14-Inch-Laptop/dp/B009LL9V6S/[/url]
from Amazon Warehouse and I'm satisfied with it. It's an amazing value, throw in 4GB RAM and it's really good.
Mine only came with 2GB for some reason, but Amazon refunded me $70 which was enough to purchase 8GB which was nice.
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
It has a 630m and the speakers in it are really good considering they're laptop speakers, runs most things medium-high to max at its smallish resolution.[/QUOTE]
Also, how's the battery life?
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
I've kind of narrowed it down to two, though I'm still looking:
[url]http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/web/LenovoPortal/en_US/catalog.workflow:item.detail?GroupID=457&Code=59372336&category-id=96EBC6A8C8EC47A59E95B3D5E300F333&hide_menu_area=yes[/url]
VS
[url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834216539[/url]
The lenovo at $700 offers a small SSD, more RAM, more HD space, better processor, but worse graphics card, no backlit keyboard, and apparently quite a drab looking display in terms of color.
The $650 toshiba is the opposite. Less battery life but better performance... And larger screen too and backlit keyboard
I would shy away from any Lenovo that isn't a ThinkPad. The IdeaPads do not live up to any sort of promise of build quality.
All things considered, 13/14" is a great size.
Here's where you will find the cheapest Lenovos.
[url]http://shoplenovo.i2.com/SEUILibrary/controller/e/na/StdAffinityPortal/en_US/Lenovo:EnterStdAffinity?affinity=barnesnoblegold[/url]
Damn, those think pads would be perfect but they are pushing my price range a lot.
well, if you can come up with the money, it'd be well worth it. the more you put down now generally means the longer the laptop will last (as evident with my $350 Asus laptop having its hard drive go out and now its backlight is going out... it's now a year and some months old)
How about this? [url]http://shop.lenovo.com/us/en/laptops/thinkpad/s-series/s431/[/url]
While probably reasonably built, the sub-$700 models only come with Intel HD 4000 graphics. Which isn't bad, it's just not great. Display is eh with eh quality and the most common resolution on earth, but it's not bad at all.
What about the $800 one?
Very good. Would you get the SSD model or the 500GB one? Because that 500GB drive will be slow as all hell.
Well, compared to the SSD anyway. :v:
I got a nice ASUS with an i5 and GT 610m. Handles Skullgirls, World of Tanks, and Source games decently at medium settings while playing at 30+ fps.
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
$600 USD with shipping though it was on sale because of July 4th
What did you get Falco?
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Protocol7;41843652]Very good. Would you get the SSD model or the 500GB one? Because that 500GB drive will be slow as all hell.
Well, compared to the SSD anyway. :v:[/QUOTE]
I am working with two 250 GB 5400 RPM drives. I am fine with the loading times. Also, there's a 24 GB SSD on it so windows at least can run fast
[url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230987[/url]
As I said it runs many small games well:
Vindictus
Killing Floor
World of Tanks
Skullgirls
Terraria
However on the egronomics side the touchpad is VERY sensitive. It gets annoying when you type and the touchpad is accidentally touched, which causes you to start typing wherever you clicked. It gets some getting used to. Other than that it is a decent laptop. I've had a Macbook 13 inch and a Dell Inspiron before by the way.
Brands to look for would be ASUS, Toshiba, MSi, Samsung, and Lenovo (albeit a few around here would not recommend a Toshiba or Lenovo, up to you). Sony is good too but expensive.
However if you can wait a month I would. It seems for some reason a few of the other good laptops on Newegg have gone out of stock last time I checked (when I was looking for a laptop in July).
[editline]15th August 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Shadaez;41832613]I recently bought
[url]http://www.amazon.com/Samsung-Series-NP500P4C-S02US-14-Inch-Laptop/dp/B009LL9V6S/[/url]
from Amazon Warehouse and I'm satisfied with it. It's an amazing value, throw in 4GB RAM and it's really good.
Mine only came with 2GB for some reason, but Amazon refunded me $70 which was enough to purchase 8GB which was nice.
[editline]14th August 2013[/editline]
It has a 630m and the speakers in it are really good considering they're laptop speakers, runs most things medium-high to max at its smallish resolution.[/QUOTE]
Also this and the other Toshiba Shadaez posted are really good buys. Get them over my ASUS unless you wanna save $100.
Yea, they look a bit heavy though
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