Hey, everyone. I'm not exactly building my own laptop, so I thought this would be the best place to ask.
I'm a few months from graduating high school and going into a university where I plan to major in Computer Science. I'm in need of help selecting a laptop that will help me fulfill my needs as a college student and part-time gamer.
I've never bought or owned a laptop, so I really have no clue what I'm looking for. Newegg appears to have some good setups, but I'd like to get others' opinions before I go buying anything.
[b]Budget:[/b] $600-$1000 USD (preferably stay under $900)
[b]Purpose:[/b] All-around college carry-with-me notebook with some gaming capabilities. Mostly running EVE online, which isn't too strenuous.
[b]Weight:[/b] I don't care. It doesn't matter if it's heavy.
[b]Screen:[/b] Preferably something large, 14" and up is reasonable?
[b]Battery:[/b] Needs to be decent, not picky.
[b]Storage:[/b] I don't have anything that takes up massive amounts of space, so 200GB and up is sufficient.
[b]Memory:[/b] I think 4GB is pretty standard nowadays?
This is what I've found so far:
[url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220694[/url]
What I'm really having trouble with is finding a setup that doesn't have what is (in my mind) a shitty on-board graphics card.
Can anyone make some recommendations? Any help is appreciated.
[editline]edited[/editline]
Having a desktop and a netbook sounds like a better idea, come to think of it. Any recommendations for those?
This seems to be very popular on Newegg, the Asus Eee PC:
[url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834220659[/url]
the dell xps ones are qutie nice, they have decent build quality. i have an XPS M1530
You don't want a 17 inch screen if you are going to carry it around.
I also play eve and go to college.
Eve works ok on my small 15 inch screen, and 17 inch becomes way to big to haul around.
Look at asus and dell.
Maybe even acer.
[QUOTE=taipan;21077360]You don't want a 17 inch screen if you are going to carry it around.
I also play eve and go to college.
Eve works ok on my small 15 inch screen, and 17 inch becomes way to big to haul around.
Look at asus and dell.
Maybe even acer.[/QUOTE]
You do if you're my size :P
I got a 17" that comes out to 14 lbs with the ACA, and I carry about 40 other lbs of crap in there as well, haven't had a problem with my back at school or work since I started 2 1/2 years ago, albeit I do use a supporting backpack with straps and arch support.
900 bucks later I got a G60 HP Laptop. 4GB of memory, 300+GB of storage and can play most games rather well, just don't expect it to play any graphic heavy games on medium/high unless you get lucky.
[img]http://www.notebooks.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/11/HP_G60-507DX.jpg[/img]
[url]http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/document?docname=c01533413&cc=us&dlc=en&lc=en[/url]
Though I don't think mine has an nVidia Graphics card, so the one in the link must be different in some way. One thing I don't like however is where the fan is. It's on the bottom in the back left, If it's on your lap a lot you're gonna feel the heat and it get's hot! Average battery life for me is about 3 hours. But colleges have plugs they will let you use anyways.
plus to be honest i don't know why some people have such hardons for taking laptops with them to college, i only take a notepad and it seems to work pretty well.
don't buy gaming laptops
it will be
heavy as fuck and a pain to carry around all day
expensive
more quickly obsolete than desktops
poor battery life (especially if it is your only machine), good luck finding somewhere to plug in as your laptop runs out halfway through your second class
get a netbook and keep your desktop
I'm in college, got my desktop for gaming and a cheap netbook for everything else.
^^^^
this man is smarter than I was
I can play only a select few games from the current generation at 720x480 and minimum details because I bought a higher-powered laptop a couple years ago and am stuck with it
Having a desktop and a netbook sounds like a better idea, come to think of it. Any recommendations for those?
This seems to be very popular on Newegg, the Asus Eee PC:
[url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220659[/url]
I take a Dell Studio 15 to college every day.
I nabbed it in a Back-to-school sale, £100 worth of upgrades nocked off plus free shipping =)
Quality wise it's fairing better than my last laptops have.
Macbook is $990 I think. Even less with student discount.
[QUOTE=CPShArp;21078714]I'm in college, got my desktop for gaming and a cheap netbook for everything else.[/QUOTE]
Oh god this
for the netbook you might want to have a look at ASUS Eee PC's
Asus UL90? never heard of it and google fails to give a result. did you mean the UL80?
[editline]06:32PM[/editline]
oh, you edited your post.
The ASUS UL30Vt is a snazzy laptop.
What I plan to do is get this tiny laptop for 300 bucks, smaller than a text book.
Get an Asus. After that, you almost can't go wrong.
[QUOTE=Blarg190;21088788]Macbook is $990 I think. Even less with student discount.[/QUOTE]
I considered it. The student store at my prospective university sells them for less than that. It's got pretty much what I need...
On the other hand, I could get an Eee PC for around $450 USD and bring in an old Dell desktop that my parents have laying around. All it needs is a decent graphics card.
Any opinions on the Eee PC?
[url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220659[/url]
That's the one I'm currently looking at.
what are the specs of the old Dell? and that netbook looks nice
Ehh. It's pretty bad as far as the processor goes. It's something like an Intel Core 2 Duo E6600... pretty bad. 2 gigs of RAM, 250GB hard drive, and I think and on-board graphics card... yuck. I'll grab a cheap ATI card for it.
grab like a 5750 or something. and check your psu too.
I would very much like to upgrade the processor, but I've never done anything beyond changing video cards, and CPUs seem a bit more tricky, what with the thermal paste and things like that.
how about get that netbook and make a thread on fixing up that Dell.
just a suggestion.
[url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220699[/url]
Ugh. These good Newegg offers are making me reconsider. This laptop actually seems decent. And Asus seems to be a pretty reliable brand?
[url]http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220687[/url]
Best of both worlds, pretty powerful and long battery life if you put on all the power saving settings.
I would say to go with that Eee PC netbook, and then just upgrade the desktop.
Get a college laptop, get a desktop for gaming.
[editline]03:19PM[/editline]
Play gameboy emulated games & cs 1.6 on your laptop, play pretty games on your dt
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