Okay, well I want to get a laptop (preferably a notebook) for uni. Budget: US$~1000 I don't care about brands. At all. However, I'd like something like a Vaio.. but not so ridiculously-expensive-for-slow-crap as Vaio's. ALSO: preferably not a MAC. So suggest some models/parts/etcs Also: Linux. I need a run-down of Linux.. because I want the speeeeeeeeed and the sexiness. What? How? etc etc Is it hard to use? etc etc Compatability etc Yeah I don't know much about laptops or Linux Help me
Thanks for reminding me ^_^ I forgot to say no macs.. I've used one before, and I hated it. It felt like a kiddy computer :/
$1000 gets you a LOT in a laptop these days. Especially if you look for deals. I'm guessing you're american by the fact that you posted it in USD. What i'd suggest is to lurk "deals" forums such as Slickdeals.net and Fatwallet.com I'm constantly on Redflagdeals.com (Canadian deal hunting forum), and every so often a fantastic deal comes up on a laptop. You should be able to get a laptop with blu-ray, 4 gigs of ram, at least 300GB HDD, and a fairly high-end graphics card for under 1000, as long as you look for deals.
Nah, I'm Australian.. I just thought I'd post it in USD so people didn't have to do a currency change or summat. (see: if we talked more, you'd know this!!) So look for deals? Should I be looking at any specific brand, or are they unbranded and just made to spec.? 'Cause I know of a couple forums like that in the Australian interwebsss and I'll scan through them
Ram is dirt cheap. You can buy 2 sticks of 2GB DDR3 for ~$50. DDR2 would be cheaper than that. You could buy a 500 gig wd scorpio for ~$100. Replacing HDs/RAM takes 20 minutes, max. What are you planning on doing with your laptop? Gaming? CAD? Browsing? Different brands will fit different niches depending on what you want to do with your computer.
Well, assuming I will be doing some form of Engineering next year, I will probably be using it for CAD and browsing. And maybe a little bit of gaming. And I'll probably be running Ubuntu on it and using a Windows emulator.
If gaming isn't a huge concern (i.e. no Crysis, etc), I'd recommend staying away from higher-end graphics cards. Most laptops with higher end cards have a horrendous battery life. Basically, a stable business(professional) and/or workstation card (NVIDIA Quadro NVS/FX + ATI FireGL) would be much better for you than the consumer alternative (GeForce + Radeon). With a ~$1k budget though, you probably won't be able to find a laptop with a heavy duty workstation card unless you are willing to look at refurbished (Dell Outlet, Lenovo Outlet, etc = big savings). Since the laptop is for college, you'll probably want to stay away from 17"+ desktop replacements. With that in mind, take a look at the Lenovo T400/T500 (14"+15") as well as the Dell e6400/6500. The T400 is Lenovo's (formerly IBM) flagship line of business laptops. If you're looking for "style," though, you probably won't find it there. The E series of Dell Latitudes are a solid choice as well. If you're buying new, remember to go through EPP/CPP for the best deals.
I've had good experiences with Toshibas, I currently have a lenovo (IBM spinoff brand) and I really like it, they both are built well. You can get a super nice laptop for $1k, the lenovo I recently purchased (3-4 months or so ago) I paid $500 us after rebates and discounts. I saved about $250 off retail and bought directly from Lenovo. It was one of their media PCs with HDMI out instead of D-SUB, 5.1 surround sound (yes, actual 5.1 surround sound...) though the speakers are not actually able to be behind you, they do sound pretty darn good. It was an ideapad y series, I do not remember the model number right now, but check them out (the link is for the US site): http://shop.lenovo.com/SEUILibrary/cont ... D96BBB1281 I am sure other Lenovo models are fine as well, Dell laptops are nice too, just whatever best bang for the buck you can get!
Thanks!! These look fantastic at the price, and seem pretty damn sleek. I think these ones are the ones I'll go for
No problem! Glad I could help, I LOVE my wife's Lenovo, super durable too. I wiped Vista off and put XP on (the site has great support and you can download drivers pretty quickly)... Unfortunately I was about 2 months too early to get the Windows 7 update offer... stupid Microsoft.. I do have the beta and RC versions, but they will not last but for another 8 months or so... Sorry, I drifted off topic there for a bit :|