# Laptops



## HelloiamChow (May 23, 2009)

This fall I will be going off to college and I will need a laptop. Could anyone recommend a type of laptop for me? I do not game at all on my laptop, all I do is surf the web. I'm always on youtube, or streaming video for tv shows that I missed. I am going to be an engineering major, if that makes a difference. I will probably download a couple emulators, but that is the extent of my gaming. 

Could any of you offer suggestions as to what model? Or maybe even the specs I should be looking at for my type of use? Thanks a bunch.


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## jsh33 (May 23, 2009)

There is lots of cheap laptops at TigerDirect, but If you want something more polished try an ASUS eee-pc, they run windows XP or any version of linux, a good version for net-books is Easy Peasy.

It would also depend on which programs you are going to run.
If your engineering you may want a mac, they have good graphics cards 

If you have to run programs for your classes, you may just want to use windows, try a Dell.

Specs: Hmm, For just youtube probaly anything with a 2 gigs of RAM and, say, 20 gig hard dive should be good.


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## joey (May 23, 2009)

You won't find laptops with 20GBs now a days  (hopefully not!)


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## jsh33 (May 23, 2009)

Well... that's about all you _need_ but the Eee-pc 1008HA has 160GB.
You can get a TB hard drive in some laptops(?) but that's kinda' overkill for video streaming


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## d4m4s74 (May 23, 2009)

I have a Toshiba P300-123, I'm happy with it, with the exeption of the keyboard which is falling apart after 8 months


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## mcciff2112 (May 23, 2009)

I have an Acer Extensa (5620Z to be technical). I was reletively cheap, I got it for $500 last summer, and I've yet to have any problems with it. CAn't get any better than that for 3 gigs of RAM and 250gb hard drive.


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## Robert-Y (May 23, 2009)

State your price range.


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## Johannes91 (May 24, 2009)

jsh33 said:


> For just youtube probaly anything with a 2 gigs of RAM


Huh, that's *way* more than necessary.


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## ExoCorsair (May 24, 2009)

http://forum.notebookreview.com/
"What Notebook Should I Buy" sub-forum.

^ Probably more helpful than here.

Alternatively, Woot is selling a netbook right now, which seems like possibility for you, given that "all you do is surf the web". http://www.woot.com/


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## Cloud_9ine (May 24, 2009)

Well if you can spend upto 2K, I greatly suggest a tablet like Lenovo X61 or more preferably, a Fujitsu T5010. I'm going to this one place now for high school and all have to get a laptop and they have laptops with their preloaded software, etc. But either way, for under 2K I like the T5010, good tablet, customizable, and pretty nice screen from what I hear. But yes, if it's gonna be for schooling, I highly suggest a tablet.

If your doing the T5010 I suggest:

100 GB HDD
2.40 GHz
4 GB RAM

Buy a modular battery while your at it.


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## Escher (May 24, 2009)

Whoa, people are going crazy here. If you just need something to surf the web and do college work, you really don't need to spend very much money at all.

You'll want a comfortable keyboard - you should go into as many shops as possible and try them all.

Second, if you're getting one with vista, you will need at least 2Gb of ram, and I suggest 4Gb - it does make a big difference in vista, much more than the processor speed does (my friend has a 'Core Solo' @ 1.7 Ghz in his laptop with vista, and it was awfully slow on the 1Gb it had preinstalled - he stuck 4Gb in there and now it works a dream).

To be honest, you probably aren't going to find a laptop with a HDD less than 120Gb, and you would hardly be saving money at all if you downgraded. 

Then there are slightly more obvious things - does it have enough USB ports? Sometimes they only come with 2 or 3, and if you have a lot of peripherals that can be annoying. Is it too heavy? Is the screen too small/big?

In the UK you could probably find a 15.4" laptop with 3 or 4Gb of RAM, a decent dual core and a 120Gb HDD for around £300, with Vista HP (dont even touch Home Basic), I don't know whether things are cheaper in the US (assuming you live there), but I wouldn't suggest spending much more than that, and definitely not 2K.


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## Poke (May 24, 2009)

Escher said:


> and try them all.
> 
> Second, if you're getting one with vista, you will need at least 2Gb of ram, and I suggest 4Gb - it does make a big difference in vista, much more than the processor speed does (my friend has a 'Core Solo' @ 1.7 Ghz in his laptop with vista, and it was awfully slow on the 1Gb it had preinstalled - he stuck 4Gb in there and now it works a dream).


 
I think that the speed of the RAM may have improved there. Because I have a 1.9 Duo Core, and 2 Gigs of ram, and my computer is slow 80% of the time. It has plenty of ram, because I almost never use half of it. I do know that ram speed varies a bit, and I am going to pinpoint it on that... or the fact the that he used 100% of his ram thus rendering most of this paragraph useless.


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## Escher (May 24, 2009)

I really couldn't tell you. Most laptops don't support speeds higher than what they are factory fitted with, so I'm not so sure it is that. What are you running?


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## AvGalen (May 24, 2009)

> This fall I will be going off to college and I will need a laptop


So why ask for tips now? A lot of new models will come out between now and then and prices will change a lot as well

I would recommend reading this post: http://www.speedsolving.com/forum/showpost.php?p=180191&postcount=28

Also, for watching youtube video's (flash) you only need a couple of MB's storage and a couple of MB ram, not 20 GB storage and 2 GB ram. The main thing you need for flash is sufficient CPU power, but even that wouldn't be a problem with any new machine you can buy today
Vista works just fine with 512 MB, but there really is no reason to buy a new laptop with only 512 MB
And Mac's have relativy cheap/slow video cards by default. Upgrading them is sometimes possible, but overly expensive.

Before anyone can help you we need to know:
How much you can/will spent
Which programs you want to run
How you are going to use your laptop (ultra portable or carry-with-you-pc)


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## StachuK1992 (May 24, 2009)

Escher said:


> Whoa, people are going crazy here. If you just need something to surf the web and do college work, you really don't need to spend very much money at all.
> 
> You'll want a comfortable keyboard - you should go into as many shops as possible and try them all.
> 
> ...


Unfortunatly, 32-bit vista cannot handle 4GB, only like 3.32GB of it.
...just a heads-up


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## Neroflux (May 24, 2009)

Stachuk1992 said:


> Unfortunatly, 32-bit vista cannot handle 4GB, only like 3.32GB of it.
> ...just a heads-up



I don't see a single word in his post about 32 bit and 64 bit OSes.


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## Escher (May 24, 2009)

Yeah, I bought this pc from a large chain (John Lewis), and got 4Gb ram and 64bit Vista - hence I wouldn't be surprised at all to see plenty of laptops with that much memory with a 64 bit OS'


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## Poke (May 24, 2009)

Stachuk1992 said:


> Unfortunatly, 32-bit vista cannot handle 4GB, only like 3.32GB of it.
> ...just a heads-up


I thought that any computer could support whatever its motherboard could support.


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## DcF1337 (May 24, 2009)

Poke said:


> Stachuk1992 said:
> 
> 
> > Unfortunatly, 32-bit vista cannot handle 4GB, only like 3.32GB of it.
> ...



Nope. 32-bit can only utilise 3-4GB of RAM. 64-bit can utilise much more.


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## Poke (May 24, 2009)

WTF... I looked up Max. Ram for 64 bit, and it is like 128 GB. Other than this, what's the difference between the 32 and 64 bit OS?


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## ExoCorsair (May 24, 2009)

Poke said:


> WTF... I looked up Max. Ram for 64 bit, and it is like 128 GB. Other than this, what's the difference between the 32 and 64 bit OS?



There used to be driver compatibility issues for 64-bit OS's, namely that hardware manufacturers didn't develop drivers for 64-bit OS's. However, I'm under the impression that that's becoming more uncommon now.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/help/41531554-d5ef-4f2c-8fb9-149bdc5c8a701033.mspx

^ First hit from:
http://www.google.com/search?source...+64+bit&btnG=Google+Search&aq=0&oq=32+bit+vs+


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## Lord Voldemort (May 24, 2009)

The Acer Aspire One AOA150-1447 is a pretty good laptop, I know a few people that have had it for a while and it still runs like new.


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## Bryan (May 25, 2009)

If you want a Lenovo, send me a PM and I might be able to get you a discount.


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