Laptop for College

[kchi55]

I'm sure there has been a ton of threads on this already, but hopefully it doesn't hurt for you guys to take a look at this kinda thread one more time before the school year starts (though I'm sure many will follow).

So I'm going into my first year of college as an engineering student and I need a laptop.

The specifications I'm looking for are as follows and in order of priority:

- 13-14" Display
- Price
- Montevina CPU
- Looks
- Not a Mac (I'm just stubborn this way)
- Battery Life (Variable depending on hardware)

Ram isn't really an issue, a dedicated graphics card would be nice, but not necessary.

I'm currently looking at this one from Asus: http://www.excaliberpc.com/587812/asus-f8va-b1-14.1-notebook.html

But I'm open to any better solutions in terms of price : performance ratio.
I'm mainly just having a hard time finding manufacturers that offer the new Intel CPUs on smaller notebooks, 14 is a bit pushing it, but I'll settle, but 13" would be great, which is the main reason I created this thread.

Thanks!

 

[dude_se]

hmm not a bad price. i was going to suggest an xps, but have just had a look and theres simular specced ones, but the gpu just isnt as good as that one. i think its a pretty good deal. then again ive heard mixed reviews about acer. mainly good, but its still worth checking reviews of anything you buy.

 

[01001010]

- Battery Life (Variable depending on hardware)

Most Asus notebooks have bad battery life. Look at the Vaio or Thinkpad line.

 

[Joel~]

Perhaps try an Acer Aspire 4920? We had one in our office a while back and they're quite nice pieces of kit. Of course, there is more likely an updated version of it now, so try looking out for one of those.

 

[IAntDemo]

Dell Vostro's are good.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/vostronb?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

I own the 1700 and their great

 

[kchi55]

Most Asus notebooks have bad battery life. Look at the Vaio or Thinkpad line.

Really? Do you know if there's a place that I can read up on that, it actually strikes me as pretty interesting, definitely take that into consideration.

Dell Vostro's are good.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/category.aspx/vostronb?c=us&l=en&s=bsd&cs=04

I own the 1700 and their great

I know the Vostro's perform well for their price, but they're too big for me, I'm looking for 12-14" laptops right now as portability is a big issue for me, while performance isn't as big of an issue, I'd really rather not use the 13.3" form factor of the Vostro as it's sporting a Celeron processor.

 

[IAntDemo]

yep, good point.

fair enough, but their other options and alot cheaper ones, you could build a laptop, find a laptop you like paste it in ebay and buy all the hardware for it, thats my next laptop plan as I just found out, instead of buying a vostro 1700 with graphics on which would cost me about 600pound I could build the same one but with better colors for 200pound cheaper.

 

[dude_se]

i really would see what the reviews say about that acer. it does have very good specs, which the dells ive looked at cannot match for that price. then again i find my xps is very reliable (apart from vista sometimes).

 

[MooseMan1]

Most Asus notebooks have bad battery life. Look at the Vaio or Thinkpad line.

I agree. I know 3 people who have ASUS laptops, and they are not very happy with them. Thinkpads and VAIOs both are known for solid hardware and decent to good battery life, depending on the model of course.

Something you can get with the thinkpad series, is a battery that goes into the ultraport (CD drive) bay, so you have two batteries for much longer battery life.

EDIT: I purchased a Thinkpad T61 for college. I found out a had a lemon, but the chassis of the laptop was impressive, aesthetically pleasing, and powerful for the price.
I ended up returning it and bought a VAIO, I haven't gotten it yet, but I am exicted.

You said you are doing engineering. I heard having a tablet PC for engineering is really useful. You may want to consider that. As a matter a fact, Virginia Tech requires you have a tablet PC.