Need a new Laptop for School

[Hess]

I want something quiet (obviously) and can get normal things done.  I'll be graduating this Spring, so the laptop should be able to graduate with me and get me through graduate school and/or my future job of teaching.

 

I was thinking Mac, but the prices are

 

 

I'm not going to be gaming, may watch a few movies on it and play some website games like OMGpop sort of things, but thats the extent of recreational use I'll use it for.  It's main intent right now would be for writing my thesis this semester, student teaching next semester (lots of power points and such), and then of course be able to have a future life with me in graduate school and the job field.

 

My old Dell Inspiron literally died on me.  The disc drive doesn't work, it literally takes 4 mins to boot, and I have to have one of those ugly ass fan docks or it'll TJmax and shut down.  Plus its loud as hell so I don't enjoy bringing it into classrooms.

 

If I could find something for ~$600 I'd be very happy, but if I have to spend big, like ~800-~900 for a pc laptop, then I'll just go bigger and get the Mac because in my opinion, when you get to expensive, adding an extra $200 is not that big of a deal.  Plus they have a decent education discount.

 

 

So what do you guys use, or what do you guys know of that is a decent laptop price wise and use wise?

Edited August 29, 2013 by Hess

[Memphus]

I use a Sony VAIO. It is amazing. It cost me like $500 or something, and it can even run the top-end games on max settings without an issue. I've never had an issue with it, except that graphics card meltdown last year (and that got me a whole brand new, newer-model VAIO for free.
Definitely the best bang for your buck. Steer clear of anything Apple unless you enjoy paying twice as much for half the product.

And definitely get whatever replacement plan your electronics store has. It's worth it, even if nothing goes wrong. I think mine was like an extra $120 for two years of coverage. Let's you upgrade for free.

[Tristan]

Yea Memphus' Suggestion of a replacement plan is a good one you and you should surely do that or you will regret it with karma.

 

 

Umm as for computers I'm not to familar with which ones are best bang for your buck but I I have a HP Pavilion and I find it pretty useful and beneficial. Mine cost almost $900 because i got one of the ones with the larger memory and hard drive space since I knew I would need it for school ( I still don't know if it was enough with all these programs we have to keep using ;-; )

 

However I also got a 3 year replacement plan included in that price so it wasn't a horrible deal.

 

 

Apple/Mac = No No 

 

It's expensive, you can only buy accessories through them which again is expensive. If you have to ever use something that doesn't normally run on mac you have to install another program to run it first which some of those can be a pain if you don't know what you are doing although with history and teaching I don't think you will really run into that issue.

 

 

I see Apple as a scam but I realize some people actually do like it so I won't bad mouth it too much. 

[Evil 4ever]

I've heard Lenovo laptops are very good, but I do not own one, so I cannot really recommend you anything.

[Evan]

I'm a huge fan of my Samsung Chronos series laptop, very reliable and strong.  super powerful

[Veggie]

I have an Acer Aspire E1-571 that I got last year. It is awesome. It only cost about $400 or so from Fry's. Integrated video card, so I can't go out and spend $500 on some GPU scam to play some 2013 game release in 1080p "max settings" (lol), but there's no possible way you need that anyway.

Ran RS 2 (HD, 2012 version RIP) 40-50 FPS when alone, ~20 FPS at crowded places like GE but that's to be expected. League of Legends at 60 FPS unless there's connection problems. Can run any game I have on Steam on mid-low settings, except for GTA 4 which is absolutely insane with its requirements. Still looks really good, but graphics and resolution are highly overrated and overstated.

Battery lasts consistent 4-4.5 hours (2-3 hours if at high brightness/settings). 2.4 GHz processor is enough for my purposes. Installed extra 4 GB of RAM to put it at 8 GB, only cost about $30 and was really easy.

Basically, a $400 laptop that can perform anything I want or need to do, without all of these technical issues I hear about other peoples' laptops (dead battery, battery lasts 30 minutes, etc.). The one thing that is slow is the time it takes to turn on if it was shut down, usually it takes about 3-5 minutes for it to be at full performance, but only shut it off if there are updates, otherwise I just let it sleep.

Especially since it's "back to school" time for stores, there are probably sales on these sorts of laptops. I suggest getting something similar. If you have to spend $800 to get something for simple use, you're getting scammed hard. Obviously, since it's been a year since I bought mine, you'll get better specs for the same price.

[Deathstar]

Bought this 2yrs ago for $581:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834131117

 

 

get this:

 

http://www.costco.com/HP-ENVY-15t-Quad-TouchSmart-Laptop%2c-Intel%C2%AE-Core%E2%84%A2-i7-4700MQ-2.4GHz.product.100070029.html

 

If shopping for a laptop I would buy something like:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834230592

 

or

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834314147

[Killed Lord]

Choose wisely - SONY or ASUS

[Deathstar]

Choose wisely - SONY or ASUS

lolsony

[Memphus]

Also I'd like to throw in my input regardings WIndows8.

Any new laptop you get is going to come with this as the default operating system, and I must point out, that it is absolutely completely unusable out of the box. Businesses are freaking out because, even with trillions of dollars injected into retraining their employees, it still decreases productivity something like 40%. It literally takes you longer to complete the same tasks now, because of the horrible design of the interface. It's essentially a smartphone operating system on your computer. It is attempting to mimic the "clean screen" look of Apple shit, and it does it extremely messy and poorly.

You'll either need to download a third-party crack that modifies Windows8 to make it mimick Windows7 (I use one called "Classic Start Menu"), or you should do what you can to talk your salesman into including a copy of Windows7 (I doubt Microsoft lets them do this though). Or find a full version of W7 for illegal download.

[Rafi]

Macs are more expensive but are built to last.  Seven years later I'm still using the Macbook I got in 2006 for $1500, and the only issue is that it can't do a bunch of things at once seamlessly because it obviously doesn't have the memory/ram that new computers do.  That said, 7 years later, the resale value is still estimated at about $500 for this computer.  

 

My dad has been using Mac laptops since the early/mid 90s when laptops were first being used.  His office kept some of them, but the Powerbook G3 (1997) he still has, and last I checked IT STILL WORKS.  It works like a computer from 1997 so you'd never want to use it, but it still works!

 

More than half of the people I've known with PC laptops had to replace them within 4 years because they flat out died/stopped working.  That said, they are definitely cheaper so not as huge of a deal to replace.

 

So it really comes down to how much money you want to spend, and if you have the money to spend now or if you are on a really tight budget.

[Hess]

I need nothing for gaming, I just want quiet, thin, long lasting, and good battery life.

 

 

I have a desktop that I built myself so I don't have any priority on gaming right now for a laptop.  I'll look into some of the Acers and Sonys.

 

 

Found this?

 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5524207

Edited August 30, 2013 by Hess

[Veggie]

I need nothing for gaming, I just want quiet, thin, long lasting, and good battery life.

 

 

I have a desktop that I built myself so I don't have any priority on gaming right now for a laptop.  I'll look into some of the Acers and Sonys.

 

 

Found this?

 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5524207

Looks pretty good, it looks like they give you an option of Windows 7?

[Hess]

I need nothing for gaming, I just want quiet, thin, long lasting, and good battery life.

 

 

I have a desktop that I built myself so I don't have any priority on gaming right now for a laptop.  I'll look into some of the Acers and Sonys.

 

 

Found this?

 

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=5524207

Looks pretty good, it looks like they give you an option of Windows 7?

 

 

Yes, but then I saw this http://www.shopping.hp.com/en_US/home-office/-/products/Laptops/HP-ENVY/C9W57AV;pgid=c7twGfjc0ptSRpIq7ZUcoGXQ000060-pkHk2;sid=YjyoZ-Pp5X6CdbHJ6MLy8zrmViBtMuky75dAzA74aOclzCWY7wmG8cUw?HP-ENVY-15z-j000-Notebook-PC

 

and for a few dollars more I can have a quad core, 8gig ram, slimmer design, long battery, and just install the classic windows plug in to over ride the windows 8 interface

 

 

so I think I'm gonna settle on that