Laptops

Sobmeister

Hi all,
I am considering getting a laptop for use in college, and the course I am on needs stuff to be installed etc on it, so I was wondering could people with a computer knowledge make some suggestions for one that could be suitable, obviously I need one with lots of memory, that's pretty fast, can play games and can install educational programs on it. Ideally it would be be capable of lasting for a good few years and be generally very good for a student!

tywy

How much money do you have?!

You'll need a good bit of money for a laptop like that, I'm guessing about €2000-2500.

What sort of educational software? Does this software need a good graphics card?

I'm anti gaming laptops, I think they are a waste of money, they are difficult to upgrade compared with a desktop and they aren't comfortable to use. If you don't need a graphics card for the college software I'd recommend getting an alright laptop for about €1000 and then building a PC for about €1000 for gaming (although I dunno if that would be enough).

Roy Batty

I would check with the students union in college to see if they have arranged a special deal for laptop purchase from any of big manfacturers.
This could save you a few quid.

tywy

If you're a gamer I doubt you're into Macs but they give an educational discount.

Irishtrekkie

Try a dell vostro, xps or studio laptop .

Creamy Goodness

no one can give you an answer until we know one of these two things.

1. what course
2. even better what software is needed.


the only thing people can give you now is a educated guess that may/may not suit your needs.

ooPabsoo

TYWY you do NOT need to spend 2000-2500€ on a laptop with good specs.

an excellant laptop for college would be the one im using at the moment. dell xps 1530. very good laptop for the price i feel.
The basic laptop on this link for 949€ would be more than sufficient for your needs m8. Also the 8600gt is not a bad graphics card. would play cod4 on medium-high settings but crysis would prob play on low-medium but definitely playable

Irishtrekkie

ooPabsoo wrote: »

TYWY you do NOT need to spend 2000-2500€ on a laptop with good specs.

an excellant laptop for college would be the one im using at the moment. dell xps 1530. very good laptop for the price i feel.
The basic laptop on this link for 949€ would be more than sufficient for your needs m8. Also the 8600gt is not a bad graphics card. would play cod4 on medium-high settings but crysis would prob play on low-medium but definitely playable

Agreed the 8600gt is more then enough for most people. I mean once your not trying to run a renderhouse or something , saying that i had 8600gt and it could handle high and mid ploy models in max ( was a bit slow and power hungery but got the job done) . And yea the gamesoc , have a pretty good cod4 config, if anybody wants it for the playing on laptops.

ooPabsoo

loll whoops forgot the link!
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1530?c=ie&l=en

tywy

ooPabsoo wrote: »

TYWY you do NOT need to spend 2000-2500€ on a laptop with good specs.

an excellant laptop for college would be the one im using at the moment. dell xps 1530. very good laptop for the price i feel.
The basic laptop on this link for 949€ would be more than sufficient for your needs m8. Also the 8600gt is not a bad graphics card. would play cod4 on medium-high settings but crysis would prob play on low-medium but definitely playable

sorry!

It's just my brother was looking at getting a gaming laptop that would play all new games well and that's the price he came up with. Ended up going with a desktop, better value for money for gaming.

Creamy Goodness

yeh but tbh if you want to play the latest and greatest games a laptop isn't what you want. sure there are laptops that do play the latest and greatest games but they are complete surfboards and will have your back in bits if you use it as a college laptop (bringing it in everyday), not to mention having to use laptop keyboard for gaming, it's just feels wrong for me. so that adds a new keyboard and new mouse to the fray as well as buying a 2000+ ironing board.

also someone touched on gaming laptops not being very upgradable, true but the same can be said for most laptops and in fact gaming laptops are probably the most upgradable.

a nice happy medium i think is needed here, but i think the emphasis should be on what programs the OP needs for college as that's the most important thing tbh.

you can always get good old games *cough*half-life*cough*quake*total annhiliation*cough*

yevveh

plus you can always get free games like hamsterball, peggle and immortal defense though must admit half-life is better... oh, and don't forget KKND, i used to love that game

a friend of mine who's into games got a big gaming laptop and he regrets it now, as cremo says they're just too big and unwieldy. the idea of a laptop is that it's mobile so don't bother getting one that's too big and bulky. if you really want to play games on it, you're gonna have a tough time, especially if it's the night before an exam and you're planning on using the laptop for study

Alanstrainor

Sobmeister wrote: »

Hi all,
I am considering getting a laptop for use in college, and the course I am on needs stuff to be installed etc on it, so I was wondering could people with a computer knowledge make some suggestions for one that could be suitable, obviously I need one with lots of memory, that's pretty fast, can play games and can install educational programs on it. Ideally it would be be capable of lasting for a good few years and be generally very good for a student!

What's your budget?
What programs will you need to run on it? Specifically what games would you like to play etc
How small/large do you want it to be? Will you be carrying it into college everyday? Or will it stay at home all day?

Sobmeister

OK sorry for not gettin back to you guys, firstly forget the gaming thing, it's not important, I'm doing Engineering, DT025, and already we have to install MathCAD, and I don't know what else we will need to install in future, AutoCAD etc?? Also, I will be using it for my assignments etc, so I'm just thinkin of something that will be useful for me

Alanstrainor

What's your budget?
How small/large do you want it to be? Will you be carrying it into college everyday? Or will it stay at home all day?

DaSilva

Some of these quotes are crazy. I have a 4 year old laptop, Inspiron 5150 think it's specs are 2.8ghz P4, 256 ram (which I upped to 512), 30gb HD, Geforce Go 5200 FX. Cost me €800 or so when I got it.

What do I use it for? Programming, runs any IDE I have thrown at it without problems. Circuit simulation programs again, fine. Used to play a bit of Half Life 1 and Quake 3 on it perfectly. I slapped in a 60gb HD and partitioned it up and now dual boot Linux and WindowsXP.

It's a bit cliché (64k enough for anyone), but unless you are a gamer, and I mean playing all the latest games, or doing some crazy intensive 3d modelling then my old laptop would be fine for nearly any academic use, business use or home use.

How much would you get a laptop like this for now? Probably under €500 new, and second hand probably under €300. Check out Dell's outlet site for refurbished models or Adverts.ie for second hand laptops.