School Computer o.O

An Ipad wouldn't be good for school. What kind of price range are you looking at?

 

I agree with this... Ipads are hard to take notes on. I tried to use one to take notes in college. It's really hard. Also, I'm not sure how you could write papers if you needed to.

 

Hehe, I love this thread.

Ok, so for me, I will be taking an iPad and a laptop to college. I get it that for some people, taking notes on a tablet isnt quite comfortable but I've been doing it and I am more than ok with it. HOWEVER, since you have a choice of a laptop or iPad, you must choose laptop. iPad can only do so much.

As for laptops, the first thing you have to decide on is Mac or PC. Its more on preference. For more people, Macs tend to be easier to use but PCs have a larger range of software that you can run on. Like for me, as an engineer student, I do things like programming, CAD, etc. so a PC is much better for me. Also, the fact that Macs aren't nearly as versatile as PCs bothers me a lot. However, for everyday things like email, typing up papers, etc. both are great choices. I recommend that you visit a store and try them both out.

But if you are deciding with a low budget in mind, you have to select a PC as Macs tend to have a higher price. So this is how I would think the best way to recommend.

CHOICE 1: Size
a) 13 in - have lower specs but are great in portability and usually battery power. tend to be light weight
b) 15 in - mainstream (most common). great compromise between portability and power
c) 17 in - tend to have more power but have horrible battery running times.

CHOICE 2: How much power
a) Low-voltage (Intel atom) - great for batteries but can be relatively slow and weak as a processor
b) mainstream (intel i3/i5)- more than enough power to complete everyday tasks. however more demanding applications like Photoshop or even high graphics games will not run as well
c) quad-core (intel i7 - most of them) - can be a little tough on batteries and cost more but have tons of power to handle heavy applications

CHOICE 3: Graphics Card
a) integrated (intel HD gfx) -works great for basic functions (email, writing documents), not ideal for intense gaming or heavy programs like CAD and Photoshop.
b) dedicated (Nvidia/AMD) - allows for better performance but can eat up battery and costs more

Go to a store with these three in mind and I'm sure you will have a much easier time selecting the proper PC. Check on laptop reviews online to check on the quality and performance of laptops you are looking at. There are a lot of companies that are offering Student Discounts on laptops so I advise you to take advantages of those.

I hope this helps!

 

I could not have replied better^^^

But, for my two cents, I use a MacBook because I don't need CAD or anything like that. It is still great to use with photoshop and video editing, which I do a lot of, and it is super user friendly, thin and light, and very fast. The iPad, like above, is not bad to take notes on. I like my computer though, it comes in handy. There will always be a feud between PC and Mac though, so go with what you feel more comfortable navigating through I guess...

 

Here's what you need to know when buying a school computer.

It's for school, don't go buying something that's $1500 because you won't need it.

Minimum specs would prob be 1-2 gigs of ram, 1200-1800 GHZ (or any dual core) CPU, and 200-500 gigs of HDD space.

A netbook would probably be perfect for you, it's a small and cheap laptop that you could fit in a binder if you wanted. They aren't powerful because they're cheap and for school. Save gaming and such for home on a desktop.

Newegg.com - HP Debranded Aspire One AO522-BZ465 Diamond Black AMD Dual-Core Processor C-50 (1.00GHz) 10.1" 1GB Memory 250GB HDD Netbook
($300) 1 gig of RAM, 250GB hard drive, 1000 ghz dual core CPU.

Newegg.com - HP Debranded Aspire One AO722-0473 Espresso Black AMD Dual-Core Processor C-60 (1.00GHz) 11.6" 2GB Memory 320GB HDD Netbook
($350) The extra $50 is another gig of RAM and a larger HDD otherwise they're mostly the same.

Hope I helped <3

 

Okay, remember it's for school. You're paying $700 for a camera you don't really need (could get a cheap $20 computer camera if you really wanted), any pair of headphones will far exceed the laptop's speakers, and a fingerprint scanner is useless (it was busted by the Mythbusters for gosh sakes) and a good password would be more than you need anyway.

You're getting a CPU that's way more powerful than you need, 4 gigs of RAM you don't need, and a large HDD you also don't need. It's for school, stick with a small $250-$350 computer. I know all the shiny stuff looks nice, but that shiny stuff costs a lot of money when you're on a budget.

 

Newegg.com - SONY VPCF23EFX/B Notebook Intel Core i7 2670QM(2.20GHz) 16.4" 4GB Memory DDR3 1333 500GB HDD 7200rpm DVD±R/RW NVIDIA GeForce GT 540M

Okay I spent 5 mins looking one up then, Its got its own graphics card and a really really good CPU. I'm going to warn you right now, that thing will run hot as hell on your lap so buy a cooling table to set it on unless you want your balls to turn into hard boiled eggs.

 

GET A MACBOOK PRO! It's the best. You won't regret it.

And an iPad is NOT a laptop. It's not interchangeable.

 

I'm surprised that nobody's mentioned this:

Microsoft Surface. It runs office, and everything you'd need for school, plus it has that too cool keyboard cover, coming later this year. I wouldn't suggest an iPad at all, $500 for a dual core 1GHZ CPU is ridiculous, it's 2012 people.

Other than that, I'd really recommend a lower end Lenovo Idea/Thinkpad, or if you're willing to splurge, an Asus Zenbook.

Just my $0.02

 

See... The problem is that school starts in August, not October... Can't exactly stay waiting for MS surface for that long...

As for an HP, I personally despise them. Others can argue but I have had problems with them. Others have had problems with it. The main problems I see is HP will put in defect hardware that will break on you and won't replace it...

Anyways, there are tons of options... Look at professional revie sites like cnet.com, look at what looks good for you, and most importantly, I think, look for something that you will NEED! Don't go for useless features if you will never use them. Rather, spend the extra money, if you really want to, on accessories like a mouse, bag/sleeve, etc.

 

As a college student, I had some similar questions. Eventually I went with a Toshiba Satellite for which I paid about six hundred, plus Microsoft Office. It's a decent sized screen, about fifteen-seventeen inches, something like that. The touch pad aspect of it is a little faulty, but I'm getting the hang of figuring out how it likes to move around on me.

I have 4 GB of memory, an i3 processor and some really nice graphics. I'm not sure what the specs are for that aspect. But for the price, it really is great. It's excellent for school as it is very light, cost efficient, user friendly, and it makes excellent typing sounds which is oddly important for me. It runs very quickly (though I've only had it for under a year), has a decent battery life (about four hours?), and is nice and sleek. I love it. It's an inexpensive computer and does exactly what is needed. I'd definitely recommend it.

 

I ditto this. My first laptop was a toshiba - ran like a dream. My sister got a new one just about a year ago... She is actually really great at breaking electronics but so far, it has handled her abuse well with no breaks. I think that if you really want to spend more money... I wouldn't choose toshiba because they don't really have high end models.

 

Get a mac if you want ease of use and reliability (and can afford it), but if you plan on customising some of the more subtle settings of your laptop or playing windows only games, go for windows. As for which mac, one of the earlier posts will help you with specifics such as processors, but as a general rule : the macbook air will be fine for tasks like writing essays, playing music, Facebook. But if you plan on media editing, heavy gaming, or any other high-power tasks go for a macbook pro.

If you don't decide to go for a mac then I really don't know as much but I would suggest an intel core i5 processor at the least, i7 for heavy tasks and at least 3, probably 4 gb of ram.

I've used an iPad in lessons and i don't recommend it really. If you can't get both, get a laptop. If you can get both then sure why not, right!?

 

xD I love this... sorry, I just wanted to point it out... there are far too few 3 GB RAM laptops because that means they have one 2GB stick and one 1GB stick of RAM...or three 1GB sticks. since memory is based off base 2... you have 1GB = 2^10 MB = 1024MB...you can't exactly get a multiple of 3 in there... unless you use three slots of ram (most laptops have 2). sorry, i always find it funny when a laptop says it has 6GB Ram

 

This. And if you could, choose the third generation core. And you can always upgrade your laptop RAM. It's pretty cheap anyway. A core i5 or i7 will last you for a few years. A non-Apple laptop is always much cheaper, so it really depends on your budget. The new Macbooks are really good (and really expensive too).

There are more aspects to take into account. What will you use your laptop for?

 

I have a Dell laptop and desktop(Laptop for what 4 years? Desktop for 2). Truthfully the brand isnt as important as what is "in" the computer. I havent had any issues, nor has my friend with mac computers. However, $700 for a school laptop is way to much. My desktop was designed for designing, programs, gaming, etc, and it was about $1100.(Which would include all the speaks,screens,etc which laptops dont need). Unless you are planning on doing any "extreme" stuff I wouldnt recommend buying a laptop for that much.

However, if prize isnt really a option(If the person paying doesnt care), than I would recommend doing a bit of research and looking around before you buy one. Better yet if you have a tech-y friend than ask them to make you one on the laptop brand's website. I designed my desktop on Dell's website, which I would imagine is a feature in many other companies. Had I have just looked for a computer with the stuff I wanted, I would of paid an extra few hundred, because it would have come with a whole lot of extra stuff that I wouldnt need.

 

Well on your "base 2" calculations i got completely lost, but I know 3gb is a pretty odd amount of RAM to have, but hey, that's what my old laptop had xD.