Laptop choices for Uni

[Lopunny]

Ok, so I'm really confused at this point, I need to find a laptop for university and I don't want to spend more than £1000 anyone got any ideas?

I've looked at several sites, and I've considered an Acer Aspire 6935G
( http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-062-AC&groupid=959&catid=1201&subcat= )

and a Primo Pro Mobile - 15.4" WXGA+ Laptop
( http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-011-OK&groupid=959&catid=1236&subcat= )

I've also dabbled in the Sony Vaio site, but I'm not sure on several points, ie, do I REALLY need a 512mb graphics card? also if possible I'd like one with a built in webcam

bear in mind I'm not THAT much of a expert and reams of specifications confuse me slightly...help will be much appreciated ^^

 

[Lord Monocle Von Banworthy]

You're surely experienced enough to know what kind of graphics card you need, etc. Nobody can tell you what to get until you give us an idea of what you do with computers.

Do you play games? Even if you don't play games, are you likely to connect your notebook to an external monitor? This bears upon your video card choice.

What do you download? Do you have external hard drives or care about using them? With a laptop it's a good thing to get the drive size you want in the first place since upgrading is more expensive than with a desktop. I take a lot of photos but I keep them all on DVD or external HDDs so I am content with a small C drive for my laptop.

Also, are you going to carry your computer to class or be moving a lot as a university student? Will it go home with you on the weekends? Will you go home on the weekends? That is an important thing to know before you decide on screen size or battery life.

I'm sure some knowledgeable people (which I'm not) can give you a lot of good advice if you give us a brief sketch of yourself as a computer user.

Oh, and thanks for giving us your price limit. That'll keep the Mac fanboys out of the thread.

 

[PlasticTree]

You want a laptop for university, and you are looking at these models? Are you sure you don't want a gaming laptop that's also usable on university? Cause that sure is what it looks like.

For uni you really only need a fairly standard laptop, unless you are going to do Graphical Design or a related study. The best advice I can give you: go for a small laptop. Big ones are really not practical in those small university seats. The first few weeks I went to the uni I borrowed a 17 inch laptop, and it was waaaaaay to big. I'd say, go for a 13, 14 inch laptop if you only need it for uni. Of course, if you want to game on it you could go '50/50', but it really wouldn't be smart to go for a laptop with a screen that's bigger than 15,4.

Oh, and if you áre going to do a Graphical Design study, get a Macbook. As a student you can easily buy a new one below £1000.

 

[KaiRai]

http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/systemlist.aspx?cat=20&mcat=46

Go on that, you can build a custom one, 2GB RAm, 160 GB hard drive and a 2.24 GHZ core 2 duo processor with Vista home for round £600-700, depending on what optional extras you put on

 

[Joos]

Go look on notebookreview.com. Also, Acer generally makes very cheap laptops (you get what you pay for (rubbish)). The other brand mentioned I've never heard of either, so I am going out on a limb here, and calling it a turd off the bat.

HP is also mostly rubbish, at least in the consumer level. ASUS quality used to be good but is going south as well.

Also, asked if you need 512 Mb graphics... Well, the answer to that is maybe? What are you going to use it for? If any gaming is in there, then yes. If not, then no. Also, how portable do you need it to be?

For a laptop to bring backwards and forwards to school, 13" is heavier than you think and 15" should be your absolute top. Forget about portability with the 17" 'drag'-tops.

To be perfectly honest, you would be surprised how good the DELL 'Studio' notebook line is. I've got a DELL Inspiron 1525, which is almost two years old now and it never ever missed a beat, and the Studio is built on the same sturdy chassie, but with a better screen.

If I wasn't a gamer, I'd get this:
http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/minicat/services_N0054510?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

 

[Baby Tea]

Asus N10J Netbook.
This baby is badass.

I bought one recently, and I'm having a ball with it.
Overclockable, quick, powerful for a netbook, great battery life, and it looks great.

But I suppose if you want those little things, like an optical drive, or a screen bigger then 10", then perhaps it might not be for you.

EDIT: Let me add, however, that ASUS makes excellent notebooks, and I highly advise staying far away from Acer, Dell, or Gateway.
Finally, don't buy from Futureshop, or staples, or any big box store. DO NOT!
Those stores are cheaper in terms of price, bu they get the 'exclusive' lines of computer and laptops that have cheaper parts and a shittier warranty. They are made to break to you get that freaking warranty. I'm not joking.

The Asus I bought was at staples for $50 cheaper then me ordering it directly from Asus, but I got a way better warranty, and I have a totally different (Read: Better) motherboard for it. Stay away from big box stores. They'll eff you.

 

[Joos]

Asus N10J Netbook.
This baby is badass.

I bought one recently, and I'm having a ball with it.
Overclockable, quick, powerful for a netbook, great battery life, and it looks great.

But I suppose if you want those little things, like an optical drive, or a screen bigger then 10", then perhaps it might not be for you.

He did say notebook, not netbook.

 

[Flunk]

You would do well to consider that if you're buying it for uni you're likely going to be carrying it around a lot. Because of that you should really consider getting one that's smaller and lighter than the ones you linked to above.

A Dell Studio XPS 13 would work well but is on the expensive side. Maybe one of HPs 14' dv models or a smaller Acer would work.

But overall, you're going to kill yourself if you get a large notebook. When I was in Uni (graduated this year) most of the kids who initially bought large notebooks ended up replacing them as soon as they could afford to. It's just not fun lugging around a huge hunk of crap for hours on end.

But yeah, as said above Acer does tend to be crap. But Dell, HP and ASUS are ok.

 

[Lopunny]

Also, Acer generally makes very cheap laptops (you get what you pay for (rubbish))

Ah, ty, I see several people trying to disuade me from a Acer, and I suppose I'd avoid dells as well, we've had alot of problems before with encryption etc, other computers not recognizing files uploaded to a memory stick from them. Acer that was just my first port of call as the guy who normally fixes our desktop recommended it.

You want a laptop for university, and you are looking at these models? Are you sure you don't want a gaming laptop that's also usable on university? Cause that sure is what it looks like.

Lmao, I guess you caught me, im primarily a portable gamer, psp, DS etc, and the most I'd be playing on a laptop would be NWN 2 and Homeworld 2, things like that. I guess i'm just a bit aspirational cos my home PC can't even play Portal

You're surely experienced enough to know what kind of graphics card you need, etc. Nobody can tell you what to get until you give us an idea of what you do with computers.

Do you play games? Even if you don't play games, are you likely to connect your notebook to an external monitor? This bears upon your video card choice.

What do you download? Do you have external hard drives or care about using them? With a laptop it's a good thing to get the drive size you want in the first place since upgrading is more expensive than with a desktop. I take a lot of photos but I keep them all on DVD or external HDDs so I am content with a small C drive for my laptop.

Also, are you going to carry your computer to class or be moving a lot as a university student? Will it go home with you on the weekends? Will you go home on the weekends? That is an important thing to know before you decide on screen size or battery life.

Sorry, ok, I'm probably not going to have an external monitor, I was considering getting an external Hard-drive to keep all my videos, music and photos backed up on but 320Gb seemed fine.

And i did fancy a small screen, around 14" but everything i find is around 16-17"

[EDIT] Never owned or really used a laptop before, everything seems to have a 6-cell battery, which seems to last around 3 hours, so it seems it's not getting much better than that.

 

[Joos]

Well, the only brand I would recomend apart from DELL, would be either Lenovo or Sony. But the Sony's are generally rather pricey and since you don't seem to like DELL (which are very good laptops nowadays (http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4518)), I can only suggest a Lenovo.

I would check out the Lenovo T400 range if I was you. Not pretty, but if you want a fashion accessory, I suppose I'd recommend a mac instead.

 

[Elivercury]

As other users have said, avoid ACER, they work well for 6 months and seem well worth the price, but at around 6 months they just seem to grind to a halt and run a lot slower. This is first-hand experience with several ACER's (yes i'm a sucker). Erm i wouldn't write off Dell personally, as I've got a Vostro 1500, with 4GB ram and a Nvidia 8600m (i think), which is able to run games such as Fallout 3 on the high graphics setting (although the processor lets me down with fallout), anyway point is my Dell has been with me for over a year and is working fine.

Are you a guy or a girl? And is it being light a big priority? I mean, my laptop weighs a tonne as it's pretty much a "desktop" laptop, which works for me as i don't honestly take it to lectures much and if i do, i don't mind the weight of it in a backpack, but i know several friends who would never get a laptop that weighs as much as mine (Mostly women for obvious reasons). So that is a big factor. But you should be able to get a fairly powerful laptop for under £1000.

My advice is actually check Ebay, as that is where i got my laptop for quite cheap, they're imported which is how they make their profit selling to the UK and they come with decent warrenties. But you of course have to be careful on Ebay, and i'm unsure i'd recommend it if you're not especially familiar with Ebay/laptops. Maybe have a friend who's a bit more laptop/computer savvy give any you find a lookover?

 

[Lopunny]

Are you a guy or a girl? And is it being light a big priority?

A guy, why? And yes...something light enough to be comfortable to carry around in a satchel?

Asus N10J Netbook.
This baby is badass.

I bought one recently, and I'm having a ball with it.
Overclockable, quick, powerful for a netbook, great battery life, and it looks great.

But I suppose if you want those little things, like an optical drive, or a screen bigger then 10", then perhaps it might not be for you.

EDIT: Let me add, however, that ASUS makes excellent notebooks, and I highly advise staying far away from Acer, Dell, or Gateway.
Finally, don't buy from Futureshop, or staples, or any big box store. DO NOT!
Those stores are cheaper in terms of price, bu they get the 'exclusive' lines of computer and laptops that have cheaper parts and a shittier warranty. They are made to break to you get that freaking warranty. I'm not joking.

The Asus I bought was at staples for $50 cheaper then me ordering it directly from Asus, but I got a way better warranty, and I have a totally different (Read: Better) motherboard for it. Stay away from big box stores. They'll eff you.

Curse you I really liked the look of that Asus N10J but then I read further down your post and really? it has NO disk drive at all? Would you recommend any other ASUS ones? What about the U6Vc? And more to the point, how do I buy anything from them? XD

 

[Baby Tea]

Curse you I really liked the look of that Asus N10J but then I read further down your post and really? it has NO disk drive at all?

Nope! But I also have an external one that I use if I need it, and I just get the crack for games so I don't need the CD when I'm running around. Works great! And plus I have Steam, and that never uses CDs.

But yeah, no CD/DVD drive. It IS a netbook, and rather small.
If you don't need one every day, though, I'd say grab an external one to have ready if you need it at home. Otherwise, it's too small and cool for an optical drive.

 

[Elivercury]

Are you a guy or a girl? And is it being light a big priority?

A guy, why? And yes...something light enough to be comfortable to carry around in a satchel?

Because "Guy light" and "Girl light" are quite different

I'd recommend having a look at the Dell XPS series, they're nice laptops, and i'd have one myself if they'd been powerful enough when i was looking over a year ago. If you want something smaller like a netbook, then i'd go with ASUS as several people have said, they make nice ones.

Also don't let the lack of a disc drive put you off, you can buy external ones for like £20-30? And i'm assuming you won't be trying to install much stuff while on the move? Which is the main thing you'll need a disc drive for i imagine. If it's an issue of requiring a disc to play a game there are workarounds for that which i'm unsure if i'm allowed to name on this forum Just do a google search for playing games without the CD in and i'm certain you'll get millions of websites which will tell you how.

 

[Elivercury]

Oh! sorry for double post, i also thought i'd mention, you said you've never owned any form of laptop or netbook before? I would STRONGLY advice borrowing a netbook off someone or trying one in store or something if you plan to buy one. I'm assuming one of the major uses for this is taking notes in class? Well i honestly find netbooks an absolute pain to type on, as they've got a VERY small keyboard. Now i'm sure some people with small hands and people who've just adjusted to them have no issues, but i personally have struggled using the keyboard efficiently in my limited use of them, which could be a big issue for you if you need to type notes quickly in class.

Not that i'm trying to scare you away from notebooks, just warning you that you might need to get used to using it and probably worth scouting out the keyboards a bit first. You could always get a external keyboard, but it kinda ruins the portability of the thing!

 

[cleverlymadeup]

Well, the only brand I would recomend apart from DELL, would be either Lenovo or Sony. But the Sony's are generally rather pricey and since you don't seem to like DELL (which are very good laptops nowadays (http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4518)), I can only suggest a Lenovo.

I would check out the Lenovo T400 range if I was you. Not pretty, but if you want a fashion accessory, I suppose I'd recommend a mac instead.

Dell makes great laptops, it's one of the only times i'd recommend Dell. however Lenovo's aren't as great anymore, they were WAY better when they were IBM

that being said i'm going to say get a Dell and HP's are that bad, i have a compaq and my mom has an HP

with any laptop tho, you want to buy name brands, ie HP, Dell, Lenovo, Sony, because they have a warranty behind them AND the company will be around to honour them. but that being said too stay away from Acer