Lap Top Advice

[bigred76]

Don't go for an Ideabook if at all possible. They are much more... consumer-ish than the Thinkpads, but are not as durable. Nothing is as nice as a Thinkpad's keyboard, too.

[Hoppy11]

Office Depot has or had a great deal on HP laptops. I actually just got one, its a 15.6" LED Screen, Windows 7 Premium, 320gb hhd, intel CORE i3, 4gb RAM for 580 dollars after 150 instant savings and 50 dollar mail in rebate.

It is a great computer so far and I have no complaints. It will also be able to run the CAD software I need it to run just fine so it will do more then you need it to do but bigger is always better right? lol.

My other two cents, I wouldn't really go with anything less then the i3 processor because they are truly the best right now and they aren't that expensive.

[Hob Hayward]

Originally Posted by Hoppy11

My other two cents, I wouldn't really go with anything less then the i3 processor because they are truly the best right now and they aren't that expensive.

Words of truth! i3 is cheap.. and honestly it's plenty good unless you plan on doing tons of video encoding or something where having more than 2 cores makes a difference.

Course I have an i7 920... so I shouldn't be talking, though thats in my desktop so it's different.

Also if you're going windows make sure its 7, you'll end up regretting it in the long run if you get something running vista (if they even sell computers with vista now)

[vikingshadow]

I love my Dell studio XPS. Its just plain awesome - although the dang thing gets HOT. But that's cause of the stuff that's in it. Had to get a cooling pad so it's all good...

Oh crap - just saw where you mentioned cost...never mind ( but if you get the cashola, I definitely have NOT been disappointed!)

[Hob Hayward]

Also rememer to pay attention to battery life specs, if that's important to you. To me, battery life is the most important part of a laptop.

[bigred76]

Netbooks these days get around 9hrs of battery life. Some full sized laptops can reach 8. Keep in mind, however, that the battery capacity will decrease with use, and if at all possible you should use it without the battery on AC power to extend the life of your battery.

I have a C2D in my laptop, a Lenovo T500. Thing's beast. It does get hot if I don't enable the processor scaling, as it's a 2.53ghz dual core. Normally it's chilling about 800mhz/core and that's nice and cool.

[Muddytaco]

Macbook.....I love my big powerful PC desktop but I wouldn't want anything other then my macbook as far as laptops go. Its powerful enough to run almost anything, the battery life is insane even when using wifi and it extremely lightweight so I don't mind carrying it around.

[durrell]

Originally Posted by Muddytaco

Macbook.....I love my big powerful PC desktop but I wouldn't want anything other then my macbook as far as laptops go. Its powerful enough to run almost anything, the battery life is insane even when using wifi and it extremely lightweight so I don't mind carrying it around.

QFT. I have a Macbook Pro and I will never, ever buy another laptop.

I average close to 10 hours on a full charge.

[Hob Hayward]

However with a macbook or mbpro.. you pay the apple tax, and he isn't looking to pay more than double for lesser hardware. (and only has ~$500 anyways, cheapest mb is at least $900 with student discount.)

[TheDarkShadow]

battery life wouldnt be too major for me most likely, chances are it will usually stay in my dorm