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I'm totally illiterate when it comes to hardware and stuff so I need major help choosing a laptop for college.

I'm thinking either Dell (perhaps 300m or 600m?)or IBM (X series?) and I need the following capabilities:
-portability (gotta be able to carry it comfortably across campus and on airplanes when I go home)
-long battery life!
-high speed and good memory would be nice
-basic graphics and gaming capabilities---I'm not a big gamer but I am an artist and I like to play the occasional card game online or something
-would prefer a built-in CDROM and disk drive (current laptop has connectable drives which makes the laptop lighter when not needed but really annoying to connect)

My current laptop, if that helps give some perspective on my needs, is a dell inspiron 2100 (no longer made) and i like how small and light it is but i dont like having to connect separate disk drives and the battery life is barely 1 1/2 hrs which is definitely not enough.

By Ako86 (Ako86) on Sunday, July 18, 2004 - 10:37 pm: Edit

Most important question - how much are you willing to spend?

Secondly, the IBM X-Series and the Dell 300m do not come with built-in optical drives, so you will sacrifice a CDROM/DVD drive for a reduction in weight. Both can connect to an external drive, but it sounds like you want to avoid that.

The Dell 600m is a nice machine, but I would not recommend a Dell as a first choice. Service is top-notch, but only because the machines are not made very well compared to other brands.

I think the best choice for you would be either a Fujitsu Lifebook s6210 or a Toshiba. Both are very light weight, have excellent specs, and are well-built. Both are very good-looking notebooks too, if that's important to you.

The Lifebook will run you around $1500 (check http:www.portableone.com and you can probably find a better deal; they also offer a 5% student discount). You can read about it here

http://webshop.fujitsupc.com/fpc/Ecommerce/buildseriesbean.do?series=S62

The Toshibas come in a variety of price ranges. I'd suggest you look at the Satelittle series. This might be a good choice for you

http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/cmod.to?seg=HHO&coid=-26380&sel=0&rcid=-26367&ccid=1291021

If you want something more lightweight, check out the Portege series, but you will not get a built-in optical drive with any of those.

Toshiba is one of the most respected brands in the industry and I don't think you'll have any problems with

Whatever you choose to buy, you'll want to look for Intel Centrino technology to make wireless easy and increase battery life. You will also want at least 512mb of RAM and 1.4+gz Pentium M processor so your programs can run smoothly.

If you have any other questions, I'll try to help! Good luck

-Andrea

By Tobes (Tobes) on Sunday, July 18, 2004 - 10:44 pm: Edit

thanks andrea!

anybody concur or disagree with her ideas? the more opinions the better!

By Ako86 (Ako86) on Sunday, July 18, 2004 - 10:48 pm: Edit

Also, have you considered Apple? (I feel like I have to troll for Macs). I have a Powerbook and it's awesome. Apples are perfect for college campuses - Easy to use, easy to connect, virtually no virus threat (which becomes a huge problem on campus). And when your friends' computers are crashing and/or infected at finals time (or anytime) you'll be working smoothly...check out the Powerbook or iBook if you'd consider making the switch to a Mac.

By Tobes (Tobes) on Sunday, July 18, 2004 - 11:20 pm: Edit

im a pc person. i know macs have their advantages (like not crashing as much) but im pretty attached to my pc. and to windows--thats probably my biggest hurdle for switching. i believe there's windows for macs now but apparently it sucks.

By Halfemptyfilms (Halfemptyfilms) on Friday, July 23, 2004 - 03:14 pm: Edit

I've been a lifelong windows user but, depending on what you need to use the computer for, a good mac laptop can be your best friend. For all the reasons Ako86 said they're great for campuses but if you're mostly using it for videogames you need a PC (or building websites, I say). Photoshop or video editing or anything creative (music etc) are just way better on a mac though, so if you need those. And, of course, Microsoft Office for mac does exist, but it's not quite up to par with office for windows, methinks.

Still, it would be a hard thing to go from windows to a 2200 mac laptop without any trial period...

If you've got the money, think about alienware... dell's are nice -- i haven't had a problem with mine anyway.

Anything you buy nowadays is going to have a built in drive--almost all will be dvd/cd-rw combo drives, so i wouldn't worry to much about that.

By Demingy (Demingy) on Friday, July 23, 2004 - 04:51 pm: Edit

I really like my Fujitsu laptop so I will second what Ako86 suggested above. Also, if you'd like to get some information from some actual Fujitsu owners, a good website to visit is leog.net (I'm a member as well even though I haven't posted anything in a while). I've found all of those guys to be very helpful for me and they also highly recommend portableone to purchase your laptop from.