Expert: Bobbert - 5/26/2008

Question
I am a college student and I need to buy a laptop this year, and I can't decide what to buy.  I need it for word processing, internet, photos, itunes, and other basic applications.  I am willing to spend up to $1000 on a laptop.  Originally, I was going to get a macbook, but now I am leaning toward a Lenovo t61.  Do you have any other specific recommendations.  Also, for the t61, you need to basically build it yourself.  I have no idea what I need. I don't know if I should get integrated or discrete graphics, how much RAM I need, how much memory I need (1-4GB), how big of a hard drive (80-250GB), how fast a processor (2.1-2.6GHz), what wireless card to get, or if I should get integrated Wireless WAN.  Thanks for your help.

Answer
Alright, the first thing I'd do is see if your university has a recomended product to purchase, most do, as that will get you the hardware that your instructors have approved (not that other solutions won't work, it just makes the whole ordeal a lot more simplistic).

If there is no recomended product, see if you get a school discount with a given company, I'm going to guess Apple is one of the companies you get a discount from, and theres probably at least one PC OEM that gives good discounts to your school, stick to those companies to get the most money off the purchase (for example some schools can get 12-15% off Dell products, in addition to any running promotions, which is a huge drop in price compared to the 3-5% standard educational discount).

Now, moving beyond that, I'd suggest 2 or 3GB of RAM (memory), and something around 160-250GB for the hard-drive (the larger the hard-drive, the more you can store). Which CPU models are you debating between? (the clock speed means very little, unless you're comparing directly within a single product line (like Core 2 Duo vs Core 2 Duo, but if its something like Celeron vs Core 2 Duo, or Core Duo vs Core 2 Duo, or Turion vs Core 2 Duo, etc, then the model numbers mean more than the clock speed).

As far as integrated wifi, what kind of wifi setup does your school offer? 802.11b only? 802.11g? etc Honestly given the low cost of wifi adapters, I'd just go with whatever option gives you 802.11g and 802.11n Draft (sometimes also labeled as 802.11 Pre-N) for the best compatability with a wide array of wifi networks.

-bob