About Lauren Bennett Expertise I am a computer science major and my dad is an Electric Engineering, so my life has revolved around computers. For as long as I can remember, I have been buying and selling computers. I tend to travel a lot, so I have always had a laptop. I have bought 5 of them for myself, and bought around 30-40 for friends and family. I have dealt with the good and the bad of various version and brand names. If you are in need of buying a laptop, feel free to contact me and I'm sure I will be able to guide you into purchasing the laptop that will be the best fit for you. I will custom build you computers for you to choose from so you can get an exact idea of what to go and buy when you do it yourself and so that you have an exact price. However, I am in the USA and am only knowledgeable about computers here in the US. I do not know about foreign currency or the quality of computer brand names outside the US.
Experience B.S. in Computer Science. Buying and selling for years. Assisting friends/family.
It sounds like you can help me out. My son is a freshman in college and needs a laptop. He took his desktop to school, but it's not adequate for his school needs.
Okay, so here's the information:
He has a double major -- music composition and music education -- with a minor in history. The department of education semi-requires a Mac. They don't insist on it, but strongly recommend it. Every Mac laptop I've seen is WAY out of my price range. Besides my son is not keen on switching to a Mac from his PC.
Since my son is a music major, he uses the program Finale, which is a program used by professional composers. It's used a lot in music schools. The sound quality of a laptop would be pretty important.
He also plays games on his computer and so it would be great to be able to play some decent games, with the possible exception of Oblivion, which apparently requires a pretty powerful processor and videocard.
He also needs a CD-RW/DVD drive. If it could also write DVDs, that would be a bonus, but writing CDs is a must.
It must have wi-fi card and ideally wouldn't weigh too much. Finally, it really needs a decent battery life.
The only thing we have any wiggle room on is the videocard. The other things I mentioned are pretty critical.
And I need all this for under $700!
I saw an Acer Aspire 5520-5334 at Circuit City for about $650. It seemed to have all that we needed, although no one there could tell me the weight or battery life between charges. They were sold out and didn't seem interested in pursuing the answers for me.
We get a student discount with HP, but I can't tell that it's a great deal of money. I have no idea how to customize a laptop for our needs or what model to even start with. When I try to do that, I end up with a laptop that would cost over $1000.
What do you recommend?
ANSWER: Well I have a few questions for you as well so make sure I build you the perfect computer.
1. For under $700 there is no possible way to get more than 1 year warranty, so if he ever has any problems at school it is going to cost him a lot of time and money to get it repaired. In my opinion, especially at college, it is very important to get a warranty and usually saves more money in the long run.
2. I'd go with (1) Dell and (2) HP. They make computers that are about equivalent in terms of quality, but Dell offers a much better warranty. With Dell, a technician will come to his dorm/apartment/house to fix the computer where with HP he will have to ship it off and wait.
3. Both Dell and HP offer student discounts, but with Dell, the more of a warranty you have, the better the discounts are. However, Dell usually has coupons out that save you more than the student discounts do.
4. He should probably do what I do. I have a desktop that I use for most all that I do. However, I have a cheaper laptop that I use srictly for taking to class, working remotely, and for when I go home. Then he could do most his work on the desktop, do his gaming on the desktop, and then his use laptop for all those times when the desktop isn't cutting it.
Let me know your thoughts on all of this and then I will send you a complete customization and price!!
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QUESTION: Wow! Fast answer!
I'm not terribly worried about the warranty, unless it covers things like forgetting it on the bus or dropping it off the top bunk in your dorm room.
Seriously, the school repairs all student computers either free or at a very low cost. It doesn't even matter if you buy it through the school or not. They'll even come to the student's dorm room to fix computers. They are really good about computers there -- they take pride in their high-tech environment (Ball State University).
The dorm room is incredibly small. My son's desktop takes up his entire desk and the desk the only level surface in the room. There isn't even any extra storage space, so we were rather hoping to save some space by bringing the desktop back home. It's ridiculous how little space there is in that room.
And I'm not horribly concerned about gaming. I'm sure my son is, but I'm not. ;> Ideally, the laptop would allow him to play most of his games. He can't play Oblivion on his desktop, so he's not going to miss that on a laptop.
I was also planning on getting him an external hard drive at some point, so the size of the hard drive is not critical. I figured saving his critical files to an external drive might be a good thing. I was also hoping that he could install some of his programs on the external drive too, although I'm not too sure about how that would work with the registry.
Does any of this make a difference? His desktop is really not a super great desktop. I'm a single mom without a lot of money to spend. I need the most "bang for my buck." I guess that's why that Acer looked good. But I can't keep track of all the specs.
ANSWER: Well, Dell does offer theft recovery and accidental damage protection as well. I like it and it makes me feel much safer carrying my laptop all over the place. But again, you do pay for it.
HP DV6500
Operating system Upgrade to Genuine Windows Vista Business (32-bit) edit
Processor Intel(R) Core(TM) 2 Duo processor T5250 (1.5 GHz, 2MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB) edit
Display 15.4" WXGA High-Definition HP BrightView Widescreen Display (1280 x 800) edit
Memory $50 OFF upgrade from 1GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm) to 2GB DDR2 System Memory (2 Dimm)! edit
Graphics Card 128MB NVIDIA GeForce 8400M GS edit
Personalization HP Imprint Finish (Radiance) + Microphone edit
Networking Intel(R) PRO/Wireless 3945ABG Network Connection edit
Hard Drive FREE Upgrade to 120GB 5400RPM SATA Hard Drive!! edit
Primary CD/DVD Drive SuperMulti 8X DVD+/-R/RW with Double Layer Support edit
TV & Entertainment Experience No TV Tuner w/remote control edit
Primary Battery 12 Cell Lithium Ion Battery edit
$913.31 + tax
The upgrades are always so expensive. The ones that you see in stores always include the worst battery which will barely ever last. Especially if you aren't going to get a warranty, you want to go with a brand name that is well respected: HP and Dell.
Your best bet is to use the student discounts at HP and Dell (Dell is www.dell.com/delluniversity) and check www.notebookreview.com/dellcoupon.asp for coupons on Dell computers.
Let me know what you think of this option and get back to me with further thoughts.
If you'd like to sacrifice a graphics card, we can get the price down.
I'd get a 4GB flash drive instead of an external hard drive. If you watch the Sunday ads and check www.newegg.com and www.buy.com you can get one cheap. I bought one for $30 a few weeks ago. It is far cheaper and I doubt he has more than 4GB of things he doesn't want to lose. Pictures can be stored online for free, so all he really has to back up is important documents which are very small.
Looking forward to hearing back!! :)
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QUESTION: Thanks for all your time and effort on this Loren. I really appreciate it.
$900 is way out of my price range for a laptop. Going up to $700 is quite a stretch for me. Add the tax and we're getting close to $1000. I looked on the HP site and couldn't find the DV6500 listed in the education discount section. There were some 6500 series laptops starting at 6510, but those were even more than $900!
I looked on the Dell education section and have no idea what to be looking for. By the time I customize it for what I think we might need, I'm back up to around $900.
Oh, and the external hard drive -- I got a seagate external drive on ebay for myself for around $60 (160 gig). I was planning on doing the same for my son. The idea was to back up the desktop hard drive (using Ghost) and also install some programs on it as well as store files. My son already has a 2 gig flash drive.
No wonder I don't have a new laptop for him, uh? It's too confusing
Answer Dell Inspiron 1501
PROCESSOR AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 Dual-Core Mobile Technology TK-55 edit
OPERATING SYSTEM Genuine Windows Vista® Home Premium edit
LCD PANEL Anti-glare, widescreen 15.4 inch display (1280x800) edit
MEMORY 1GB DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm edit
HARD DRIVE Size: 120GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM) edit
OPTICAL DRIVE 24X CD Burner/DVD Combo Drive edit
VIDEO CARD ATI RADEON® Xpress1150 256MB HyperMemory™ (Integrated) edit
SOUND OPTIONS Integrated Audio edit
BATTERY OPTIONS 85 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery edit
WIRELESS CARDS Dell Wireless 1390 802.11g Mini Card (54Mbps) edit
Has a 1 year warranty and no antivirus or other software
Price: $849
Discount: $220
Gift: $50 Dell gift card
Student: Minus 2%
Total: $616.42 + tax (usually $40-$50)
