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!!
