What laptop should I get?

[Ghost In Black]

I'm going into my junior year of high school, and I want to start looking for a laptop. I'll probably be running some heavy programs like Visual Studio 2008/2010 on it and Photoshop. The screen should be somewhat large so I can watch movies, but not too big because I want it to be somewhat portable. I probably won't use it for gaming. Also, I want this laptop to last awhile because I'll need it through college. What would you guys recommend? (And I don't want a Mac!)

[FreeK]

well first of all, do you have a price limit?

[Tri-edge]

get a macbook pro unibody and your set.  Should last you at least 3-5 years.  The 15in screen is a good size it's light.  The only thing is it's expensive.  Look on craigslist.org or on ebay and you can save 300-500 off of the price.

[FreeK]

(And I don't want a Mac!)

*cough*

[noah03ark]

Lenovo thinkpad

cheap, best science/work oriented pc laptop

[802Chives]

sounds like you want a 15.4" Lappy with a pile of RAM and HDD space.  I have a 17" HP Dv7 and that thing is far from being very portable.  The screen on that series of HPs seems to be very good comparitively for the price range.  IDK, i would stay away from Dell, as their quality seems to be undergoing the "walmart" effect.  Sony is nice but I hate how they push their proprietary memory card slots and at least as of last year they didnt offer XP drivers.

Personally if I was in your shoes I would settle on a good desktop for half the price, because believe me you dont want to go off to college with a 2-3year old laptop.  your gonna want to get a brandy new one with full accident insurance when you go off to school.

One other point of note is that an HDMI output is Epic Win on these new laptops... my 17" lappy with my 24" monitor as a second screen is beyond words.

PS mac pushers: GTFO obviously he can see through all your mac propaganda and has settled on a machine that costs as much as its worth

[H-Sauce]

Lol, I would say get a Mac, But you said you don't want one.

Nowdays you can get some pretty good and cheap laptops. The Acer Aspire 5536-643G has 3GB RAM and a 2.1GHz processor. It also has a 250GB HDD and 4 hours battery life.

[noah03ark]

 has settled on a machine that costs as much as its worth

like a mac, i know! but too bad he dosn't feel like getting one

either acer or lenovo

other brands are okay, but those are the best bets

[ryan0]

lenovo fo sho mo fo

I use one for college,programming,photoshop,music production,light gaming (cs1.6,ssaultcube,defcon,gmod),it's like 300 euro's in the shops,but it's probably only 300$ where you are.

[802Chives]

ya I would say Lenovo is best bang for the buck at this point.

hey noah glad to see you popping up again

[scott]

like a mac, i know! but too bad he dosn't feel like getting one

either acer or lenovo

other brands are okay, but those are the best bets

Acer would be your worst bet.
For an everyday laptop, stick to HP. Or hell, build your own.

[ProperBritish]

like a mac, i know! but too bad he dosn't feel like getting one

either acer or lenovo

other brands are okay, but those are the best bets

put a mac in a different shell, install windows intead of OS X and it's 'RRP' will halve. and it will become better on the price of parts:price of machine cost ratio.

get an HP or Samsung i think. cheap, yet stylish. Or Toshiba.
Post Merge: September 03, 2009, 01:07:49 PM

Acer would be your worst bet.
For an everyday laptop, stick to HP. Or hell, build your own.

you'll have a HELLISH time building your own laptop.

[ryan0]

Acer would be your worst bet.
For an everyday laptop, stick to HP. Or hell, build your own.

What are you talking about?Acer are fantastic laptops at great prices,aspire one 120gb costs the same as the 20gb eee.I have an aspire one around the pad somewhere and it's great!My lenovo cost twice as much for only a small step up in performance.
And you're seriously recommending someone build their own laptop?!


Acer are brilliant,best specs in it's price range.

[PhenomenalDesigns]

You can build your own laptop though sorta, I saw OCZ realease the custom build it yourself laptop, you buy the laptop, as everything apart from the cpu, ram, hdd, wifi card, all the removable stuff (Apart from battery, charger, all that stuff)

Not exactly a custom build one but you know what i mean

[DarkShot]

What are you talking about?Acer are fantastic laptops at great prices,aspire one 120gb costs the same as the 20gb eee.I have an aspire one around the pad somewhere and it's great!My lenovo cost twice as much for only a small step up in performance.
And you're seriously recommending someone build their own laptop?!

Acer are brilliant,best specs in it's price range.

I know! I'd recommend an Acer too. People have had their issues, but I've been using a cheap OEM desktop now for a few years. Damn thing hasn't failed me once. I've only run into driver issues with an old webcam, and that's bound to happen.

I know a couple mates of mine who also have been using Acer laptops for a few years and they have yet to crap out. I'd also say that they have a better construction than HP laptops. I myself have an HP, and I was initially weary on getting one because of the build quality. The big flaw with HP is the hinge. The case itself is mediocre, just due to the type of plastic.

But all in all, I'd say desktop for now, and lappy for later. Desktops are cheaper and much more powerful.

[Modded Matt]

toshiba
sattilite L305
pentium duel cpu 2.17ghz
2 gig ram
32 bit vista home premium

wallmart $350

[budgray19]

look into a asus lappy
the one i saw at best buy had 6 gigs of ram 300 gig hdd quad core geforce 260 gtx
for 1k
its the one I want

[Ghost In Black]

Wow lots of feedback; thanks guys. Well I might just ask my parents to get me a better desktop for now because I can believe what 802chives said about not wanting a few year old laptop going into college.