I'm going ot college and I need a new laptop

M

MrChrono

New Member
I'm going to be studying engineering this fall so I'm looking for a laptop to take with me. I know nothing about laptops so I was hoping you guys could help me out some, I have a budget of 1K-1.5K. It needs to be able to run CAD and Matlab. I like to photoshop for my own interests (I'm currently using CS2) and if I can do some light gaming on it that would be nice but its not my main interest since I have a ps3. I'm also going to be running window programs so I need it to be a pc and not a mac. The university's website says I need at least 2 GHz and 2 ram but recommends 2.5GHz and 4 ram.


Here is the laptop I was looking at (I found some coupons for it lol) its a Dell xps 17 for $1,244.99

Genuine Windows® Home Premium, 64-Bit, English
2nd generation Intel® Core™ i7-2620M processor 2.70 GHz with Turbo Boost 2.0 up to 3.40 GHz
17.3" FHD (1080p) with 2.0MP HD Webcam
8GB Shared Dual Channel DDR3 Memory
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 550M 1GB graphics with Optimus
90 WHr 9-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
500GB 7200 RPM SATA Hard Drive
Tray Load Blu-ray Disc BD-Combo (Reads BD and Writes to DVD/CD) with Roxio Creater 2011
Intel® Centrino® Wireless-N 1030 and Bluetooth 3.0
JBL 2.1 Speakers with Waves Maxx Audio 3

Should I get this or something else entirely?
 
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That thing sounds like a beast! Certainly able to run any program you throw at it. Dell's have great warranty too.

I should mention though, Its battery life is going to suck, and its going to be heavy. So if you have a wall outlet close and dont mind carrying the thing around, you'll be good.

The only thing at this point I would suggest, is you might look into finding a laptop with an SSD. Or putting the extra 250$ you're not spending towards an SSD. They'll be a great speed boost and, depending on how ruff you are to the device, might even last longer than a regular HDD.

:).
 
kobaj said:
That thing sounds like a beast! Certainly able to run any program you throw at it. Dell's have great warranty too.

I should mention though, Its battery life is going to suck, and its going to be heavy. So if you have a wall outlet close and dont mind carrying the thing around, you'll be good.

The only thing at this point I would suggest, is you might look into finding a laptop with an SSD. Or putting the extra 250$ you're not spending towards an SSD. They'll be a great speed boost and, depending on how ruff you are to the device, might even last longer than a regular HDD.

:).
Click to expand...


Thanks for the response. I can get pretty much the same machine but with a 15 inch screen. would that save much weight and give me more battery life? Why is a SSD better then a HDD? I can get one instead but the website says its an extra 600$ more lol
 
MrChrono said:
Thanks for the response. I can get pretty much the same machine but with a 15 inch screen. would that save much weight and give me more battery life? Why is a SSD better then a HDD? I can get one instead but the website says its an extra 600$ more lol
Click to expand...

Depends if its LED or CCFL, and a few other factors. I would say you could get an extra half hour out of a smaller screen, and it might lose a quarter of a pound. Keep in mind resolution though. If the 15 inch screen is 1024x768 or something ridiculously small compared to the 1080p-ness of the 17 inch, I would go with the 17. Smaller laptops are more prone to overheating, also.

SSD's are flash based memory where HDD are disk based. The former is amazingly fast and can give read/write speeds of 300mb/s whereas the latter is only about 100mb/s on a good day. SSD is also more resistant to shock and movement, thus why they would last longer if you moved your laptop around a lot. Though 600$ is a bit steep and I can see that turning you off.

Hope this helps.
 
Thanks man it did help. So are there any laptops that seem like a comparable deal is or this one a pretty a good one?
 
i would check out the hp pavillion. also you can get a discount for being a college student (check out dell university, or just google 'Hp student discount' and sign up with your .edu email.) sometimes there is an oversized battery option that can almost double your battery life for $30-40. it looks ugly, but it gives you more time, and if you use it on your lap a lot (like on the bed or couch) it gets it up off your legs. on some models when they are on your legs it blocks the fan and they overheat and the oversize battery would stop that from happening, or you could even purchase a normal and an oversize battery and use the oversize for class
 
I also found this deal which is 30% off for a total of $1,264.19

HP Pavilion dv6t Quad Edition customizable Notebook PC

LM720AV


•dark umber
•Genuine Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit with Service Pack 1
•2nd generation Intel(R) Quad Core(TM) i7-2820QM (2.3 GHz, 8MB L3 Cache) w/Turbo Boost up to 3.4 GHz
•2GB GDDR5 Radeon(TM) HD 6770M Graphics [HDMI, VGA]
•8GB DDR3 System Memory (2 Dimm)
•FREE Upgrade to 750GB 5400RPM Hard Drive with HP ProtectSmart Hard Drive Protection
•30% OFF! 9-Cell Lithium-Ion Battery (over-sized) - Up to 9.75 hours of battery life +++
•15.6" diagonal Full HD HP Anti-glare LED Display (1920 x 1080)
•FREE Upgrade to Blu-ray player & SuperMulti DVD burner
•HP TrueVision HD Webcam with Integrated Digital Microphone and HP SimplePass Fingerprint Reader


Of the two deals which one would be best?
 
hp= better cpu(not as high clock speed, but more powerful and with quad cores which will really only benefit you in applications that can use all four cores, or in mulit-tasking), better gpu, more hard drive

dell= faster transfer rate on the hard drive, 7200 vs 5400 (less load time for games and stuff), and optimus on the nvidia card, which means that it will shut down the gpu when it isnt needed to conserve battery life. the battery ratings are usually for the base models, so you might have a little less depending on the base model, and because of optimus the dell might be a little closer to the advertised, but i would consider it a very small factor. if you are worried about battery life then email the company and ask about your specific setup, or just google it and see what the reviews say.

overall i would go with the hp as it seems a better all around computer. good luck in college
 
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