<p>Hello all, I will be a freshman next year at college. Currently I am shopping for a laptop but need help with suggestions. My budget is about $600 and I have ruled out Mac’s simply because I am not a huge fan of them. </p>
<p>I would preferably like a lappy with atleast a 500GB hard drive and i7 (I can settle for an i5) for about $500-$600. I plan on bringing my desktop which is very powerful.</p>
<p>Any laptop suggestions? Thanks!</p>
<p>(I have a Fry’s and Microcenter close by if that helps your midwesterners!)</p>
<p>No suggestions for a laptop, but I do recommend buying the extended warranty for your laptop. In the last five years, our family has owned a Dell, an Asus, and an HP laptop. The Dell and HP had problems in the first year and the Asus had a problem at about 18 months. The HP is only six months old. The Dell continued to have problems until it died at about 38 months old.</p>
<p>I think we added two or three years to the one- year that they came with. They don’t seem to last much more than that anyway if they are used for anything beyond word processing. You might also get a good carrying case.</p>
<p>You might also look at the recommendations online for laptops. I am surprised that no one has suggested anything. You can probably check Consumer Reports through your local library.</p>
<p>Check if there is a Best Buy near your campus. We’ve used their extended warranty and D merely had to hop on the bus to get to BB and have machine serviced. Managed using computer labs on campus for the 10 days the repair required. Important thing: save work on a flash drive just in case computer does go down!!</p>
<p>Even cheap laptops have all of the computing power you need for most purposes (or are you a gamer?). So you may want to consider ergonomic factors. Do you value a large screen, or a smaller size for easier portability? How much of a factor is battery life?</p>
<p>Considering your budget, fact you will be bringing a powerful desktop, and the possibly erroneous assumption that you want this laptop to last reliably for the next 4 years, I’d seriously consider lowering your hardware configuration expectations, buying refurbished corporate-line notebooks with at least a decent warranty(1 year is not enough), or buying used older corporate models IF you can serve as your own tech support…including being comfortable taking apart and repairing/replacing notebook components. You also have the choice to postpone purchasing a notebook for some/all of your undergrad years…especially considering you have a desktop and have use of computer labs. </p>
<p>That is, unless you want to pick up a budget/consumer-grade or an extreme bottom-of-the-barrel corporate notebook with such poor build quality and quality control that you’re likely to be sending it back for many warranty repairs and/or find you’re out of luck once the measly warranty runs out or worse…warranty is inadequate/requires dealing with excess bureaucratic policies. </p>
<p>I speak with some experience as it turned out I was poorly advised by some STEM relatives who felt any laptop was good enough for an undeclared/non-hardcore engineering/tech major. To add insult to injury, I was the one paying for that first laptop which had two major hardware failures due to poor quality control of components…first one right after the one year warranty expired. No surprise the company no longer makes laptops and after the second hardware failure in year 2, ended up ponying up more money for a corporate-line notebook which continues to run to this day in the service of an acquaintance in need…15+ years later. </p>
<p>Incidentally, I’ve never had another notebook computer among those I’ve bought/owned since fail on me…all have lasted 5+ years with ease. Just sold two of them off some weeks back. One of them had been in my possession since 2004 and still runs as well as the day I bought it used. </p>
<p>I’ve also tend to advise clients whether they’d rather pay more for a decent quality notebook…or pay more later through wasted time, lost productivity, and aggravation from having to deal with warranty/out of warranty repairs…especially in the middle of the school year.</p>
<p>Get a Thinkpad! I have one that’s 14 years old and still running strong! Though it needs a new charger, ahah. Go on eBay and check out the prices, plenty of Thinkpads can be found with an i5 and a 500GB hard drive for under $500, some new and some used. You can sometimes find gently used and/or scratch and dent sale models with the i7 for just under $600, too. To me it seems like all other laptops (except maybe the HP Pavilion DV series notebooks, though they have an issue where it gets too hot and fries the graphics card) just aren’t well made, and tear up verrrrry quickly.</p>
<p>I tend to be wary of HP Pavilion notebooks. Saw so many of them have issues such as graphic chips requiring resoldering/reheating due to loose connections, poor build quality, and serious overheating issues due to poorly thought out ventilation design and use of the cheapest thermal paste. </p>
<p>With one friend’s i7 based Pavilion which he bought against my advice…that notebook runs hotter than my old P4 Prescott-based desktop Hackintosh. That’s pretty sad.</p>
<p>Second the recommendation for the refurbed/used Thinkpads/Lenovos…provided they have adequate warranties/OP can serve as his own tech support if there are skimpy/no warranties.</p>
<p>I’s suggest googling “best laptop deals.” I know I’m not supposed to list commercial sites here, but by doing that I found 2 good aggregators, i.e., sites that tell you about good deals from lots of different sources. They are updated regularly. You should be able to find a laptop in your price range, BUT a warranty will add to the price.</p>
<p>MD Mom - did you have hardware or software issues? My Toshiba is three years old. So far, the only thing that’s gone wrong is that I’ve killed the hard drive by botching my first Ubuntu installation (because I did this derpy six-partition thing. Hah.) It’s still running beautifully, with 5-sec boot times and everything. (It beats out my dad’s brand new mac at boot-to-word-processor time)</p>
<p>They do make hard drives less robust nowadays, though.</p>
<p>Have you checked to see if your school sells laptops? If you buy through your school, they frequently come with pre-loaded software + free IT support should you have any issues.</p>