<p>Hi,
I am totally clueless on what kind of laptop I should get and was wondering which one was one that people used the most.
thanks!</p>
<p>i suggest you get a laptop that best suits what you need, not what everyone else needs.</p>
<p>some simple questions:</p>
<ul>
<li>what will be using the laptop for? main use?</li>
<li>how long do you plan on keeping it?</li>
<li>what is your spending limit?</li>
<li>do you play video games? art projects?</li>
<li>are you tech savvy or computer illiterate?</li>
</ul>
<p>but to answer your question, Macs are pretty big. I personally don’t like Macs, cost waaaay too much and has too much junk that i won’t use. Stuff like the webcam and the music/movie maker. I like to draw and do art projects, which is apparently a Mac bonus, but I prefer the tablet PC.</p>
<p>apple macbook.</p>
<p>basically you just need something that will run the office and relatively portable, if you want to take notes in class. Unless you plan to do some crazy photo/movie editing or play computer games i wouldn’t spend too much on it. I would get something small and light (sub 15’ range) so it’s not too much work to carry it around campus.</p>
<p>Most students buy macs, though you can get a cheaper equivalent PC. Personally I use a tablet PC because i’m a biochem major. It is really handy to be able to draw figures, structures, and equations directly into your digitized notes by writing on the screen. Then when wordy stuff is presented, I can type it super fast so while everyone else is scribbling furiously, I can listen to the lecture. Anything science, math, and physics definitely get a tablet pc! They are pricier than standard comps though.</p>
<p>the most common pc i’ve seen in my two years of college is definitely the Dell Inspiron E1505.</p>
<p>but if i had the choice to start fresh with a new laptop at this moment, i’d get the dell xps m1530</p>
<p>lol yeah i see that dell model mostly too imo… ;]</p>
<p>I believe the Inspiron E1505 was phased out by the 1520</p>
<p>i’d say majority by far are all of the dell inspiron series. next most popular would probably be the macbooks and macbook pros.</p>
<p>yay for tablets! they’re really handy. i can edit my essays with the OneNote program and hand writing notes have never been easier.</p>
<p>HP has a fairly light tablet that starts at $899. All of the nice toys and stuff comes out to be ~$1,100. Much cheaper than a Mac book.</p>
<p>The Lenovo X61t is a very nice tablet PCl. You can get a well-configured model for $1400.</p>
<p>I’ll be majoring in computer science and engineering next fall and right now I have a one year old 14’’ Asus core2duo 2.0GHz 2gb Ram. How long do you think it’ll last? I find it heavy sometimes (2.4kg) and I think that the keyboard is kind of noisy when taking notes in a lecture. Because of this, should I get lighter tablet PC or a macbook because I can type loads loads faster than I can write? Or people don’t mind typing noises?</p>
<p>my laptop is 4 years old…</p>
<p>personal anectdotes:</p>
<p>-started with a dell inspiron something or other. hated it. it overheated and killed two of my harddrives. granted, it was a design flaw specific to that model, but i’d be very wary of getting another dell. do research, look for consumer ratings, etc!</p>
<p>-am now VERY HAPPY with a 13" macbook i got at UCLA for $899. yay university deals! i don’t need a computer for gaming or anything else high-powered, i don’t use complicated software, and it has been amazingly perfect for all that i do. plus it’s cheaper, smaller, and lighter than my old dell. and i’ve officially become a mac convert, although in the future i may install windows and go back to my PC roots. really though, macs are just spiffier. and they take a lot shorter time to boot up and restart and troubleshoot, when problems do occur. very user-friendly.</p>
<p>oddly enough, I am exact opposite of that.</p>
<p>many of my friends have Mac Books and I find them incredibly frustrating and confusing. “user friendly” just doesn’t apply to this user. My mom is an EE and we’ve had computers since they first came out (I wasn’t around, but I’ve always been around computers).</p>
<p>The PC is incredibly easy for me to understanding and fixing it myself isn’t a problem. Yet the whole Green, Red and Yellow light thing on the Mac Book drives me crazy, I don’t understand it at all. Safari threw me off, I thought it was a game, when all I wanted was Internet Explorer.</p>
<p>I even borrowed a friend’s mac book for a week and found it to be impossible. I have been humbled by the Mac, yet find myself at complete ease in the “Errors” of the PCs.</p>
<p>i think that would be the preferable position, after all PCs still rule the world and being able to troubleshoot them is a good skill.</p>
<p>me, i’m not a computer person. at all. and switching was a bit confusing at times, but i had to work on a mac all quarter last spring for stats 10 honors, so i was familiar with how things worked. and i knew safari wasn’t a game ;)</p>
<p>the inspiron is the most common…because it’s cheap. do yourself a favor and don’t buy one.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>a computer lasts until 1) it starts falling apart, 2) you think it’s too slow, or 3) it can’t run new programs. no one can say when any of those will happen, it could be next month for all anyone knows.</p>
<p>anyway, you won’t be taking your computer to class. or you could, but it’s a waste of effort unless it’s a GE class.</p>
<p>if you think it’s heavy, then carry it in a backpack with two straps.</p>
<p>Still, consider a tablet if you’d like the ability to type up fast notes and mark up diagrams. It could be a great investment, depending on how you use it. Microsoft OneNote 2008 is a must-have program when working with Tablet PCs.</p>
<p>where can you buy a lenovo tablet pc?</p>
<p>At Lenovo’s website, or are you looking for a brick-and-mortar to buy it from?</p>
<p>Ya, i have a Lenovo X41 tablet (older model that isn’t dual core…otherwise very similar to X61). I’m running onenote and I love it. I use it for all my classes and it actually lightens my load because I don’t carry ANY paper. I have some of my notes (though not current) on my webpage for you to check out what lenovo tablet + onenote gets you: [Heather</a> at Graehl dot Com](<a href=“http://www.graehl.com/UCLA%20undergrad/chem171/chem171.htm]Heather”>Heather at Graehl dot Com)</p>
<p>The interface of onenote is really awesome and organizes your class assignments/notes really well. Tablet integration is seamless… bill gates LOVES tablets.</p>
<p>Notes created are beautiful, organized, and easy to understand as a result.
It is up to you how important hand drawing diagrams, equations, structures etc and if your classes will benefit from it though. For teachers that provide powerpoint lecture files for download, you simply “print to onenote” and it imports it in so you can mark it up.</p>
<p>And UCLA store sells the X61 tablet.</p>