Consumption and Real Estate
What laptop is best fit for new college student that is under $800?
Question : What laptop is best fit for new college student that is under 0?
I am trying to figure out what computer to buy my daughter for college. I want to get it now for her birthday so she can get used to the new windows 7 (she currently has vista).
I would like recommendations on:
Screen size for a student (not too small or too big), processor brand/type, how much RAM, how big of a hard drive and any other information such as brands or places that have good deals.
She uses it mostly for internet research, writing papers and downloading photos from digital camera. I have researched walmart.com and have seen Dell and HP for $ 500 to $ 800 and look like they are similar with regards to whats under the cover so I can’t tell what I should be looking into.
They have this one for $ 800
http://www.walmart.com/ip/Dell-17.3-Inspiron-1750-Laptop-with-Intel-Pentium-Dual-Core-T4300-Processor-Microsoft-Windows-7-Home-Premium-Microsoft-Office-Home-Student-Editio/12960906#Specifications
and a couple just like it for just over $ 500 without microsoft office. I think I know someone who can download that for me or can get it at my sons college for pretty cheap though unless this is just a great deal or something with it already installed?
Any suggestions would be great. And should I buy the extended warranty? They seem to be so darn expensive compared to the computer.
Thank you for looking
She does have music on her computer, but doesn’t do gaming.
compare home warranty
Best answer:
Answer by Perry the Platypus
I prefer any HP or Compaq laptops. They are about $ 300 to $ 400. And they are one of the best.
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#2 written by Mr. Jay 1 year ago
I would focus on reliability – laptops are hard and expensive to repair. Compaq makes good computers (owned 5 over the years), but many people have horror stories with HPs failing in about a year’s time or less. Also avoid Acer. Extended warranties are a bad idea unless you know you are getting a bad brand, but in that case it would make more sense to buy from a midrange company like Compaq or ASUS. Dell seems decent enough considering how many institutions use them with minimal maintenance, but they use proprietary parts, which means repairs often are harder or have to go through Dell.
Any screen size in the ‘notebook’ category will work, with 15-17 inches wide-screen being ideal. Weight is probably a more important factor than size. Harddrive is more of her preference — does she have a massive music collection or install large games?
She can use open office for free and it can save and create MS formatted documents and powerpoint – some colleges even use it instead of MS office. Or someone can get you a copy of it or MS office 2003, but it isn’t worth paying for it.
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#3 written by isexi 1 year ago
I got a Dell from walmart.com for $ 500 with a Celeron Dual Core processor, 250 gb hard drive, 3 gb of RAM, and Windows 7. So far it’s been an excellent laptop. The only thing is it doesn’t have Microsoft office, but other than that a great deal. Oh, and the screen size is 15.5 inches, with a max resolution of 1366×768.
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Thanks to netbooks, the prices of laptops have been forced down quite a bit–so that means your $ 800 will actually get you a lot more bang for your buck.
So lets gets started, why dont we?
1. Find it online – here are a couple of excellent places to find some good deals:
http://slickdeals.net/ http://www.newegg.com/ http://www.tigerdirect.com/
and currently my favorite — http://dealnews.com/ because it separates the deals into categories.
As a matter of fact, their first category are laptops!
2. If you’re more of a touchy-feely type of shopper, then BestBuy might be a good option for you.
They have a group of laptops they call the “Blue Label” laptops
http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Misc/Blue-Label/pcmcat161100050036.c?id=pcmcat161100050036
that fits right into your budget. Check it out online first, then go to the store to actually see the laptops in action.
Based on the type of use that you are expecting from the laptop, what I most recommend is juicing the memory to as high as you can muster without incurring too much extra cost. Any processor in that price range will work just fine; if deciding between two laptops, always pick the one that has more memory rather than a faster processor (the processor difference will be unnoticeable to your kid). So bottomline, dont settle for less than 4GB of RAM.
As for the necessary software basics like MS Office, etc, they get student discounts on that, so get it separately. Bundled software are annoying, and they tend to add other stuff they want to sell to you, hence, theyre called bloatware. Plus, there’s a bunch of free alternative software on the internet anyway.. You really should check out http://www.download.com <– owned by CNET, they have tons of free software available.
Lastly, should you get the warranty? My answer, YES and NO. It depends.
YES– if first of all it covers screen replacement protection, and if it covers you for at least 3 years. Sadly, I consider only 3 years as a reasonable lifetime for a laptop. If it lasts longer than that, just be happy and continue using it till it decides to croak. Having a warranty gives you peace of mind, so that in case something goes wrong with your purchase at the mid-way point (1.5-2 years), you’re not stuck with the problem of having to buy a brand new laptop all over again.
NO–if you’re cheap like me =) and somewhat adventurous with your investment money. A lemon laptop, just like most devices i would think… would show its true colors (under regular use) well within a year, and therefore within a standard manufacturers company. I would say that if a laptop survives its first year, chances are it will survive for the next couple of years. Needless to say, your daughter has to take good care of it though–go buy a nice padded case, not much rough handling, etc. you get the idea.
Sorry for the lengthy answer, but I wanted to make sure that all the points were covered. Hope this helps…. Curious George.