After 4 amazing years of being an active member on team 2197 i am graduating. And the very essential computer search. I’m just lookin for advice on what everyone on here thinks is a good buy. i would like at least a 15 inch screen for sure. everything else i will leave for suggestions. also by chance is anyone on here going to Saint Joseph’s in rensselaer indiana haha.
I hate my Lenovo T500. The price was right, the specs are great, but the user experience is awful. The CD-drive pops out randomly, the control and function keys are swapped, the charger cable is always loose and makes a ear destroying noise when it is plugged/unplugged.
They really need a better team of industrial designers.
I’ve been using a Lenovo W500 series for this year and it’s fantastic for what you need in college. Handles CAD and games without a hitch, pretty durable, and generally just does a lot of things well. The trackpad sucks, but there’s the IBM “nub” to make up for it.
You can disable the noise somehow. I forget how I did it, some guy at my college radio station did it for me. You can also switch Fn and Control around.
I use a Toshiba Satellite for my work in high school and as a home computer. I find it to be a good computer. It runs Labview and Autodesk Inventor with no issue. The bad things about it are that the cd drive makes an ungodly mount of noise while reading a cd and the power supply has a tendency to heat up.
I use it regularly in school, much more than most high school students. I don’t know how the experience would compare to college classes.
I would advice you to stay away from the netbooks. They are not good as a main computer or something you would actually do work with. I wouldn’t try Inventor or Labview on one.
I’m partial to Lenovo’s, I use them for work and I buy my own. Presently year three on a T60 that’s worked out well. The prior Lenovo (actually a Thinkpad) worked well the prior 3 years.
Three things to look at:
How heavy is it? - You are lugging it across campus, after awhile the weight does make a difference. I had a really nice 17" that returned after three days of lugging it around NYC. So your 15" size is going to be a good choice.
Power connector / Power brick. Make sure that the power brick will do multiple voltages and you can get cables for the country of choice. You may not need it but being able too makes life easy.
Buy the laptop with the biggest power connector going into the laptop. They are under huge stress, I’ve lost motherboards in the past due to small connectors snapping off. Make sure it comes out the back so you can use the laptop on your lap.
Lastly, USB is your friend. Get a laptop that has 3 USB connections, hopefully on both sides. Make sure they are powered so you can plug in external drives.
Like I said at the start I’ve been very happy with the Lenovo’s we’ve had.
STAY away from Toshiba, go for Dell. Period.
Ever since Toshiba has been out sourcing their components, the laptops and other products have gone down as well as their customer service.
Dell also had this issue, but in the past couple years they have brought most of the production back into the states and their service and products are a lot better.
I have dealt with both companies and products for a very long time.
Haven’t used this laptop but just gonna throw it out there as an idea for you…
I’ma fan oftablet computersfor school. I had’ve a Gateway CX210X (discontinued), and an HP tx2z (replaced bytm2 series). I strongly recommend looking into them for college use.
When you’re looking at consumer grade machines they are all equally pour quality (80+% of laptops are made by the same handful of companies which you’ve never heard of), and everybody’s support is in India now. Find the cheapest one with the features you want, and get it. If you want to get a quality machine Lenovo Thinkpads and HP EliteBooks and ProBooks are good, but you will pay a 30-60% premium over consumer grade machines.
The advantage of business class machines is you will usually get support either in this country, or at least from someone who’s first language is english, they are usually easier to upgrade, and extended warenties are usually cheaper than the consumer equivalent (if you are inclined to purchase one, which I don’t usually reccomend).
As for places to buy TigerDirect and Newegg both get some good deals if you watch, otherwise buying direct from the manufacturer when they are running sales works good. You can also get an additional 10% off HP Direct and TigerDirect purchases by going to the store through Bing Shopping (http://www.bing.com/shopping/pages/stores.aspx).
Eric
Heh, just a bit offtopic- but you would be surprised to learn how many people in India learn English first, and speak it better than many people here. 
I too would highly recommend a Lenovo though, they’re very robust machines and can handle pretty much whatever software you plan to throw at them. No experience with HPs though.
HPs have generally annoyed me. Inferior build quality and below average customer service.
Are you refering to consumer or business machines?
Does the T500 sound the klaxon when it is dangerously low on battery? It plays through the internal speaker, so should it happen in the middle of a crowded lecture hall with no outlets, you’ve just got to shove in your backpack and wait until it dies. :ahh:
I have had very positive experiences with the Thinkpad line (the old IBM ones and my W500), and Lenovo has spectacular sales online pretty regularly.
Prior to this I had a Powerbook 1.5Ghz, and I never had a problem with the laptop (though I went though a couple of chargers). Seeing as the MacBook and MacBook Pro have a different type of charger, I imagine those issues are fixed. If you like Macs. The problem is that they are so darn pretty you can’t abuse them much. With the Thinkpad’s rugged exterior, I don’t worry about it getting dirty, I just wipe it down every once in a while.
I imagine that he’s referring to a consumer one. I use a HP G60 at home, and it runs fine (disregarding Vista…no free upgrade for me ]: ) and is somewhat durable, but I can imagine that it would completely falter and die if I were to try and run Inventor or LabView on it and bring it to robotics.
What I’ve found to be the case with HPs is that they heat up…really fast. I’ve only had the computer on for fifteen minutes, and it’s already a lot hotter than most people would consider normal. My laptop is also really hard to keep clean 
And yet, the Dell something-or-other-laptop that my family has that is 5 years old often runs better after it’s started up, and it has endless amounts of games and programs installed on it. Dell > HP
Open up Lenovo Power Manager, hit “Advanced”, and you can turn these audio alarms off for each power configuration. You can also turn off the “my computer got unplugged!” noise in a different tab.
At the risk of starting a holy war, I’d also submit the 15" MacBook Pro for consideration. The aluminum unibody construction has proven amazingly durable over the past year I’ve owned my 13" MacBook; a freshman year spent with a Dell Inspiron taught me the value of build quality in a college environment. They’re down a bit on video RAM compared to the Lenovos, which may prove a sticking point for certain applications, but it’s hard to say without reference material from the original post. They start around $1,700 with the college student discount (which is good for $100-200 off, and later in the summer may combine with an iPod Touch offer if past summers have been any indication).
Worth at least investigating; whether it works better for you (which, remember, is what’s important here) is a question only you can answer.
Depending on your price range, this could be a great option. Hard to beat this price/performance.
Good luck in your search.
Also, if you are looking into customizing your specs, you can get some great comps from here:
I would say Apple or Lenovo. I’ve worked with both and both have a well build quality. Although with that comes a slightly higher price. Where ever you go pay for a slightly higher build quality(usually found in the business sector). Having a crack on your primary computer, no matter how small it is, will drive you crazy. At least it does for me.
I might have missed what you are going to be doing, but that places a huge role in what to get. I’m working at a web company for the summer, and the only windows computer that can be found here is a cheap dell running vista for IE8 testing. Where as my dads work(programming and CADing machines) is windows land.
Good Luck, and congratulations !
Take a look at some Sonys. I was looking later last year just after Win7 came out and I was suprised how competitive Sonys prices where and even cheaper then most other things I was looking at. I got an FW series and it was proved to be awesome for me. They just redid that series as well and should handle most things you throw at it.
I bought a Dell Studio 15 last year at MicroCenter. Been happy with the computer but Vista you can have. Will be updating that soon. I suggest that if you are looking for a real workhorse, you make sure that the machine can be upgraded for things like RAM and video. The Studio 15 came with three USB ports, one of them a combo SATA. I would opt for the extended battery if you are going to use it all day. The wireless adapter has an on/off switch so that you won’t eat batteries looking for a network. It also has an optional bluetooth package and a DVD recorder. Spend the money up front and get the educational version of Office. You will be happy you did.
Check with your school first as often the big universities have some sweet software deals like Microsoft office (studetn edition) for less than $20. MS has a vested interest on getting you hooked as you begin to do real work. I would recommend buying a copy your freshman year, and then buying again your senior year if this deal is available.