I'm a student and I need a laptop. What should I look for in a laptop?

Question

I can't spend more than $800 and I just need it for school.

Answer 1

At that price, if you want a new laptop, your options are limited. You might want to check manufacturers' sites for their outlets. There you could find outdated laptop models and refurbished laptops. I would not suggest saving money by going with a company you've never heard of.

Answer 2

There area lot of companies that are selling laptops for under $800 these days. As a student you'll need a computer that can handle office tasks (word processing, excel, etc.) as well as the internet, and networking capabilities. wi-fi is always nice.

You may want to play some games, and some sub 800 laptops will allow you to play but they won't do a great job with it. They will almost always have integrated rather than dedicated video cards.

Another thing to consider is weight and size, but IMO that should be secondary to features. Get the best bang for your buck first, in terms of power, then go for the lighter weight.

You'll find Acer and Compaq laptops that will meet your price point. Watch out for hard drive space on lower models. Then again... if down the line you wanted to replace the hard drive, they're not too expensive.

I recommend trying to get better than a celeron processor. Though, Celerons are not bad, necessarily, if your laptop doesn't need a lot of power, it's just that you can probably get 64 bit turion processor for close to the same price as the celerons, and turions are better.

Here are a couple acer models:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834115283
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834115283

Here's a compaq:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834147273

If you can spend just a little more.. go for the ASUS:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834220037

Answer 3

I just came across a site that sends you a laptop for free! I'm ordering mine right now, it's a Sony VAIO and it looks really hot!