What laptop would be the best for me?

Question

I am in high school and am a debater, here are the things I would use it for;
Store about 25 gigs worth of Adobe Readers of debate evidence
Wireless internet
Homework
A game or two

Answer 1

A good start would be to search for the specifications that you want using one of the search tools like :

http://w3.guidester.com/notebook.aspx?s=40615957

http://www.laptopmag.com/Tools/Guide/Notebooks

http://www.shopping.com/xPP-pc_laptops--price_range_0_730-%3E7086_1024_mb%5Eor-at_least_100_gb~S-213~OR-0

http://www.buy.com/cat/notebook_computers_notebook_computer_accessories_laptop_laptops/212.html

http://froogle.google.com/froogle?q=80GB+512mb+15in&btnG=Search&lmode=online&scoring=p

And read some reviews on your short list of possibilities.

Middle of the road laptops will handle your requirements :
25 gigs worth of Adobe - get at least a 60GB HDD.
Wireless internet - make sure it says 802.11g .
Homework + A game or two - get at least 512MB RAM .

$750-$1000 is probably a sweet spot in the market. You can certainly go less $ or more $ but ones like these are a good compromise between features and price : http://www.laptopmag.com/Features/Dual-Core-Notebooks-Under-1000.htm?Page=7

Most of the laptop / notebooks are probably Ok nowadays since they are all using low power consumption processors and chipsets. If you were buying a laptop a couple of years ago you would have to be careful not to get one with inadequate cooling as some of them would get way to hot.

HP and IBM / Lenovo are my personal choices but there are lots of folks that can atest to good experience with almost all of the brands.

Answer 2

Need more information.

What is your budget?
How important is portability?
Do you have a desktop?

Basically anything you buy now a days will have over 25 gigs, hell finding anything under 60 would be a chore, and will come with a wireless internet card or NIC card. Assuming your not going to be an engineer and won't need a CAD program or something really taxing to a system you can pretty much get by with anything.

I would strongly caution you against windows Vista for the time being, as it takes Windows years to work the kinks in a new operating system like that.

The game or two mention is the only thing that could cause you problems. You have about three options.

1) You drop the money on a desktop replacement system. These things are usually beefy hogs, cost more then a desktop, but can be transported ten times easier, even if it loses in the portability market to other laptops.

2) Buy the most basic lap top you can, you can probably sneak away for under 500 dollars with a bare bones sale package on-line. Then talk with a "geeky" computer science friend and build a desktop that can handle your gaming needs, you can get away for easily under 1000 dollars, good chunk less if you have a monitor sitting around.

3) The one I chose when I was in a similar position. Invest in a decent laptop that will last a few years specs wise. It will probably run you over 1000 dollars on the low end. But chose the specs based on your needs. I take my laptop just about everywhere on my college campus, so portability was a number one. People still laugh at how small my laptop is, but I just laugh when they list off there giant clunkers specs. A decent laptop can still run games, just not like a desktop can. I run world of warcraft and others, just not as pretty as a desktop.

I hope that helped. Best of luck

Answer 3

OK out of all that you listed that you would do, what you have to look at is the "game or two". Any laptop would do the other things that you would need it for, a 80 gig hard drive, wireless nic cards, and word come standard on almost all laptops.

Depending on what games you want to play is what you should really look at. That is what computers and laptops are made for nowadays. If you want to play new games or game that require a lot of requirements the I would say keep it easy and go for a Dell. If you spending limit is pretty good get the best video card and processor you can, also get now less the 1 gig of ram (2 is even better).

Answer 4

Apparently you won't be doing too much multitasking; there are plenty of laptops out there as low as around $500 which some pretty good specs.

Answer 5

SONY VAIO
model: VGN-BX640P52
for detail: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834117346