Laptops for College - VT

[halsgator]

My grandson who lives in Virginia will attend VT in the fall. While he is not majoring in engineering, he will need most of the programs needed in college.

VT leases a computer for $2400 for four years which covers a service agreements.

I am committed to provide the laptop as a graduation gift.

My daughter is thinking in terms of 3 to 4 thousand which gives me a heavy headache.

For those of you in the know, what price range and or actual recommendations as to which laptop is best for college students would be appreciated.

[FrankGator627]

2400 is a lot for a laptop. A 2400 laptop better come with ALL the bells and whistles. You can get a good laptop for college at under or around 1000.

I just graduated from UF in Dec.

I would like to add some suggestions:

Get a light computer. Trust me, my parents bought me a 2k+ laptop out of HS. I love it, still have it, but it is big and I never took it to class with me. You dont want to have to lug it from your dorm or apt all the way to school while carrying another 10 lbs in books.

Make sure it has Microsoft Office or the equivalent. This is key because it will keep you from using the library computers at 1 am while you are trying to bang out a 4 page essay the night before it is due.

Get one that he likes. Take him to Best Buy/Circuit City/Wal-Mart/Costco what ever. Have him pick it out. Get a nice 15" with all the gadgets and I promise it will not be 2400. Mine was 2400 because I got a Dell. I love Dells but I dont know that they are worth that much more....

I would recommend getting one with a strong battery life. You dont want to have to get to class early to fight for an electric socket.

Good Luck and Congrats on his acceptance.

[gatorskater]

lenovo thinkpad T42 or the x61 if you want to get a real lightweight one at the cost of another ~400$

[panamacitygator]

For $1799.00 you can get a macbook air. Save even more with the educational discount.

http://store.apple.com/1-800-MY-APPLE/WebObjects/AppleStore.woa/wa/RSLID?nnmm=browse&node=home/shop_mac/family/macbook_air&sf=wHF2F2PHCCCX72KDY

http://a248.e.akamai.net/7/248/2041/1429/store.apple.com/Catalog/regional/amr/macbook-air/img/overview-hero.jpg

[LakeGator]

There is some excellent advice and ideas above.

I suggest considering the $2,400 lease approach as long as that system is agreeable to your grandson.

Laptops, especially those on a college campus, take a lot of punishment. It is likely that the laptop will be pretty used up by the end of the 4 years. Assuming the lease maintenance provides some allowance for accidental damage and wear and tear the price isn’t too bad. The leased system is assured to be compatible with the VT information systems.

Finally, the best time to buy a computer is in the future as the price/performance ratio will grow significantly. You can buy him a college graduation system in 4 years as he leaves the used up VT laptop behind.

This approach may or may not be best but it seems worth consideration.

[helix139]

I'll second what Frank said. My personal choice would be the Dell XPS m1330, which can be found for $1000-1200 extremely well equipped (check slickdeals.net and dell outlet). I have the previous incarnation, the XPS m1210 and the convenience of having a light, portable notebook is SO much more important than being able to do everything you could ever want a computer to do. I got a $3000 fully equipped 15" desktop substitute right out of high school and I HATED lugging that thing around once I actually started having to do it. The m1330 (or any decently equipped notebook) will be able to do anything he will need out of it, and you'll be able to buy a new one in 2 years and still be paying less than the $2400 lease cost (a rip off, IMO).

Oh, and Frank, if you paid $2400 for a Dell you got ripped off. They can be had for MUCH less if you are diligent at deal hunting

[FrankGator627]

I bought it in 2003. It was their #1 laptop (if it were a pizza, it would be a supreme). Laptops in general and Dells are a lot cheaper now than they were at that time.

Like I said in my above post, I would never pay 2400 for a laptop now.

[SteelGator]

Hals,

You need to check with the VT college/dept that he will be entering for specific requirements. For example, VT's College of Engineering has some pretty specific requirements (http://www.eng.vt.edu/academics/comp_require.php) for the laptop, software, and accessories that are required.

[orangeblueorangeblue]

Yikes. A tablet with those kind of specs might actually very well run more than 2k (mostly because the only ones I ever see have older or crippled processors).

The same laptop without the tablet requirement would be easy to find under $1100.

[halsgator]

Thanks for your input. Most helpful.

[CorporalGator]

I bought my laptop for less than $1000 from Dell in August 2006. While it is great and runs fine especially since I am constantly performing software maintenance on it, it is still a cheap system.

Mine has 1 gig ram, intel duo core 2400 (2 cpus at 1.83 ghz) 128 mb x1330 radeon vid card, and a 60 gb hard drive (storage has really come down in price the last two years) and dvd player/cd burner, opted not to get the dvd burner. That was around $900 after a $200 off coupon for laptops over $1000. I also fleeced Dell to get a cracked copy of windows xp media center (although I basically stripped the media center part to make it just xp pro) that will install on any computer without a cd key and is recognized as a genuine windows product.... woooo, good times.

Now, for specific advice, if you go dell. First, try to avoid their upgrades. You can upgrade the computer yourself for far less. Don't buy the 9 cell battery, since they are going to die within a year anyway. Dell really rips you off on the batteries and is basically how they make their money.

For instance, the 9 cell dell battery upgrade is $169, but you can just buy an extra 9 cell battery through 3rd party companies for less than $100. Just find reputable one first through reading customer reviews.

Next, don't upgrade the storage capacity. The first upgrade listed by Dell is for an extra 90 gb for $50, but you can buy a 500 gb external harddrive for around $80 now. Sure, it can be a hassle moving files back and forth, but the extra space is well worth it and saves quite a bit of money. Ultimately you internal harddrive can only be so big at this point for a laptop.

I would be wary now of the dell laptops because they only offer the glossy screen option. This looks great, but it reflects light and is very difficult to see in the sun. It also lets others snoop more easily as regular laptop lcds are hard to see from all but a straight on angle.

You should search the web for coupons too. I can give you more advice on buying a dell if you would like to know anything more specific like which package I would recommend and which part upgrades etc.

[StrangeGator]

Top of the line Mac Book with a 2.4 GHz core duo, a 250 gig hard drive and two gigs of RAM is $1599. I would go to four gigs or RAM for an additional $200. You could probably get by with a 160 gig drive and knock off $200. A one year subscription to MobileMe is $69 with a new Mac. This application was just released today. I don't know all the details, but it sounds like a no-brainer for a college student. Office for Mac student/educator package is about $200. Windows and Parallels/Bookcamp is also an option.

I like the MacBook Air, but it doesn't have the power an engineering major probably needs.

[bturner623]

Check out this link to see requirements for each major at VT:

http://www.compreq.vt.edu/gettingready-one.html

Each major has a software bundle that freshman must buy. For example the Business major package includes MS Office, MS Visio, MS Project, MS OneNote and MS Visual Studio.NET and other needed software for business majors and sells to students for a reasonable $147.