Help! What sorta Laptop should I get for Uni?

[Ouenben]

Am heading off to Uni in September so looking into getting a laptop as I really can't be bothered lugging my big old PC around whenever I want to come back home for a visit, so going to invest in a laptop.


My initial thought was to get a super Laptop that can play the latest games but that's probably not in my price range.

My dad reckons I'm better off with a less powerful laptop for Uni as "less stuff can go wrong with it, the battery life will be better and it's not as heavy to carry around"

I might just take my Monitor and 360 in or something for games, but I'd still like to be able to play SOME games on my laptop like UT2K4.

[nintastic]

Sell all your Gameboy stuff buddy and get a super powerful one !

On a serious note Tescos do some half decent ones for under 400

[Ouenben]

Well the price hopefully won't matter as It's a birthday present (and i'll chip in towards it)

I just don't know what's the ideal sort of laptop for Uni.

I could always look into getting a reaaly cheap laptop for internet/word processing as a spare if my good one goes wrong maybe.

I'll be studying Journalism

[ETC]

get a good micro notebook, itll save you money on books and pens to write on sure i saw a pretty good toshiba one in comet yesterday for about 400

[Extra Terrestrial]

I used to have a disliking towards Dell in the past since they were very unhelpful when our ten month old PC decided to die on it's own arse and I had several friends who also had a range of problems with their Dell computers.

Nowadays they seem to be a changed company for good. I have a Dell Studio Hybrid (which is one of those eco friend and efficient computers) and does a fantastic job and has never crashed nor any software issues either.

Going back to the thread, my Brother and a few of my friends have the Dell Inspiron (13" model) and they are brilliant for what you would like them to do; surf the internet, use the office based programs, iTunes and so forth.

I even know my mate has Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead running on Steam without a hitch too; perfect for your gaming needs.

Dell Inspiron laptops

[Ouenben]

ET those laptops do look quite good. Whats the battery life and weight like? (can't find much about that on the site)

[abigsmurf]

put the model number into google along with "benchmarks" and you can usually find a review avoiding rubbish price comparisson and user submitted review sites.

Other laptops to consider:

http://www1.euro.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/xpsnb_m1330?c=uk&cs=ukdhs1&l=en&s=dhs

add £40 for a better graphics card when customising (integrated intel chips are awful)

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-5966.aspx

looks like a good deal (if you like that tablet style rotating hinge). Dunno what the reviews are like on either.

[Userfailed]

Just saw this on HUKD:

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150331

For the price seems pretty good for a 16" screen and if you have a vga port on your tv you gots blu ray player as well. Add (Open Office) or Office Pro (about £50), then get a decent usb mouse and it should get you through at least 2 years of uni.

[Ouenben]

http://direct.tesco.com/q/R.204-5966.aspx

looks like a good deal (if you like that tablet style rotating hinge). Dunno what the reviews are like on either.

That looks awesome! but I worry it may be a bit prone to problems?

[Ajay1986]

Never used one myself but that hinge looks destined to break.

[Ouenben]

Okay I've decided to go for a higher specced laptop. Price range ?300-?500
what's peoples reccomendations?

The inspirons look pretty good.
The main requirements I'm after is that it will play Left 4 dead

[abigsmurf]

there's this: http://www.ebuyer.com/product/150168

The GPU isn't amazing but given the benchmarks it gets for FEAR 1 which is a more demanding game than HL2, it should run L4D at a comfortable resolution and medium or better resolution. Also very boring looking but it depends if you care about that sort of thing.

http://www.notebookcheck.net/ATI-Mobility-Radeon-HD-3450.9593.0.html

Avoid anything with an intel GPU like the plague (the 15" inspirons seem to be all intel) , their graphics chips are hopeless at gaming. You need a discrete card, use that site for information on how good the GPU the laptop has is.

other than that, 2gb ram is a minimum, any dual core above 1.6ghz should be fine. Avoid celerons.

[Ouenben]

I'm buying my laptop next month, thanks for the

recommendations

any more advise would be greatly appreciated

[Fargo]

I got a Dell Vostro for Uni last year, 2.4 core 2 duo, 3gigs of ram, 250 gig hard drive and an Nvidia 8400m. Worked out at about 750 euro with a laptop case thrown in. Might be worth a look I'm sure they've some good models and there always cheaper than the non - Buisness Laptops they sell