For Christmas this year my 15 YO is asking for a laptop or at least for money that he can save up to get one. We’d like something that he could eventually take to college for papers and research. Can anyone recommend some good ones? I don’t always trust some of the reviews I read online. Some features:
Windows OS (sorry Apple fans). Doesn’t matter if XP or Vista.
Doesn’t need Office (my work has a deal where we can get the MS Office 2007 suite for $20!)
He would like a good graphics card so he can play some of the new games. (He plays WoW but wants Half-life 2)
Processor speed, RAM and HD size as necessary. Ideally it would cost under $1000.
Ok, well there are a few choices. When he told you he wanted a good graphics card he probably meant that he doesn’t want to play Half Life 2 on 640 x 480 at the lowest settings.
You can get a decent one for about $1,200 if you are willing to up your investment a little
I 15" screen is more then enough to play games on while making it still portable. The graphics card has 512MB of memory which can support the Windows Vista Aero interface. If i was buying it for myself I would invest in 2 gigs of RAM, as it only comes with 1 by default. I would also upgrade the hard drive to 7200RPM instead of the default of 5400RPM.
For under a grand, you’re probably going to be hard pressed to find something that’ll both play all the latest games and withstand the punishment that a college student is likely to inflict (especially after dealing with three years of a punishment a high school student is likely to inflict.)
For dirt cheap with decent components, go with some flavor of Dell Inspiron. I’ve got an e1405, the predecessor of the current 1420, and it does what I need for the $800 I paid a year and a half ago. Chassis quality is kinda cheap-feeling, and I wouldn’t really trust it for serious portability. It survived going to class a few nights a week, but I’m an adult, and I paid for it with my own hard-earned cash.
For more durability (meaning slightly more money and/or components) without veering off into Toughbook territory, go with a Dell Latitude or IBM/Lenovo Thinkpad R series. I carry my employer-provided R60 around by screen with the hinge open all the time - it’s built like a black plastic cinderblock.
The Latitude should be slightly cheaper with slightly cheaper build, but I tend to prefer them for their relative ease of serviceability. You don’t have to take the keyboard off to do things like add more RAM, like with a Thinkpad.
Dell runs deep-discount sales every couple of weeks, and you can usually find some kind of coupon online to knock a few extra hundred bucks off.
