Laptop for College

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I want a good, durable laptop computer for college, which I'll start in the fall. I mainly want it for school stuff, but I don't want a piece of crap, either. Anyone have any suggestions for something that would be good for my situation? Thanks.
 
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Check out the Macbook. It shouldn't be too far out of your budget if you're looking for something that will get you through four years. I do, however, recommend you purchase additional ram from an alternate online retailer and install it yourself. Apple is notorious for reaming customers in the ass for RAM.

Also, if you plan on doing a lot of gaming with your laptop, the Macbook may not be your ideal choice, but with Apple's new boot camp it is easier than ever to install Windows XP on your machine.
 
[quote name='Swift900']Check out the Macbook. It shouldn't be too far out of your budget if you're looking for something that will get you through four years. I do, however, recommend you purchase additional ram from an alternate online retailer and install it yourself. Apple is notorious for reaming customers in the ass for RAM.

Also, if you plan on doing a lot of gaming with your laptop, the Macbook may not be your ideal choice, but with Apple's new boot camp it is easier than ever to install Windows XP on your machine.[/QUOTE]

Even with bootcamp, Macs for gaming are terrible. I don't know why everyone keeps bringing this up.

Maybe it's just the novelty of having a game RUN on a mac, even if it runs worse than on a native Windows machine.
 
[quote name='AFStealth']Even with bootcamp, Macs for gaming are terrible. I don't know why everyone keeps bringing this up.

Maybe it's just the novelty of having a game RUN on a mac, even if it runs worse than on a native Windows machine.[/QUOTE]
I believe I made it clear in my original post that a Mac may not be the OP's ideal choice if he or she plans on gaming.

Anyways, speaking from experince, I can say that gaming on a Mac is suprisingly good. I have played both Unreal 2k4 and Fear (demo) on an iMac through Boot Camp in which both games were running at quite respectable settings. Granted gaming on a MacBook may be different due to system specifications, I'm simply saying Macs can run games on Windows very well.

To clear things up for you, it is much more than having a game run on a Mac. Macs already have a selection of games. Boot Camp enables users who wish to use a far superior operating system to also have the ability to play Windows games they otherwise would not be able to.
 
2nd vote for the macbook. Also when you buy a macbook now through the educational discount program, you can get a free 2G Ipod Nano, or a discount on any other, more expensive, ipod after a Mail in Rebate.
 
3rd vote on Macbook. I have one and upgraded myself to 100GB HD and 2GB of RAM. I've also installed bootcamp and XP Pro on it, it runs very nice. Granted, it doesnt play games (it does run Q3 engined games and Dungeon Siege 2 fairly well), but it will get your through your college years.
 
I just purchased a Macbook myself so I'm going to recommend that as well. I still need to buy 2GB of RAM seeing as how the $500 more they wanted for the 2 sticks of RAM is way too much.
 
I'm about to bite on a MacBook Pro in the next few days. I'm leaning towards the glossy screen. Beware though, places like Macconnection, Macmall, and even Amazon offer no tax and possible rebates. Even with the 2gb Nano, you can save a pretty penny more on the sites I listed. Also, You can get free rebates on a few programs, notebook cases, & printer combos from said sites.
 
Any of you guys know anything about geeks.com ? I've never dealt with them, just wondering if any of you guys knew if they were reliable or not. Thanks again for all the suggestions.
 
I own a Macbook Pro which is the higher end verison of the Macbook and is worth every penny. It also runs World of Warcraft very well. But go with a mac even if it is the cheaper yet still amazing macbook.
 
I say check the front page for slickdeals. They had a pretty good Dell laptop for $600 yesterday.

Macbooks are a bit pricey, but if you have the money to buy, go ahead.
 
Don't know about gaming, but I just bought this for my sister. If you want gaming, you can probably add the video card. It cost $716 shipped free with no tax to MA.

[FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]E1505 Dual Core Qty 1
Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2400 (2MB Cache/1.83GHz/667MHz FSB), Genuine Windows® XP Home Unit Price $1,024.00
Catalog Number: 29 E1505S2
Module Description Show Details
Inspiron E1505 Intel® Core™ Duo processor T2400 (2MB Cache/1.83GHz/667MHz FSB)
Operating System (Office software not included) Genuine Windows® XP Home
LCD Panel FREE! 15.4 inch UltraSharp; Wide Screen SXGA+ Display with TrueLife
Memory FREE 1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm
Video Card Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
Hard Drive 60GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
Network Card and Modem Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 6.0
Combo/DVD+RW Drives FREE 8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Sound Options Integrated Audio
Wireless Networking Cards Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 802.11a/g Mini Card (54Mbps)
Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) No productivity suite- Corel WordPerfect word processor only
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) No Security Subscription
Primary Battery 53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Hardware Warranty 1Yr Ltd Warranty, 1Yr Mail-In Service, and 1Yr HW Warranty Support
Dial-Up Internet Access 6 Months America Online Internet Access Included
Miscellaneous Award Winning Service, Support
Future Operating Systems Windows Vista™ Capable
Operating System Re-Installation CD PC Restore recovery system by Symantec
dell http://www.fatwallet.com/redirect/bounce.php?afsrc=1&url=http://www.dell.com/Digital Entertainment Starter Entertainment Pack - Basic digital Music, Photo and Game experience



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[quote name='Swift900']I believe I made it clear in my original post that a Mac may not be the OP's ideal choice if he or she plans on gaming.

Anyways, speaking from experince, I can say that gaming on a Mac is suprisingly good. I have played both Unreal 2k4 and Fear (demo) on an iMac through Boot Camp in which both games were running at quite respectable settings. Granted gaming on a MacBook may be different due to system specifications, I'm simply saying Macs can run games on Windows very well.

To clear things up for you, it is much more than having a game run on a Mac. Macs already have a selection of games. Boot Camp enables users who wish to use a far superior operating system to also have the ability to play Windows games they otherwise would not be able to.[/QUOTE]

Gee, 76 old games. How great. I really don't mean to troll, but come on, people buying Macs for BootCamp is just ridiculous.
 
[quote name='AFStealth']Gee, 76 old games. How great. I really don't mean to troll, but come on, people buying Macs for BootCamp is just ridiculous.[/QUOTE]

Why would it be ridiculous? I mean, afterall, a lot of people bought XBox so they can mod it and play emulation games on it. This is no difference. Macbook is a great machine on its own, but the ability to utilize bootcamp and run Windows is a nice added bonus.
 
[quote name='SOSTrooper']Why would it be ridiculous? I mean, afterall, a lot of people bought XBox so they can mod it and play emulation games on it. This is no difference. Macbook is a great machine on its own, but the ability to utilize bootcamp and run Windows is a nice added bonus.[/QUOTE]

Keyword being BONUS.

I can guarantee you that a laptop running the same hardware that runs Windows natively will run games a hell of a lot better than a MacBook plus bootcamp.

Christ, if all you're doing is getting a MacBook for Bootcamp, why even get a Mac in the first place? Is your pride at stake or something?
 
I will be getting a mac notebook as well as a g5 in the near future for work. Besides bootcamp, isn't there a $50 program I believed called parelels that runs windows and mac os at the same time. I will be getting the macs for graphic design, but if the computer is running the intel chips, and has similiar specs, why wouldn't the windows games run smoothly. I don't know much about the boot camp, but if somone really wanted a mac os, but wanted to game, couldn't you partion the HD, and have both OS on there. Why would there be any drop off?
 
[quote name='AFStealth']Keyword being BONUS.

I can guarantee you that a laptop running the same hardware that runs Windows natively will run games a hell of a lot better than a MacBook plus bootcamp.

Christ, if all you're doing is getting a MacBook for Bootcamp, why even get a Mac in the first place? Is your pride at stake or something?[/QUOTE]

Have you actually tried playing a game on XP via Boot Camp?

My brother's MacBook Pro can run anything is desktop can using Boot Camp + WinXP. The MacBook has newer components, yes, but accordingly so the games I've tried (CoD, CoD2, WoW, UT2003) all run much better on the MacBook Pro. The MacBook is his second Apple computer but I've never had an Apple in my life and even I'll admit, it's a hell of a system with the Core Duo. It's a win-win situation... the stability of OSX w/ the gaming of Windows XP. If you have the money, then go for a MacBook Pro as the regular MacBook doesn't have a very good GPU.

There's a bit at the bottom of this article which shows that an iMac using Boot Camp works fairly well so I'd think the same would apply to a MacBook.
http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,125325,00.asp
 
[quote name='AFStealth']Keyword being BONUS.

I can guarantee you that a laptop running the same hardware that runs Windows natively will run games a hell of a lot better than a MacBook plus bootcamp.

Christ, if all you're doing is getting a MacBook for Bootcamp, why even get a Mac in the first place? Is your pride at stake or something?[/QUOTE]


Boot camp isn't some emulations that you see. Windows XP doesn't run on 'boot camp', boot camp is just simply an assistant tool to let you setup and dual boot. XP runs on the Macbook just as XP runs on a Toshiba. Of course, very few people would argue that gaming is a priority on a Macbook (Macbook Pro is better suited for games), but for a college computer, it is sufficient to do almost every task. Plus there are education discounts on the Macbook series, so in no way it is a bad choice for any college student. Might not be a first choice for many, but it's not a bad choice.
 
well iirc, the parells puts the windows os on top of the mac os, and both systems are running at the same time, so you should be able to run vista. I was in a mac store last week, getting info about what to get for work. The helpfull employee, said to wait untill vista comes out to put it on top of the mac os, rather then put xp in. Either way, I am currently waiting for the intel chip to come into the g5.
 
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