College bound daughter needs Laptop

[cooldep]

Hello all, my daughter has 1 more year of High School. She is a great student, National Honor Society, AP courses etc. Well I'm wondering what you fine people might recommend for a 1st Laptop. Brit is PC (Windows) savy, so the only question is what brand would you pick. Cost is a slight problem, no money tree in backyard yet, nor will be in the future with Ivy League schools as favorites ;)
Thank you for any help,,
~~Paul
RED SOX/PATS
City of Champs!

[kpxgq]

dell 600m

[coolqf]

Originally posted by kpxgq
dell 600m

The zv6000 is cheaper AND provides more power.
Through HP, use the academic purchase program and you'll get close to a $100 discount.

THe fault with the 600m and the zv6000 i that they are a bit heavy, 7-8LB. Girls tend to like more that the laptops are light and cute. For this, you may want to consider fujitsu? Dell and HP/DELL/Gateway have light computers.
Personal recommendation: Wait till august to purchase the laptop. The school year's over she wont b doing a lot of work on it.

As for top tier schools... Don't expect the computer to last her well into college. It's so far down the road that the new OSes and new MS Word, Excel, and PowerPoint will be essetial upgrades.

Recommended laptops:
HP ZV6000/R4000 (most powerful laptop of them all, but also the heaviestat 8LB)
Gateway M360X
HP ZE2000
HP DV4000

All the above computers can be had for nuder $1000 (after mail-in-rebates).
They important factors when purchasing a computer for your daughter:
-512MB of RAM
Any CPU EXCEPT the CELERON, so Pentium 4, Pentium M, Athlon, or Semprom is OK.
-wireless (a must especially in college)
-a burner (to make music) and dvd player (for those nights people come over to watch a movie or take a break from work)

You can also do a google search for coupons and you'll quickly find $100 discounts for the ZE2000 and the DV4000. The R4000 is also on sale at Office Depot stores for a killer bargain of $800.

[coolqf]

I recommend you wait until august, simply because school is almost over and companies are rolling out their new laptops this summer. The ZV6000/R4000 is the new laptop for the coming year.

[SkyDog]

Personally, for school, I'd want a laptop that's fairly light with good battery life. The Dell Inspiron 600m that kpxgq mentioned wouldn't be a bad choice. I think coolqf might be confusing the 600m with a different model, as the 600m is under 5 pounds. It also uses a Pentium M processor, which currently gives the best combination of long battery life and good performance.

The HP zv6000 might have a bit more raw horsepower, but it's larger, heavier, and only gets about 1.5 hours of life on a full battery. I'm not saying it's a bad machine, but it's more "luggable" than portable. You can take it back and forth between your dorm, the library, and home, and so long as you're not far from a power outlet, you'll be OK. But if you want to use it in class, you'll be cutting it close on batterly life. I'm not anti-HP, but I can't seem to find a whole lot of models in their current laptop lineup I'd recommend for truly portable use. The nc8230 seems to have good specs, but the list price is higher than HP's competitors. The DV4000 doesn't look bad except for its Intel embedded video.

Ultimately, the choice is going to boil down to what features you and your daughter find to be most important. If you want a small & light notebook, it won't be the absolute fastest machine on the planet. If you want a speed demon, it's going to be larger and have shorter battery life. If you want cheap, you're not going to get the best speed, size, or battery life. Pick a price range, find some models from reputable companies, and then choose from the ones whose features are the best compromise for what she wants to use it for.

[coolqf]

Originally posted by SkyDog
Personally, for school, I'd want a laptop that's fairly light with good battery life. The Dell Inspiron 600m that kpxgq mentioned wouldn't be a bad choice. I think coolqf might be confusing the 600m with a different model, as the 600m is under 5 pounds. It also uses a Pentium M processor, which currently gives the best combination of long battery life and good performance.

The HP zv6000 might have a bit more raw horsepower, but it's larger, heavier, and only gets about 1.5 hours of life on a full battery. I'm not saying it's a bad machine, but it's more "luggable" than portable. You can take it back and forth between your dorm, the library, and home, and so long as you're not far from a power outlet, you'll be OK. But if you want to use it in class, you'll be cutting it close on batterly life. I'm not anti-HP, but I can't seem to find a whole lot of models in their current laptop lineup I'd recommend for truly portable use. The nc8230 seems to have good specs, but the list price is higher than HP's competitors. The DV4000 doesn't look bad except for its Intel embedded video.

Ultimately, the choice is going to boil down to what features you and your daughter find to be most important. If you want a small & light notebook, it won't be the absolute fastest machine on the planet. If you want a speed demon, it's going to be larger and have shorter battery life. If you want cheap, you're not going to get the best speed, size, or battery life. Pick a price range, find some models from reputable companies, and then choose from the ones whose features are the best compromise for what she wants to use it for.

Hmm, you know what. Give your daughter the choice. She'll probably prefer light and thin, but laptops that weigh more provide more features, such as bluetooth, dvd-burner, better graphics, and overall more power for the same price or less.

So give her two laptops to choose from. (she'll probably choose the lighter one and expect you to buy her another laptop to congratulate her for getting accepted to a university ;) )

The nc8230? Discountinued model? I thought about the weight when naming the zv6000, but the 600m will be a LOT slower when college comes around for this girl, cause it's 3.4yrs away. With

You're right I did confuse the 600m. The 600m (with 512 of ram and 2yr warranty) would cost 1157.
The Compaq V2000 would cost 1044. Also with 512MB ram and a 2yr warranty BUT it also includes a dvd-burner.....

At this point in time you can find a DELL comparable for cheaper through Compaq or HP. 2wks ago with the DELL killer specials it was different.

[tjsrb609]

Personally I'd go for Dell Inspiron 600m (pretty gd in my case)

As a college student my self, I'm still using it and it works fine with all of my college work, its quite ligh, therefore mobile, and its specs are decent.

although some of my frieds have a better notebook than me, for them gaming is their priority too.

So ask your daughter what she'll use the laptop for... but I'd strongly recommend Dell Inspiron 600m.

[coolqf]

Originally posted by tjsrb609
Personally I'd go for Dell Inspiron 600m (pretty gd in my case)

As a college student my self, I'm still using it and it works fine with all of my college work, its quite ligh, therefore mobile, and its specs are decent.

although some of my frieds have a better notebook than me, for them gaming is their priority too.

So ask your daughter what she'll use the laptop for... but I'd strongly recommend Dell Inspiron 600m.

Remember, she's 15 yrs old. Still a freshman in HS.

[thprofessional]

I just got an Inspiron 6000 and am very happy with it right now. So far, it's better than i had hoped for.

[masteraleph]

Originally posted by coolqf
Remember, she's 15 yrs old. Still a freshman in HS.

Erm, not according to the OP; she's a Junior (soon to be Senior) in high school.

Is there a reason you're planning on buying right now, instead of waiting until she goes to college?

[PCJ]

Junior with 15 years sounds a little off. I'll be a junior next year with 16 years, but the majority of my grade will be 17 by then.

As for the notebook, here are some musts:

- Pentium M. Not a Celeron-M, not a Pentium 4, AND NOT AN AMD. The P-M is just the only viable notebook CPU, period.
- 512mb RAM. Anything less isn't goint to last.
- The weight is very important. My personal upper limit is about 4kg, but I prefer it under 3. My soon-to-come IBM will be under 2.
- A good build quality. This means BRAND NAME. Yes, it will cost a bit more, but it's well worth it. Getting a good brand means that it's unlikely to break, and if it does, you'll get a new one fast. IBM is best at this, but they're quite expensive. Other good companies are Apple, Asus, Dell (but only the Latitude notebooks, not the inspirions), and Toshiba (at least they were back 4 years ago, I dont know about now).


edit: another VERY important thing is that the keyboard and touchpad are good to use. This varies between people, so I suggest that you just go to a local store and let her try out a few, just writing a few sentences and using the touchpad a bit. Believe me, there's nothing worse when writing something than an awful keyboard.

edit2: Forgot one thing: You NEED a b/g wireless card. There are just so many schools that are starting to use wifi (even my high school has it), it's essential.

This is a great notebook, not too cheap though:
http://www2.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16834117066

[kpxgq]

Originally posted by PCJ
Junior with 15 years sounds a little off. I'll be a junior next year with 16 years, but the majority of my grade will be 17 by then.

As for the notebook, here are some musts:

- Pentium M. Not a Celeron-M, not a Pentium 4, AND NOT AN AMD. The P-M is just the only viable notebook CPU, period.


the Celeron-M isnt acutally a bad choice.... its basically a Pentium-M with about half the cache disabled... they ran some test and the Pentiu-M performed marginally better and had about 30min more battery life.... whether its worth $100 more or not is up to you... but if she doesnt play games, thats one place you can cut corners...

[PCJ]

The point isnt the performance, but the battery life. If she is anything like me, she'll sometimes need the laptop for 2 days without a recharge. That's when 30 minutes start to matter.

I'd say get her a 14" or 15" IBM with a Pentium M (1.3ghz is plenty fast), 512mb and a good wireless card (b and g). Just look for deals on them, there are great deals on IBMs here and there.

edit: as for a fair price, the T42 is 1500 on NewEgg right now, with 1.7ghz and 512mb RAM. With a slower CPU and some rebates, you should be able to get it cheaper, like 1200.
The great thing about the thinkpad is, unless the school has a minimum pc speed thing, it'll last for 4 years. IBM is also great at selling backup batteries way after they stop producing a laptop.

[coolqf]

Originally posted by masteraleph
Erm, not according to the OP; she's a Junior (soon to be Senior) in high school.

Is there a reason you're planning on buying right now, instead of waiting until she goes to college?
You're right, missed the word 'more.'

The daughter's probably pushing him to buy laptop?
Or maybe he's happy that she's almost headed to college and wants to give her a gift?

Yeah, it's better to wait another year.

The univeristy I attend, Georgetown University, gives free tech support to DELL computers. Other computer repairs would be charged the services.

[kpxgq]

Originally posted by PCJ
The point isnt the performance, but the battery life.

yes.. but in the tests... the P-M had marginally better battery life compared to a P-C...

with the extra $100 you save by going with the P-C, you can get a second battery and have ALOT more travel time than with a single battery powered P-M machine

[Meaker]

That all depends on model and a well designed PM laptop will always be lighter and have a longer bat life than a p4m. Don't discount ALL celerons, the celeron-m based off the pentium-m but with less cache (particulally the 512kb version) and powerstep is actually a decent performer.