Looking for college laptop, $500 - $600

hitraj 47

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Jan 19, 2008
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1. What is your budget?
$5 - $600, don't mind spending an extra $50 over budget though, this does NOT include shipping.

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
14" - 15.6"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Don't care, 1366x768 and up is fine.

4. Do you need a portable or desktop replacement laptop?
Portable

5. How much battery life do you need?
At least 4 -5 on regular use

6. Do you want to play games with your laptop? If so then please list the games that you want to with the settings that you want for these games. (Low,Medium or High)?
Not for gaming

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo / Video editing,watching movies, Etc.)
Will be mainly for programming, Java in particular as well as Photoshop (CS5) and Dreamweaver (also CS5).

8. How much storage (Hard Drive capacity) do you need?
Min. 250GB

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
newegg.com, amazon.com, buy.com, bestbuy.com. But quite frankly I'm open to suggestions, these are just places I buy from regularly-ish. lol.

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
At least 2 years.

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
Don't need Blu-ray, just DVD/CD. I can burn DVD's/CD's on my PC, so that's not an issue either.

12. Please tell us about the brands that you prefer to buy from them and the brands that you don't like and explain the reasons.
I like Acer, I've used them before.
My dad has an HP thats lasted... too long lol
My current one is MSI, it's ok. The optical drive is flimsy, but otherwise solid construction

I don't mind trying ASUS, Sony, Dell or Lenovo. Don't want Apple, I know they will be out of my price range anyway. Above all I prefer Acer.

13. What country do you live in?
USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
I've found this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115978

To me, this seems *almost* perfect, I've read it has excellent battery life and it's very light. I'm very tempted to get this one. My concerns are, Engadget reviewed a similar laptop in the series and weren't impressed with the build quality. They also mentioned something about the glossy screen but that didn't bother me. And one final thing, it has an i3... Should I consider the i5 instead or will the i3 380M be ample power?

What other laptop review sites are out there?

Thanks.

EDIT:

If the laptop above, with the i3 won't be enough power, I've found this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834115988

It's the same thing, but with an i5 instead...
 

Bacterius

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Dec 21, 2010
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These newegg links are pretty good. Very nice [strike]urls[/strike] laptops, I think the i3 would be sufficient for your needs but if you're going to do heavy computing in Java for example you could use additional horsepower from the i5, it's up to you. After all, the trivial solution to every problem in algorithmic computing is "MORE POWER" (the nontrivial one is to use your brain and optimize).