College Student Laptop Budget

[Guest]

1. What is your budget?
Up to $700, would love to find something around the $500-600 range. (would it be better to wait another month or two?)

2. What is the size of the notebook that you are considering?
13" to 16"

3. What screen resolution do you want?
Standard

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

5. How much battery life do you need?
At least two hours

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)?
Pretty much just minecraft, assorted indie games from steam (at least medium settings)

7. What other tasks do you want to do with your laptop? (Photo/Video editing, Etc.)
MATLAB, AutoCAD

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

9. If you are considering specific sites to buy from, please post their links.
newegg, tigerdirect

10. How long do you want to keep your laptop?
At least two years, hopefully three (will be a sophomore in college this fall)

11. What kind of Optical drive do you need? DVD ROM/Writer,Bluray ROM/Writer,Etc ?
DVD-ROM/Writer, would be a bonus if it could deal with Bluray

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.
ASUS and Samsung, but as long as the actual laptop performs well then brand doesn't really matter

13. What country do you live in?
USA

14. Please tell us any additional information if needed.
Engineering student

 

[moornix]

Consider looking into these:

http://www.techbargains.com/catsearch.cfm/0_3_0

 

[djscribbles]

Also, check with your school to see if they offer any special deals from the various laptop vendors. My wife gets great discounts on Lenovo's at her school (like 600-700$ off a 1500$ ultrabook good).

 

[Guest]

My school does have deals with lenovo/dell/apple, but the cheapest laptop is still about $1200, so no luck there.

Also, I was looking through the techbargains list but I'm not sure what kind of GPU I should be looking for? Most seem to have the HD Graphics 3000, but I haven't heard great things about it.

Thanks for all the help so far!

 

[moornix]

My school does have deals with lenovo/dell/apple, but the cheapest laptop is still about $1200, so no luck there.

Also, I was looking through the techbargains list but I'm not sure what kind of GPU I should be looking for? Most seem to have the HD Graphics 3000, but I haven't heard great things about it.

Thanks for all the help so far!

Integrated 3000 should be fine for minecraft and most indie games. They aren't really GPU intensive. Now if you wanted to do games like Diablo 3 or newer FPS games, you'd need a dedicated GPU.

 

[Guest]

Integrated 3000 should be fine for minecraft and most indie games. They aren't really GPU intensive. Now if you wanted to do games like Diablo 3 or newer FPS games, you'd need a dedicated GPU.

Found a laptop, thanks for all of the help (srs)

Don't know how to close a thread

 

[Guest]

Best answer selected by capstonekrew.

 

[chinatefeiba]

Hello,

Do you also look for a minimal-used Dell laptop?

Extra software installed: Microsoft Office Professional 2010 (essential for college students)

upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate OS (the most efficient) from Windows 7 Home Premium.

If so, please check Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B005KP74JK/ref=dp_olp_used?ie=UTF8&condition=used&seller=A1N5JM9QQ3JFSS