College laptop

nicholam

Hi, just wondering if anyone could spare a couple of moments to help me in choosing a laptop. Faced with a bewildering selection, I need some help.

I’m willing to spend about EUR 750. It needs to be a decent laptop for college, and run MS Professional and have Office. (I can get Pro for EUR 100 and Office for EUR 120 through college so if there is a good laptop without them for around EUR 550 it’s still ok) I’ll be bringing it into college a lot to use. I need it to be wireless compatible, the faster, the better.

I was thinking of getting one of these: http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/Acer_Aspire_5003WMLi_Laptop_LX.A5105.671/version.asp It’s around EUR 600 plus 120. I’m not sure how reliable Acers are though.

http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/Fujitsu-Siemens_AMilo_V2030_VFY:APED203064D2GB/version.asp

All help very much appreciated. Thank you.

JackKelly

If you are buying a laptop specifically for college, I think size and weight should be one of the main concerns.
I have a 14.1" acer at the moment, and while it's a class laptop doing everything I need and more, even at 14" it's still a little big to be carrying around. That said, small ultraportables arn't cheap so maybe a compromise is needed. Either way, I'd suggest looking for something smaller than 15.1".

Have you checked with your college to see if they have any deals?

Don't get anything with less than 512mb RAM. With XP, trying to do anything with only 256mb RAM will be painstaking. Ideally, 1gb RAM would be great, but that may stretch your budget a little. If you're only going to be using it for MS office/internet/videos you can afford to cut back a little on specs but to be honest, with a 750E budget, it will be difficult to get something "fast" without checking the 2nd hand market.

i71jskz5xu42pb

nicholam wrote:

and run MS Professional

I assume you mean "Windows XP Professional" as opposed to "Windows XP Home/Media Center" here.

If so I'd verify that you actually need XP Pro. If you're just using it for college (web browsing, documents, etc.) then you can probably save a few quid by staying with XP Home which will be on most new laptops by default.

Here's a list of the differences here:
http://www.winsupersite.com/showcase/windowsxp_home_pro.asp


P.S. I'm selling this - I don't know how the AMD Turion compares to the Celeron (Celeron would be the lower end of the Intel range) and it's a big enough laptop.

thebman

Some college networks don't allow home users to use their machines on the college network. Check this.

I think XP Pro is worth the money.

Akrasia

Also, do you really need MS office?

I use openoffice which is a free open source office suite. It has everything, a spreadsheet, powerpoint style presentation software, a database, and of course, a word processor.


Some people experience minor problems with formatting when they try to open their documents on MS word, but I have never had any of these problems

www.openoffice.org

tywy

XP Pro is worth the money if you go to UCD

thebman

Also keep in mind that the college will have Office installed on it. If they allow you to install plugins or whatever (which they shouldn't but some of these places security is non-existant) then you can install a plugin for Microsoft Office that will make it suppor the Open Office/Open Standard format.

Open Office will be compatible with all but the rarely used features of Office. If you are using Formula a lot for example it may not be compatible. If your just doing text and images then it will be good enough for you.

Open Office also uses the exact same look and feel as Office pretty much so there won't be much of a learning curve if your comfortable with Office. I used Open Office in college too as it is a good alternative to Microsoft Office.

If you need to buy Office later you can and since you'll be a student, you'll be able to get the student version so worth giving Open Office a go.

I'd splash out on XP Pro though. Safe you some problems during the laptops life more than likely.

Check out the Dell Outlet store for some cheap laptops:
http://outlet.dell.com/Emea_Dfo/EuDispatcher?country=IRL&target=InventoryPage&lob_constraint=INSP

Around the same spec as the one you posted. Some have slightly higher specs for the same price. Might be worth a look if you trust refurbished products.

If you get XP Home, most colleges have a deal with http://www.micromail.ie for upgrades from Home - Pro for €99.

I have an Inspiron 1300, which is admittently heavy but I have somewhere to leave it in college when I'm not bringing it around with me!

Oh, and if you wish to save money just download Open Office for free!

Note: I have nothing to do with the above companies.

Gurgle

nicholam wrote:

I was thinking of getting one of these: http://www.laptopsdirect.ie/Acer_Aspire_5003WMLi_Laptop_LX.A5105.671/version.asp It’s around EUR 600 plus 120. I’m not sure how reliable Acers are though.

Battery life on that is only 1.5 hours max.
Are there power sockets available everywhere you want to use it?

Heres PC Worlds best effort btw:
EI Systems 3083

but the battery life is even worse.

ethernet

Akrasia wrote:

Also, do you really need MS office?

I use openoffice which is a free open source office suite. It has everything, a spreadsheet, powerpoint style presentation software, a database, and of course, a word processor.


Some people experience minor problems with formatting when they try to open their documents on MS word, but I have never had any of these problems

www.openoffice.org

Even Star Office 8 would do, if you wouldn't mind forking out around $80. It looks just like OpenOffice [I think OOo is a spin-off project to Star Office]. Have a look on Amazon and read some reviews too.

thebman

ethernet wrote:

Even Star Office 8 would do, if you wouldn't mind forking out around $80. It looks just like OpenOffice [I think OOo is a spin-off project to Star Office]. Have a look on Amazon and read some reviews too.

Open Office is also a Sun project. No point in spending money on Star Office IMO especially as a student.