I need advice on buying a laptop for college!

dewalt

If any of you have a moment to answer my questions that would be great. I am considering making a laptop purchase in the U.S. I am currently in college.

The things I am looking for in a laptop are:
Watch movies, listen to music through headphones, download music and other stuff
Be able to surf the net, IM, listen to music,and have applications like Microsoft office, open all at once.
Use Microsoft office, i purchased this already at a student discount price.
Bring my laptop to class, on trips, etc...
I need to be able to use wireless internet.
I would need a decent size hard drive, probably at least 60 GB.
I need a port for a flash card.
I would buy a mouse and keyboard for doing work at my desk.
Occasionally use the program Pro/Engineer (a large computerized drawing/modeling program)
Play the occasional game of NHL 2005.


I can't decide what feature is better, small size (such as Dell inspiron 700m) or the bigger, wider screen laptops.

I currently have a basic Dell desktop that I bought in the fall of 2003. It has a 40 GB hard drive, and that is all I know. It is one of those desktops that Dell advertises a lot, the cheapest one. This hard drive is too small and my computer runs really slow.

Ideally I would spend less than $1500 (u.s.) and would get something with decent speed.

here are some of the options I have considered, please feel free to suggest others and suggest upgrades.

Dell Inspiron 700m
http://www1.us.dell.com/content/products/compare.aspx/notebooks?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

I don't know if you sacrifice speed/power when you buy a small laptop like this.

The place I work at in the summer has a lot of Toshiba laptops and they really like them.
here is a link to Toshiba's laptops. I would probably go with one of the satellites.
http://www.toshibadirect.com/td/b2c/clin.to?rcid=-26367&coid=-26368&ccid=1291021&seg=HHO&sel=0

Here is a link to gateway:
http://www.gateway.com/home/products/hm_ptb_catalog.shtml?clv=LNav
I would consider buying something from the M460 or M680 series.

At the University I attend students save 15% at dell, and get discounts at Gateway and IBM also. I don't know how Gateway and IBM are.

Let me know your thoughts and which brand you have had the best luck with or heard the best reviews about.

odie

This one should fulfill all your needs

Acer Aspire 1804WSMi - 17" Notebook PC

$1,278.95

http://www.computers4sure.com/product.asp?productid=2633342&iid=325

dewalt

wow, that looks like exactly what I am looking for. thanks for the link.

the specs on this laptop say:
Intel® Pentium® 4 Proc.
•3.2Ghz, 512MB, 100GB

What makes a computer/laptop fast? Is it the Ghz, or the RAM or the processor or a combination of all of these?

wheres me jumpa

what implications are tere to buying a laptop in u.s? i.e. customs, power supply etc.

odie

I am geussing by the post that Dewalt is in the US.

These are the specific specs, and you are right, while Ghz is the speed of the processor, the overall specification is what you need to look at. This Laptop Acer Aspire 1804WSMi - 17" is very good value for money

Width 15.8 in
Depth 10.9 in
Weight 9.9 lbs
Localization United States
Processor Intel Pentium 4 540 3.2 GHz
Data Bus Speed 800 MHz
Features Hyper-Threading Technology
Type L2 cache 1 MB
RAM 512 MB / 2 GB (max)
ATI MOBILITY RADEON X600
Fax / modem
Network adapter
IEEE 802.11b, IEEE 802.11g, Wi-Fi CERTIFIED
Battery
Technology Lithium ion
OS Provided Microsoft Windows XP Professional
Manufacturer Warranty
Service & Support 1 year warranty