Getting my sister a laptop.

Ramen Noodle

So, my sister has finally graduated and my parents have put me to task to find her a laptop for college. I've been looking at Dells and that seems like the way to go. She won't be doing any gaming, just stuff like Facebooking, music, et cetera. I've been thinking one with a T5550, 3GB RAM and a 250GB hard drive (I know Vista takes a lot dude to my dad having it, and we already have 30+ gigs of music), but I'm wondering if that is overkill. Any help is appreciated dudes!

Tav

3GB of RAM is overkill for running an internet browser.

Ramen Noodle

So 2 gigs is enough? I just want her to get something decent considering we've been stuck with this shitpile for close to 7 years.

Tav

I've got no experience with Vista, but 2GB should be enough for what she wants the laptop for. The main thing to invest in is a decent processor and a good battery.

Dark Shroud

2 gigs is fine. Just make sure you get a laptop with a duel core processor to get some good use out of it.

Doc

Considered a Macbook? They aren't that overpriced, and OSX is sexy.

Elin

Just because I don't like Dell much, have you looked here? Ibuypower

ihmmy

new dell is shit, old dell was awesome but they've really gone downhill the last few years (imho, but my current crappy laptop is from them and so was my old awesome one)

make sure it's not too big nor too heavy, nothing's more obnoxious than a giant heavy laptop you have to lug everywhere (er, well, assuming she's going to be making use of its whole portable thing)

Frog

I second a Macbook. With the current promotions it is a amazing deal for a amazing piece of hardware (and the software of course).

Price of Macbook = $1100
Price of Itouch = $300
Price of Printer = $100

With student discount you get 100 off a Macbook, 300 rebate on a ipod, including the Itouch, and you can get 100 rebate on a printer.

Dang fine deal if you ask me...

Jake!

Frog wrote: »

I second a Macbook.

I'll third it, but also, for her purposes it sounds like she'd be happiest with something small and light; something to take to class.

Scrublet

Fourthed. These things come with much less shit on them, and OSX will run reliably on Windows. No need to worry about her having to learn a new operating system...I'd say more girls I knew in college had Macs than those that didn't.

theSquid

Yes, fifthed the Macbook for pretty much absolutely anyone who isn't a gamer. Or, for a UMPC, perhaps the Asus EEE w/ Xandros? Just avoid Microsoft so she doesn't grow to hate her laptop.

Kyougu

The macbook is so easy to carry to class, it's OSX is painless to use, and with the right settings the battery life can be extended for quite some time, which is great if she's taking a bunch of classes in a row.

Ramen Noodle

Thanks for the recommendations guys, but a Macbook is out of the question. In my opinion they are overpriced for what you get, plus she hates OSX. I'll hopefully get a Macbook when I go to school, but it's just not for her.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage.jsp?skuId=8780125&type=product&id=1204332500899
Is this a good one? I noticed Dell's shipdate is 7/10 and I want to get this done earlier than that.

Frog

Well if Apples are out of the question...

The laptop you listed is not bad, and HP is doing a very good job on the laptop market right now. I would recommend not buying from Best Buy and instead buying from Dell at the end of the current product cycle or from Costco.

Best part about Costco is they have a fantastic warranty included on every laptop.

For COMPUTERS, TELEVISIONS and PROJECTORS, Costco extends the MANUFACTURER'S WARRANTY to two years from date of purchase. Please call Costco Conciergeâ„¢ Technical Support @ 1-866-861-0450 for warranty assistance.

In addition, most Costco stores service HP products on site, so if your sister is going to be close to a Costco they can fix it very quickly so she can get back to her studies. Another bonus about buying from Costco is if she hates her laptop, she can return it within 90 days and get a different one.

HP dv6700t 15.4" 749.99 + tax shipped.

Everything she would need except for a webcam.

Asus M51E-X1 15.4" 849.99 + tax shipped.

This one is more expensive but comes with a very good warranty (1-year accidental and if purchased on the right credit card 2-year accidental) and up to a 4 hour battery life. It may only have 1 gig of ram but that is a $20 after rebate fix.

squirly

My brother bought a cheapish (Like $900AUD) Compaq laptop with Vista and it only had 512MB RAM so it was rather horribly slow but after a ~ $40AUD RAM upgrade (2GB) it does everything he wants (Music, Office apps, Diablo2 and other basic games, etc) fine.

What I'm saying is, once you start looking at laptops with ~ >= 2GB of RAM the price seems to start going up a fair bit so to counter this you could get a 'cheaper' laptop and just buy some RAM yourself.

Edit: Screw that, I think that's only a problem us Aussies have to worry about because of exuberant laptop prices. I think the most you'll need to look out for are things like battery life and the like and not so much speed problems.

That HP you linked to would be perfectly fine for all the things your sister needs to do. HP are decent laptops too.

Silvoculous

squirly wrote: »

My brother bought a cheapish (Like $900AUD) Compaq laptop with Vista and it only had 512MB RAM so it was rather horribly slow but after a ~ $40AUD RAM upgrade (2GB) it does everything he wants (Music, Office apps, Diablo2 and other basic games, etc) fine.

My current and only laptop is a 1.6GHz Pentium M with 512MB of memory. It is more than enough for the purposes you just listed, even runs Photoshop CS2 just fine. I can still see why the OP would at the newer offerings from Dell, though, those things are getting cheap. Power for the price. But you want a "decent" processor and a good battery? Find her an old Thinkpad. Anything less than 3 (hell, 4) years old will get the job done just swimmingly and you'd might as well save the money if you're not going to be putting that higher-end hardware to the use it deserves.

supabeast

If you get her the Mac, you won’t have to fix her computer every time it gets another dozen malware infections. Put her on a college campus with a Windows box and you’ll spend every family gathering cleaning off adware, spyware, and whatever other stuff is going around in the Windows world.

Gdiguy

Silvoculous wrote: »

squirly wrote: »

My brother bought a cheapish (Like $900AUD) Compaq laptop with Vista and it only had 512MB RAM so it was rather horribly slow but after a ~ $40AUD RAM upgrade (2GB) it does everything he wants (Music, Office apps, Diablo2 and other basic games, etc) fine.

My current and only laptop is a 1.6GHz Pentium M with 512MB of memory. It is more than enough for the purposes you just listed, even runs Photoshop CS2 just fine. I can still see why the OP would at the newer offerings from Dell, though, those things are getting cheap. Power for the price. But you want a "decent" processor and a good battery? Find her an old Thinkpad. Anything less than 3 (hell, 4) years old will get the job done just swimmingly and you'd might as well save the money if you're not going to be putting that higher-end hardware to the use it deserves.

Erm, really? Mine chugs a bit with Illustrator CS2 with a 2.0Ghz M and a gig of ram... and that's with XP. I wouldn't really go below 1gb for Vista, but you're right that 2 is probably unnecessary (and 3 is totally unnecessary)

Silvoculous

Gdiguy wrote: »

Erm, really? Mine chugs a bit with Illustrator CS2 with a 2.0Ghz M and a gig of ram... and that's with XP.

I prefer to put 7.0 on it regardless, but yes, it performs acceptably. Not that it has much to do with running (I assume) Firefox, which with 3.0 is more memory-light than ever. Half a gig is fine.