Best student laptop?!

I'm starting college in the fall, so now I'm in the market for a laptop.
However, there are obviously a LOT of choices, so I'm looking for opinions.
I know Macs are probably better, but I've had PCs all my life & I'm completely familiar with them, so I'm not looking to switch to a Mac now.
I think I want one by HP since I'm in my sixth year with my HP desktop & it hasn't let me down.
I also am a huge sucker for any cool features or gadgets.

So, what does everyone suggest laptop-wise for a new college student?

Price Vs specs you would be hard to go past a dell machine that you can customise to your requirements. 

But i'm not in the US so things might be different over there!

my dell laptop has been working very hard for two and a half years and has given me no problems.  my two dell desktops have been great, too (i sold the first; the second is still solid after about five years).

i think any of the name brands are well backed.  my best advice is to avoid retailers who overload machines with trial software, because that stuff is a pain.  i also suggest that you get ms home & student office.  i don't have it, but i'm going to have to break down and buy it so i can create powerpoints.

I'm not a huge fan of Macs because I find them to be way too expensive and a pain in the ass if they ever need any servicing. Have fun at the "smart bar" waiting with 50 other people for the privilege of spending 3 minutes with some guy.

I just bought a new computer a couple of months ago. After a bunch of research I got a Vostro from the small business section of Dell. It's cheaper than the Inspiron and has better standard features like a better video card and better processor. Since it's marketed to small businesses, it's not fancy and pretty but it's awesome. I found it to be the most bang for my buck!

If you need to go cheaper, check out their refurb section at www.dell.com/outlet for some good deal

I went with the Dell XPS and I love it. The only drawback is that it comes with Vista with no option for XP. I also have a few networking problems too because I have a static IP at home but a dynamic IP at school so I have to switch back and forth, but aside from that, it's good looking, it's fast, and it's all good.

wow.  i can't believe nobody has showed up to say "dell sucks ass" yet.

I'll take up the "delll sucks ass" cause.   Dell sucks ass.  My last two computers were dells.  They both sucked, crashed all the time, hardware broke, ect.  You get what you pay for.  I'm now a proud (and yes, snooty) Mac owner and I'll never go back.  OK, maybe you can't get service from any computer place, but that doesn't really matter, because I've never needed service of any kind.  Everything on my Mac has worked like a champ, and there were lots of unexpected extra features that I didn't know about.  I love my computer.  I never said anything close to that sentence until I owned a mac.  

I know it seems like the systems are really different, but really it only took a few days to adjust to the new system.  If I only had enough money for a Dell, I'd buy a refurbished mac.  

apple apple apple.  I just got my first and I am in love.  I started Law School with a toshiba, and then the hard drive CRASHED, so I got a Gateway.  A year to the day that I bought it, the motherboard crashed.  So now I have an apple.  No problems yet, but the company is awesome.  When I bought it, one of the keys stuck, so I took it back and without a question asked, they GAVE ME A NEW ONE!  BOX sealed and everything!  It was amazing!

dells suck ass...every job i've had where i had to use a dell, it's been a piece of crap.

macs kick ass.  i'm on my third year with this powerbook...not a single problem with it, and i expect to get at least 2 more years out of it.  plus, the software for design work is ten times better for apples.

Another Mac fan here!! I had two Compaq laptops that sucked & two dell ones that sucked (one of their screens actually turned purple after i played a movie in it. I think mac is worth the price bc i have never had any problems whatsoever!! With either laptop or desktop. Oh, and IF you need servicing you are supposed to make an appointment at the mac store to bring it in...

My husband is a total Mac whore. We have this fight all the time. He's a software developer so I'll assume he knows at least something about computers. Anyway, I've seen him have more problems with his five billion dollar Macbook Pro than I have ever had with any of my sub-$1000 Windows machines.

Here's another option. I recently bought a little known brand called MSI (Microstar international). They make mother boards and this is their own brand of laptop. Mine is a 12 inch super cute pink lil baby, with 2 gig ram and a 120 HD. The only downside is that the processor is an AMD instead of an Intel core duo 2, but seeing as i dont game or use big processor greedy app's this makes little difference to me.

here's a LINK Mine is the one at the very bottom. :)

Oh yeah, the reason i got it was coz it had everything i wanted and was super cheap! :-D No problems or issues with it as of yet :)

ooh - i like the green one ;-)

I was looking for a laptop a couple months ago and ended up getting the Lenovo Ideapad - It was on sale so I got it at a pretty good price. It looks good and had the specs I wanted, plus the sound on it is great (most laptops sound terrible). If you want features, I almost got the Acer Aspire 5920, seems to have a lot of stuff to it.

I've had my dell for about a year now and it's SO durable. It runs great (I have XP). I love it. I've had to use macs all year at school and they are SERIOUSLY not worth it... they crash/don't work just about the same as pcs, but they also have a lot of compatibility problems with popular programs. for general browsing/personal use/academic use...I'd say Dell.

i've had personal issues with hp (3 laptops in my family just stopped working or fell apart soon after purchase) so I won't buy from them anymore..but you will find people having a few bad experiences with every brand

I say get a Macbook. Now is a good time to switch and you'll be happy you did. You'll never go back.

Original Post by vicereine:

I was looking for a laptop a couple months ago and ended up getting the Lenovo Ideapad - It was on sale so I got it at a pretty good price. It looks good and had the specs I wanted, plus the sound on it is great (most laptops sound terrible). If you want features, I almost got the Acer Aspire 5920, seems to have a lot of stuff to it.

Ugh, good thing you didn't go with Acer!

 

and simwaves that's not true. I have a house full of Macbooks and I'm still here living it up with my vostro.

I love my work laptop - a Toshiba Satellite.  The only downside to it is that it's a bit big for my liking... probably about 13 inches long x 11 inches wide.  Otherwise it's great - very fast, very reliable, never gets any weird bugs (of course, that's probably due in part to it's fabulous user - jk!).  I got it for about $700 on newegg.com (I think!).

If I were you I wouldn't get a Mac - I have never really used one so this is purely hearsay, but at my school a lot of the programs used are not Mac compatible.  I'd imagine that'd be a bit frustrating for the student.

A lot of things aren't Mac compatible but Mac users will continually blame the horrid Windows users for this.

Original Post by spirochete:

Original Post by vicereine:

I was looking for a laptop a couple months ago and ended up getting the Lenovo Ideapad - It was on sale so I got it at a pretty good price. It looks good and had the specs I wanted, plus the sound on it is great (most laptops sound terrible). If you want features, I almost got the Acer Aspire 5920, seems to have a lot of stuff to it.

Ugh, good thing you didn't go with Acer!

 

and simwaves that's not true. I have a house full of Macbooks and I'm still here living it up with my vostro.

Why? I had the impression Acer was crap (I guess because of the price) but my computer-wiz friend says he likes Acer (he's in love with his Acer Ferrari LCD)...and the reviews seemed pretty good on the 5920.

Macs and PC's are like apples and oranges (geddit?) - the Mac's are beautifully designed, the OS is built on UNIX so it runs faster and is better overall. Windows combats it's OS design flaws by throwing hardware at it and so right now they are pretty much even wrt performance.

The flip side is Apple have a stranglehold on what programs you can use and refuse to release that control. If you're ok with that then it's the computer for you as they are stable, sturdy and rarely crash. Unfortunately though, their developers are fascist dictators when it comes to modifying their product.

I, however, like a little more freedom than that, and I've been a PC user my whole life so I am very used to little details like the 3 button mouse and being able to use any program I want, whenever I want. Windows offers that. If Vista had actually been a true redesign of the OS it would have been better, but I'll deal with that simply for my freedom.

P.S. Dells don't suck. HP's suck. I spent a very long time researching what laptop to get and performance-wise for the size and price you can't beat the XPS.