Vicki
I am starting college in the fall, and am looking for a good laptop. Basically I am going to be using it for surfing the internet, research, and Microsoft Office (word documents, power points, etc). I DO NOT plan on using it for games, or videos, or music. I want something that is reliable, and isn't going to break in like a year, but I don't have tons of money to spend either. I also want something portable and easy to carry. Here are the 3 I narrowed it down to:
1. Toshiba Satellite
-14" screen
-i3 Processor, 4Gb memory, 640GB hard drive
-up to 5hrs battery life
-$550
2. Asus
-15.6" screen
-i5 processor, 6GB memory, 640GB hard drive
-up to 9hrs battery
-$630
Which one sounds better for my needs? Which brand is generally more reliable? Thanks!
Answer
For your needs the toshiba would be just fine, obviously the asus is a better processor, but cost wise the toshiba is slightly smaller and is fine.
For your needs the toshiba would be just fine, obviously the asus is a better processor, but cost wise the toshiba is slightly smaller and is fine.
What kind of laptop should I buy?
Maggie May
Firstly, I'm not into Apple products so no Mac. I really like Dell, so any suggestions within Dell? But I'll take other suggestions as well
Here's what I'm looking for:
I'm a college senior so I write LOTS of papers and read lots of scholarly articles and send lots of emails. I need something with a lot of memory and up to date adobe reader and all that junk. Plus a keyboard thats comfortable to type on.
I also want something that holds a lot of pictures and a normal/acceptable of music. I'm big into photography but I don't need any editing systems. Just something that holds lots of pics.
Something thats not too big and clunky, but a teeny tiny laptop is worse.
A lasting battery charge would be nice too.
Any suggestions? I know there might not be something that includes everything I want but I think I listed what I want in order of importance, so yeahh. This is the first computer I'm buying myself so I definitely need help! Haha
Answer
You need to be more specific when you say "lots of memory" - that could mean temporary memory, as in RAM, which helps the computer to run more quickly and smoothly, or hard disk space. I'm guessing since you're new to computer buying and you write a lot of papers, you meant hard disk space. That means upwards of 1 terabyte, or TB, as far as I can guess. Lasting battery charges are incredibly rare, and are generally only found on netbooks, which I think is the "teeny tiny" laptop you refer to. Most laptops give you 3-4 hours. Don't worry about adobe reader, you ca download that for free after you get the laptop.
My suggestion would be the SAMSUNG RF511 15.6" Laptop, which is around £600, I'm not sure about dollars though.
It has an i5 processor which is more than respectable, i7s are faster, but more expensive, i3 is cheaper, but slower. 8GB of DDR3 RAM means it should run smoothly, and I deliberately search for one with a 15" + screen, I know you said you didn't want a bulky one, but having a decent sized screen will make reading those scholarly articles easier, and a 15" laptop will fit into most standard laptop bags, so it's not really bulky. The reason why this laptop is more expensive than some is because I intentionally searched for 1 terabyte of hard disk space or more, and laptops are usually lower in hard disk space than desktop PCs.
My other recommendation is the HP Pavilion G6-1326ea 15.6" Laptop, which is generally about half the price and comes in a variety of colous.
This one has a 1.8GHz dual core AMD processor, and I know nothing about those, but it shouldn't be too bad, especially since you are using this for documents, and not gaming. Again, it's a 15 inch laptop, but with 4GB of RAM, so maybe not as smooth, but again, documents, not gaming, but it has a fairly high screen resolution. The only serious compromise here is the hard disk space, which is 500GB, half as much, however, I have a portable hard drive with that amount of memory that has all of my music and a whole bunch of documents and it's not even close to looking half full eyt.
If I were you, I'd probably go for the HP, partly because it comes in lots of awesome colours, but also because it's a lot cheaper and the performance is probably more than sufficient for what you're using it for anyway ;)
*Oops
Just adding a last note on here, I did another search and for the same price as the HP, you can have a TOSHIBA Satellite C660-1LD 15.6" which has an i3 processor (pretty good), the same amount of RAM, screen size, but with a 640GB hard drive. The reviews seem to be pretty okay, but if you go for this option, be slightly cautious, my toshiba satellite (much earlier model) tended to overheat quite badly sometimes (a side effect of using it on my lap :P) and the battery life degraded somewhat (it now doesn't boot without the charger plugged in, but this can be avoided if you take the charger out when the battery is full, or, if using it for extended periods, detach the battery and use your laptop on a desk with the charger in).
As I said, adobe reader can be downloaded for free, but Microsoft Office cannot. You can use OpenOffice instead, which is slightly slower, but does the same things for free, and you can even get compatibility patches so you can open mcrosoft documents in openoffice.
You need to be more specific when you say "lots of memory" - that could mean temporary memory, as in RAM, which helps the computer to run more quickly and smoothly, or hard disk space. I'm guessing since you're new to computer buying and you write a lot of papers, you meant hard disk space. That means upwards of 1 terabyte, or TB, as far as I can guess. Lasting battery charges are incredibly rare, and are generally only found on netbooks, which I think is the "teeny tiny" laptop you refer to. Most laptops give you 3-4 hours. Don't worry about adobe reader, you ca download that for free after you get the laptop.
My suggestion would be the SAMSUNG RF511 15.6" Laptop, which is around £600, I'm not sure about dollars though.
It has an i5 processor which is more than respectable, i7s are faster, but more expensive, i3 is cheaper, but slower. 8GB of DDR3 RAM means it should run smoothly, and I deliberately search for one with a 15" + screen, I know you said you didn't want a bulky one, but having a decent sized screen will make reading those scholarly articles easier, and a 15" laptop will fit into most standard laptop bags, so it's not really bulky. The reason why this laptop is more expensive than some is because I intentionally searched for 1 terabyte of hard disk space or more, and laptops are usually lower in hard disk space than desktop PCs.
My other recommendation is the HP Pavilion G6-1326ea 15.6" Laptop, which is generally about half the price and comes in a variety of colous.
This one has a 1.8GHz dual core AMD processor, and I know nothing about those, but it shouldn't be too bad, especially since you are using this for documents, and not gaming. Again, it's a 15 inch laptop, but with 4GB of RAM, so maybe not as smooth, but again, documents, not gaming, but it has a fairly high screen resolution. The only serious compromise here is the hard disk space, which is 500GB, half as much, however, I have a portable hard drive with that amount of memory that has all of my music and a whole bunch of documents and it's not even close to looking half full eyt.
If I were you, I'd probably go for the HP, partly because it comes in lots of awesome colours, but also because it's a lot cheaper and the performance is probably more than sufficient for what you're using it for anyway ;)
*Oops
Just adding a last note on here, I did another search and for the same price as the HP, you can have a TOSHIBA Satellite C660-1LD 15.6" which has an i3 processor (pretty good), the same amount of RAM, screen size, but with a 640GB hard drive. The reviews seem to be pretty okay, but if you go for this option, be slightly cautious, my toshiba satellite (much earlier model) tended to overheat quite badly sometimes (a side effect of using it on my lap :P) and the battery life degraded somewhat (it now doesn't boot without the charger plugged in, but this can be avoided if you take the charger out when the battery is full, or, if using it for extended periods, detach the battery and use your laptop on a desk with the charger in).
As I said, adobe reader can be downloaded for free, but Microsoft Office cannot. You can use OpenOffice instead, which is slightly slower, but does the same things for free, and you can even get compatibility patches so you can open mcrosoft documents in openoffice.
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