Is this a good college laptop?

[shawn3090]

Basically I'm going to buy a laptop for the next 5+ years and wondering if this is a good idea:

 

http://www.samsclub.com/sams/shop/product.jsp?productId=prod1070388&navAction=push

 

The main reason I like it is the large amount of memory and fast processor probably needed in the future, along with the 2 hdds so if one crashes the other still works. However, I am a bit concerned about the battery and the graphics card (only 500mb dedicated). Is this a good idea or not?

[Hegelstad]

Thats fine, but i would still recommend an Asus computer over an HP one ;-)

[dsavi]

My dad has a slightly smaller version of this laptop, with a smaller HDD and possibly a slightly slower processor; To be honest it's not all that great (Especially battery life). It also comes with a lot of junk that HP installs, and in Linux anyway I have had minor problems with scrolling with the touchpad (Haven't used it with Windows that much). I can't really recommend a certain laptop to you, but trust me there is certainly a better deal than this one.

[stevepole]

I'm sure that laptop isn't built to last 5+ years but any laptop is good college as long as you can get access to the internet and a word program.

[Sudn_Death]

Looking for a "Laptop" that will last you 5+ Years is a tough task, I don't have any recommendations but I can give you some tips?

 

When you make a decision on a laptop look up a "few" reviews on it just to see what the majority of reviewers think about it instead of just getting one opinion.

Take a Good look at warranty, most laptops are not built tough.. so try and go to a store that sells the one you want to get and idea of the strength of the thing.. check keys and other weak spots that tend to snap off or get lost.

 

I would personally buy a Desktop and have a notebook for work/school, taking down notes doesn't require too much processing power.. I guess it really depends on what you are doing you could be designing games for all I know lol.

 

But yeah, you could build a pretty cheap home desktop one that can play games and you could back you're notebook up onto it when you come home, it would also be more comfortable to work on if doing assignments or whatever it is you're doing.

 

Good luck.

[shawn3090]

I've had the current desktop for about 10 years now (came with 2000, put XP on it) and its slow as a [bleep]. If "lasting" 5 years means working perfectly smooth then thats fine by me. I want to be able to simply use it.

[Sbrideau]

My brother bought a very similar model, just a much faster processor (Well, ~3GHz i7), 4GB of RAM and not 6, much better graphics since the one in that laptop, I don't think it will do for many games, so you will probably need to keep games on low details), only one hard drive, but that's ok.

 

It really seems like a good laptop, although you do have to either reinstall Windows off the bat or unintstall all that junk, but after that's done, that's one hell of a fast laptop and works very good. Battery life is good too, as far as I've seen, my brother seemed to be using it on the battery a lot.

 

HP really is a good brand nowadays.

 

I would still recommend Asus though, you pay a little bit more, but it's well worth it.

[shawn3090]

Yes I know hp is a good brand. I'd have no problem with those killer envy things (18 hour battery, please?) Except for that stupid hp clickpad. I tried it in a store and it could move the mouse with the click buttons which is ridiculous. That's why I chose one of the older models.

[shawn3090]

I seem to have found a good ASUS model:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220746

 

How would it do? The USB 3.0 looks like it will help in the future, and NVIDIA Optimus should save the battery. The battery life seems to be only 2 hours but I hope ASUS gets around to making a 9-cell battery for it (currently 6-cell).

 

Also, can anyone find the right click on this thing?

[Sinkhan]

I seem to have found a good ASUS model:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220746

 

How would it do? The USB 3.0 looks like it will help in the future, and NVIDIA Optimus should save the battery. The battery life seems to be only 2 hours but I hope ASUS gets around to making a 9-cell battery for it (currently 6-cell).

 

Also, can anyone find the right click on this thing?

 

USB 3.0 is totally unnecessary. Usually it's the hardware itself that's the bottleneck for performance, not the interface. Even the top of the line WD Raptor drives or SSDs can't make use of the capabilities of SATAII, and SATA has been around for the better part of a decade. I'd say USB will become relevant in about 5 years, but even then USB 2.0 will still be fine.

 

Can't say anything on nVidia Optimus, but I'd advise against getting a 9-cell even if they do come out. If you've ever seen one, they're unsightly and bulky. Some people like it since it acts like a sort of elevating bar for angling your computer, but I think it just gets in the way when I'm on the go. Often just adjusting your power options (throttling CPU usage to ~75%, select maximize battery life option for video card, etc) will give you a lot more usage. My own laptop goes from 1-2 hours on full load playing stuff like CoD and ACII (just did that as a test) to around ~5 hours when I set everything to low.

[OldJoe]

I seem to have found a good ASUS model:

 

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220746

 

How would it do? The USB 3.0 looks like it will help in the future, and NVIDIA Optimus should save the battery. The battery life seems to be only 2 hours but I hope ASUS gets around to making a 9-cell battery for it (currently 6-cell).

 

Also, can anyone find the right click on this thing?

 

USB 3.0 is totally unnecessary. Usually it's the hardware itself that's the bottleneck for performance, not the interface. Even the top of the line WD Raptor drives or SSDs can't make use of the capabilities of SATAII, and SATA has been around for the better part of a decade. I'd say USB will become relevant in about 5 years, but even then USB 2.0 will still be fine.

 

Can't say anything on nVidia Optimus, but I'd advise against getting a 9-cell even if they do come out. If you've ever seen one, they're unsightly and bulky. Some people like it since it acts like a sort of elevating bar for angling your computer, but I think it just gets in the way when I'm on the go. Often just adjusting your power options (throttling CPU usage to ~75%, select maximize battery life option for video card, etc) will give you a lot more usage. My own laptop goes from 1-2 hours on full load playing stuff like CoD and ACII (just did that as a test) to around ~5 hours when I set everything to low.

 

Lol. USB 3.0 is great, i so look forward to using it on my next motherboard.

USB 2.0 is slow, and USB will never be the optimal interface since it always needs to be a converted signal. Continue to develop esata would be best.

[shawn3090]

select maximize battery life option for video card

You don't need to do that with Optimus. Basically the laptop comes with the Geforce card and integrated graphics. When the driver detects that the graphics card is necessary, it turns it on and smoothly switches the display. This way, the battery can be saved while not playing games/watching videos.

[Sinkhan]

select maximize battery life option for video card

You don't need to do that with Optimus. Basically the laptop comes with the Geforce card and integrated graphics. When the driver detects that the graphics card is necessary, it turns it on and smoothly switches the display. This way, the battery can be saved while not playing games/watching videos.

 

Hmm, I guess I'll have to look into Optimus more before I make any more judgments, but I'd think that even if it switched to the integrated card you could still improve battery life by specifically setting it that way. The integrated card will use less power overall than the external one, but you can still throttle it to save even more power. Unless of course Optimus does that for you already. That would be cool.

 

And I still stand by my point for USB 2.0 being all you really need. What do you really need the USB port for that requires high data transfer rates? Flash drives and maybe external hard drives. In both those cases the hardware itself and not the interface is often the limiting factor in transfer.

[Laura]

Eh, it works that way in theory at least. There have been a few criticisms as far as how well it works. It doesn't really detect when the GPU is being taxed. Nvidia just preselects programs and puts them on a list to determine if either the IGP or the GPU should be used. However, this doesn't always work well, as the IGP can be pushed to the limit, but it is unable to switch to the GPU because Nvidia does not have that specific program linked to the "GPU list."

 

But perhaps it's gotten better since I last heard about it.

[OldJoe]

select maximize battery life option for video card

You don't need to do that with Optimus. Basically the laptop comes with the Geforce card and integrated graphics. When the driver detects that the graphics card is necessary, it turns it on and smoothly switches the display. This way, the battery can be saved while not playing games/watching videos.

 

Hmm, I guess I'll have to look into Optimus more before I make any more judgments, but I'd think that even if it switched to the integrated card you could still improve battery life by specifically setting it that way. The integrated card will use less power overall than the external one, but you can still throttle it to save even more power. Unless of course Optimus does that for you already. That would be cool.

 

And I still stand by my point for USB 2.0 being all you really need. What do you really need the USB port for that requires high data transfer rates? Flash drives and maybe external hard drives. In both those cases the hardware itself and not the interface is often the limiting factor in transfer.

 

Because you want to save time, it takes too long time to transfer big files with usb 2.0. And uhm no, please go and read up a bit about usb/transferring. USB is the limiting factor when you are transferring a file, which is why everyone is happy that usb 3.0 is coming along.

[jasignhagj]

E-sata is beautiful, but too big for memory sticks. IIRC, USB 3.0 is about 10x faster than 2.0, and will be the standard in a couple years.

 

Both laptops are good, but i'd go for the ASUS one.

[Sinkhan]

 

Because you want to save time, it takes too long time to transfer big files with usb 2.0. And uhm no, please go and read up a bit about usb/transferring. USB is the limiting factor when you are transferring a file, which is why everyone is happy that usb 3.0 is coming along.

 

Alright, I rescind that argument for now until I find further evidence otherwise. The only article I found that agreed with my stance was from 2008, which is like forever ago. However it was a little mix bag though. Although 2.0 is much closer to 320 Mb/s opposed to the theoretical 480, it's still around 10 MB/s faster than most flash drive transfer rates I managed to find.

[jasignhagj]

True, but that's because the flash drives are made for 2.0 . As 3 becomes standard, flash drive speeds will increase.

[Sinkhan]

I would think that the development of both would have less effect on each other than you would think, but then again at this point, what do I know? :rolleyes:

 

Also if OP is using an external HD, I will have to agree that when eSata rolls out with SATA 6G as a standard, that should be the way to go.

[jasignhagj]

Well there is no point in making a flash drive with a high transfer rate if it won't be utilized.

[Big_Stingman]

Yeah these days it's peripherals that are the bottlenecks, not interfaces. If you want future proof though, get USB 3.0, eSATA if you can, etc.

 

I would also go with an ASUS laptop. Most all of their current laptops are powerful and good deals. :thumbup:

[Sinkhan]

Well there is no point in making a flash drive with a high transfer rate if it won't be utilized.

 

I don't think that's necessarily true. Hardware and software are continually made to be steps ahead of what is currently available to take advantage of them. It just makes less sense to do so for something like a flash drive since it's often more expensive and difficult to improve peripherals and hardware than interfaces and software.

[jasignhagj]

Which was my point. USB 3.0 is more suited to external HDs, usually flash drives are holding documents that open in a second anyways. Using a flashdrive for backup is generally a bad idea because they are prone to corruption.

[shawn3090]

OK I know its late but my I havent actually bought the computer yet so...

 

I managed to find something perfect for my needs: Huge (dual) hard drives, gfx, i5, 2 batteries (6+9 cell)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834157278

 

Does anybody see any flaws with it? I am seriously excited as hell right now :smile: [/sarcasm]

[jasignhagj]

Its good, however HP core i5s run notoriously hot. Also, the Core i5 450m is a dual core, not a quad.