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Walk around any college campus today, and you will see that many of the students have laptops. You might also notice that most of them seem to be made by either Apple or Dell. But just which are the best laptops for college use?
Apple laptops are certainly popular. But what do they offer? Apple have three different laptop lines: the MacBook, the MacBook Pro, and the MacBook Air, with standard prices from $999, $1199, and $999, respectively. However, college students can take advantage of the generous discounts available from Apple’s Education Store, so you needn’t pay as much as this.
The MacBook comes in only one model. It is white, has a 13.3″ display, 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo processor, 2GB RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and up to 10 hours of battery life, all weighing in at 4.7 pounds. It is the best laptop computer for college students who just have to have an Apple, but are on a limited budget.
The MacBook Pro comes in six variations. All are made from sleek metal. The displays vary between 13.3″ and 17″, the processor between 2.4GHz and 2.66GHz, RAM is 4GB, the hard drive is between 250GB and 500GB, and battery life is up to 10 hours, and the weight is as little as 4.5 pounds up to 6.6 pounds for a 17″ model. Prices range from $1199 to over $2000. The MacBook Pro offers the college student the ultimate portable Apple experience, with the most options, but with prices to match.
The MacBook Air wins among the Apples when it comes to portability. It is super thin and weighs no more than 2.9 pounds. It comes in four versions. The display is 11.6″ or 13.3″, the processor is a 1.4GHz or 1.86GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, RAM is 2GB, instead of a hard drive there is 64GB, 128GB or 256GB of flash-based storage, and battery life is up to 5 hours of doing typical college work. Prices range from $999 up to $1599. The specifications are quite a bit lower than the similarly priced MacBook and MacBook Pro models. However, they are more than sufficient for the typical college work of word processing, emailing, and browsing the web. Where the MacBook Air really wins is in being so small and light, leaving the college student with plenty of spare carrying capacity for all those heavy textbooks.
For the college student on a real budget, Dell laptops are an excellent choice. The Inspiron 15 costs as little as $399, yet is a very capable model. You can stand out on campus by selecting a blue or a pink color. The base model has a competent Intel Celeron 2.20GHz processor, 2GB RAM, a 250GB hard drive, and a 15″ display. All in all, a solid choice for the student wishing to make her money go as far as possible.
Alternatively, if you want something small, highly portable, and even cheaper — though with lower specifications — the Inspiron Mini 10 Netbook is an excellent choice. Costing as little as $299, and weighing as little as 2.66 pounds, it is light on your wallet and light in your bookbag. It has a lowly, but energy efficient Intel Atom 1.66GHz processor, 1GB of RAM, and a hard drive of up to 160GB. Despite being the least capable laptop discussed here, it is the cheapest and lightest, and works well for carrying around campus, taking notes in lectures, and keeping up with emails and the web.
Note that all five of the laptop lines we’ve covered allow you to connect to your college’s wifi networks out of the box. No matter your budget and needs as a student, there is a laptop model to suit you. Even if you want to show off with a fashionable Apple, reasonably priced models are available. If you want the very best, Apple also has the model for you. And if you want the best value for money, check out Dell’s offerings.
This post continues our Best College Laptops 2010 series.
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Laptops have been growing in popularity over the past few years, with sales that can exceed desktop computers. While laptops were once less powerful than a typical home computer, most now have full-capabilities, with internet access, security features, and the memory capacity to run standard programs. Many laptops also boast DVD-R drives, making them portable entertainment centers as well. With all of the convenience and mobility that laptops offer, it’s not surprising to see how commonplace they have become.
Though the decision to buy a laptop may be easy, deciding which brand and where to buy the laptop is a different matter. HP, or Hewlett-Packard, is one of the leading brands in laptops, with a focus on user-friendly, yet powerful computers.
Their top-selling models include the HP Pavilion Entertainment Laptop, the compact HP ProBook Notebook, the HP EliteBook Tablet PC with swiveling screen, and the HP Business Notebook. Each model is tailored to suit a variety of needs, from move-watching to mobile business applications. While HP laptops can range in capabilities, they also range widely in price.
The best place to start shopping is to find a reputable merchant with laptops on sale. The first instinct when shopping for a particular brand of laptop is to go directly to the manufacturer, which can wind up as complicated as it is costly. Most “big box” stores can offer more competitive pricing on laptops, and nearly all will offer HP laptops on sale. Savvy consumers can also shop online for deals, with many websites specializing solely in computer merchandise or on overstocked models.
Refurbished computers are another underappreciated source of inexpensive laptops. Many merchants will sell popular HP laptop models that have been previously owned, but completely overhauled back to their original factory conditions. When researching different HP laptops, have a good idea of what the laptop will primarily be used for. While it may be tempting to purchase a more inexpensive model, the laptop may be lacking desirable features that will later be more costly to add.
Alternatively, some upgrades may be more inexpensive to purchase and install separately. Advanced video or sound cards and additional memory can be cheaply purchased alone and installed by most novice users. Realistically assess the difficulty of self-installation versus the cost of the manufacturer’s upgrades to find the best solution. Keep in mind that many adjustments can void the laptop’s warranty, adding to costs in case of future problems.
Though laptops have become as powerful as desktop computers, they need not be as expensive. With a little research before buying, it’s simple to find the perfect HP laptop for the latest applications with the smallest budget. Always compare merchants and never be afraid to ask for price-matching when a better deal is available. One great price is all it takes to make shopping for a laptop user-friendly.
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In today’s technology-saturated world, lacking a laptop or even an up-to-date laptop can be a serious disadvantage. This is especially true for students, who represent not only the newer generation that relies upon technology more than ever, but also engage in a plethora of tasks that require specialized tools found most conveniently packaged in a laptop. Another boon for possessing a college laptop is its usefulness in taking class notes because it enables students to transcribe their professors’ points more quickly than the traditional pen and paper. However, the problem would be acquiring the laptop, especially when many college students are so cash-strapped due to increasing tuition costs and other fees. Luckily, there are many strategies for saving money when purchasing the best laptop for college students.
College students can decrease their expenditures by doing research, taking a class on information technology, and improving upon a lower quality laptop. Doing a little bit of research will go a long way toward helping college students save money on laptop computers. This includes getting a feel for the different styles and models available.
One of the most crucial questions many laptop-shoppers ask is whether to acquire a Microsoft Windows or Apple Mac book laptop. They can settle such issues through familiarity with the different types of laptops, and that often comes through paying attention to friends’ and acquaintances’ computers, as well as asking them questions about their likes and dislikes. Additionally, most college students have easy access to some of the top computer-experts in the world in their schools’ engineering and computer science departments.
These people, who undoubtedly have deep knowledge of different computer systems, would provide valuable assistance as well. Through people with better or worse laptop systems, college students can obtain information about laptops, which forms a necessary component of saving money when purchasing. Also, through this process of asking different people about laptops, potential laptop-buyers can gain critical insights into bargains that other people obtained, as well as good deals they have seen. This would serve as an addendum to ads and coupons the student personally found. These savings and sales can save laptop buyers a considerable chunk of change.
Secondly, taking a class on information technology can prove to be invaluable to anyone purchasing a laptop computer. The fact is that most college students today consider themselves quite tech-savvy because of their ability to operate a wide range of different technological systems. However, when it comes to understanding the details and underlying workings of these systems, many are lost. Yet, these seemingly superfluous details can be some of the most crucial when purchasing computers because they inform the customer of exactly what is needed.
Instead of spending a great deal of time puzzling through laptop specification and potentially making mistakes by buying laptops that contain unnecessary components or lack essential ones, knowledge of these details would solve the problem. A class need not be a formal lecture class, even though enrolling in a class with a group of other students often times is the most effective way to learn; listening to free lectures posted online or working through a textbook would suffice. Whatever way students choose to take their information technology class, the knowledge they acquire from the more general such an understanding of RAM and operating systems, to the more specific, such as the number of cores for the processor or the dots per inch for the LCD screen, will help them know what they want and need. The macbook/”>best laptops for college students will depend on the particular student, and taking a class will enable them to determine exactly what that best laptop should contain. By knowing what they need in a laptop, students will save both time and money from going to gadgets they do not need.
Lastly, a somewhat strategic method for keeping laptop costs down that students can employ is to purchase cheaper laptop computers and upgrade some of the lower-quality components in it. The knowledge from the information technology class comes in handy here because college students need to know which components cost more money and time, and are incredibly difficult to install, and which components are relatively cheap and easy to replace. For example, if students want more temporary storage, they can save the cost of purchasing a laptop with a great deal of RAM, and instead buy individual RAM chips for a much cheaper price and add them to their system themselves.
Also, students can buy laptops with lower-quality sound and video cards. In many cases, they will be sufficient for their purposes, and they will have saved money; and if it turns out that these lower-quality sound and video cards are bothersome, students can buy high-quality ones and install them for a cheaper price than wasting money purchasing expensive laptop computer with high-quality cards already built-in. Thus, it is evident that college students can decrease their expenditures by doing research, taking a class on information technology, and improving upon a lower quality laptop.
By going through this process, students not only invest in their bank accounts, but also in their futures. The time and energy put into learning about laptops, finding good deals, and doing some self-installation work benefit the student greatly because they provide the student with a deeper understanding of computer systems. As computers are such an integral part of society today and increasing in importance in many parts of the world, that understanding is good knowledge to have.
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