Best College Laptops

How To Choose The Best College Laptops

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Being in college is tough; I’ve done it, and I remember the years of living off of Ramen noodles trying to keep my bank account out of the red. Being able to go off and find a solid, high performance laptop while you’re in college is almost an impossibility. That said, you don’t always have to suffer. You can still find great deals on laptops that will get you through all of your school work, and yes, even play a few games! Today we’re going to go through a couple of those to give you a good idea of what’s affordable on a college budget.

First of all, you might want to look at factory refurbished laptops before you look at the newer models. The savings on refurbished models are often quite surprising to people who haven’t given any thought to buying reconditioned instead of new. So, let’s get started.

The first laptop that comes highly recommended for college students is the Acer Aspire One AO531H. Acer is a company that specializes in low-cost (but high quality) laptops, specifically for those who may be on a budget. For those looking to do homework or other tasks that don’t require much processing power, this is a great little netbook. It has a 10.1 inch screen, which is just about the right size when you need to haul this computer back and forth from your dorm room to your classes. It’ll easily fit in a backpack, so that’s not a worry at all. Even better is that it only weighs 2.5 pounds, which is considerably less than most laptops. You can snicker at all the people lugging around their huge 17 inch laptops!

This Acer has a very respectable 1.60 GHz Intel Atom processor and 1 GB of RAM, making it plenty powerful enough for just about every application you’d ever need. High end games might be a bit of an issue, but remember that we’re talking about keeping you on a budget! This laptop also boasts a very nice 160 GB worth of hard drive space, which is better than most laptops its size. How much does the Aspire One cost? A bit less than $300 refurbished, and just under $400 brand new. Either way, it’s a steal!

Speaking of the best college laptops, you’ll love this next one: The HP Pavilion DV7-1464NR is really a performance laptop with a small price tag. This thing will play all of your games and more; it even includes a Blu-Ray player standard. It has a 17.0 inch screen with a 1440 x 900 resolution, 4 GB of DDR2 RAM straight from the factory (expandable up to 8 GB!), and a 500 GB hard drive. It also has a 2.2 GHz AMD Dual-Core processor, making it one of the more powerful laptops on the market. How much is this going to run you? About $700 refurbished. If you want to go new you’ll pay about $1300 out the door, so I highly recommend the former. $700 is still a fair amount of money for a college student, but if you can get your family to help you out you’ll be all set!

Thanks for reading, everyone! I certainly hope that this post has given you a head start on choosing one of the best college laptops available to you today.

Brent is the author of http://www.refurbishedlaptopsguide.com.

Best College Laptop: Dell Inspiron

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Starting college? You’ve got the new sheets and towels. You’ve got the sturdy walking shoes. You’ve got the mini-fridge. Now you need to find the best college laptops. Might as well just start at Dell.com. They make some of the best laptops for college students.

You won’t go wrong with a Dell Inspiron if you’re looking for good college laptops. The Inspiron 15 has plenty of power, with Intel Core2 Duo processors. At 2.0GHz, it will keep up with your term papers, music files and editing the video of last week’s party. And storage space won’t be a problem with a 320GB SATA Hard drive. (Your parents were lucky to have 100 Mb on their first computer!) No problem toting your computer to class to take notes and surf for tidbits to impress the professor. The Inspiron has an 8 cell battery with up to 8 hours of power. It could be the best laptop for college students.

The built-in WiFi lets you access the Wi-fi your campus provides. (Not to mention your Starbuck’s, your McDonald’s, your Barnes and Noble…) Burning your own CDs and DVDs is a snap with the 8X burner. And watching DVDs on the gorgeous, slick, wide, glossy 15.6 inch HD screen (with a 16:9 aspect ratio!) puts you in your own personal theater. Pop in some headphones and it’s movie time without bugging the roommate. (Add the optional Blu Ray for eye-popping video.)

Keep worms and viruses and nasty Trojan horses at bay with the included subscription to McAfee SecurityCenter; 15 months, yes over a year, of worry free virus protection! No shortage of places to plug in your USB dancing hula girl, or the external monitor, or the microphone. The 7-in-1 media card reader lets you pop in the card from your camera so you can share those game pictures before the hand-stamp wears off.

Of course, Mom will need to know that you AREN’T wasting away, and you HAVEN’T gotten your nose pierced. The integrated 1.3megapixel webcam lets you send her regular updates on your hair color, or chat with Skype. You’ll want to see what she’s done with your room, now that it’s the new “media center.” And although Mom may tell you looks aren’t everything, your laptop CAN say something about you! Choose cool glossy black for a sophisticated outer shell. Or not. The Inspiron comes in 8 eye-catching colors. Or personalize your new machine with over 200 artist designs, from your favorite MLB team to fractals. And what Mom loves the most? (Besides you.) The Inspiron is a great machine at a great price that will keep up with you as you jump into the college experience. Dell is the way to go.