Who Makes The Best College Laptops?

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How do you know what are the best laptops for college? What do college students think the best laptop they have owned is? First is best to look at what type of feature is most important to you. Speaking as a college student, there are a couple of main categories that you want to look at. These include: price, size and portability (convenience), amount of memory and programs it is packaged with, and the type of operating system.

Usually most important for college students, is price. College students don’t have a lot of money to throw around and though a laptop is essential to college life, you cannot sell a limb to get it. The price needs to be low. Most of the time, the best laptop for college students can be found for under $1,000. A laptop is a big investment and a solid laptop usually ranges anywhere from $500-$1000. As a final note on price, the best laptop is one that is one sale. Stores know the season when college students are heading off, and thus give great deals that cater to students. Look for them and you will not regret the savings.

The second most important aspect is the size and portability of a laptop. In general, the smaller the laptop the better it will be for college students. Many times this laptop will go into a backpack, be carried around the shoulder in a pack, or be carried in-hand. College students already have a lot of books, papers, and notebooks to carry around so adding a few extra pounds is never good! Always strive for a laptop that makes an effort to be more portable by weight and size. Screen size also determines the main bulk of the laptop. Usually, while 13” is a little small for some of the fun activities college students do like watching TV, movies or playing games 17” is too large to carry. Thus, 15” is usually the perfect middle ground.

The third most important aspect is the amount of memory and programs a laptop is packaged with. These I will combine to form “packaged features”. Memory is always important for a college student to store their documents and anything else they may need later on their laptop. A good laptop has at least 250GB of memory on the hard drive. This will help college students store everything they may need. Regarding programs, it is always best to look for a laptop packaged with Microsoft office. Most importantly, Microsoft word, excel, and powerpoint. These are the programs are the most common ones college student will use.

The last deciding factor is operating system. Namely, Macintosh or Windows. The trend has lately been to go for the more hip Macintosh that is more user-friendly. However, many students may need to use programs in classes that run on Windows only. It is best for students majoring in technical things like engineering and computer science to go for a Windows computer. Ultimately, it is up to the customer to weight the individual criteria listed above. For some people, one aspect may be much more important than another. If one sticks out, make that one the most important and look for one that meets all the other criteria but excels in that specific category.

The top 5 laptops that meet much of these criteria are:

1. Sony Vaio EA Series $599.99 640GB hard drive 14.2” screen, 5.2 pounds Windows 7 Professional

2. MacBook $999.00 250 GB hard drive 13” screen, 1.08” thick and 4.7 pounds Macintosh operating system.

3.Dell XPS 15 $799.99 500GB hard drive 15.6” screen, 6.1 pounds Windows 7 Home Premium

4. Toshiba A215-S4807 $779 160GB hard drive 15.4” screen, 6.3 pounds Windows XP

5. Samsung R780 $849 500GB hard drive 17.3” screen, 6.4 pounds Windows 7 Home Premium

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Inexpensive Laptops For College

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There are many things to consider when looking for the best laptops for college. One of the main things to consider is your budget. There are many laptops out there for those who are looking for the cheapest laptop that will get them by. There are also many people out there who are willing to spend much more to get all of the extras.

When sorting through the many options available, you will find that there are many different sizes to choose from. There are netbooks that have 10.1” screens. This may be convenient to carry around, but the keyboards are typically much smaller and may make typing more difficult for those who are used to typing on a regular keyboard. You can also choose the other extreme and purchase a laptop with a screen that is 18.4”. This may be good for watching movies and playing video games, but having a laptop that big will be difficult to carry around. Choosing a laptop in the middle of the size range may be the best option for you. Top college laptops with a screen size of 14” or 15.6” tend to give you the best of both worlds. You still get the portability that you do with a smaller laptop, but you get a decent size screen to go along with it.

If you are looking for the cheapest thing to get you buy, you may beinterested in a 10” Coby NBPC1023XP. This has an N480 processor, 1GB of memory, and a 160GB hard drive. This netbook is meant for those on a very limited budget, who are looking for the bare minimum to get them by. You can get this netbook for around $250.00.

Another option for those on a budget is the 15.6” HP G56-129WM. This laptop will run you approximately $375.00, but is worth the extra money if you can afford it. This comes with an Intel Celeron 900 processor. It also has 3GB of memory and a 250GB hard drive.

For $450.00, you can get an Acer Aspire A55736Z-4016. This has an Intel Pentium Processor T4500. It also comes with 4GB of memory and a 320GB hard drive. This also has a 15.6” screen. This would be my pick for the best laptop for college students.

If you are looking to spend a little more money, you can choose a Toshiba Satellite. The L655-S5100 has a 15.6” screen. It comes with an Intel Pentium P6100 Processor, 4GB of memory, and a 500GB hard drive. The Toshiba Satellite Helios L655D-S5110WH comes with the AMD Phenom II Quad Core P940 Processor. It has 4 GB of memory and a 500 GB hardrive.

When buying a laptop, there are many additional things you can add on. You can add features for gaming, music, and music. These features aren’t a must, but would be appreciated by most college students. So when you are out looking for a new laptop for college, just remember to use every penny of your budget wisely. Choose the features that are best for you and your needs.

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Five Of The Best College Laptops For 2010

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Finding the best college laptop while preparing for the new, exciting experience of undergraduate education is, nowadays, a very important task for any student. More and more, mobile computing has become a staple, if not a requirement, of higher education. Selecting a laptop that will meet the student’s needs for portability, ease of use, power, and features is imperative. This article will showcase five of the best college laptops currently available.

Best value laptops: At rank five on our list is the Dell Inspiron 17R. The Inspiron 17R gives quite a bang-for-your-buck at only $499 for the base model. It comes stock with a powerful Intel Core processor, which can be upgraded to a Pentium Dual Core for additional horsepower. A pre-loaded copy of Windows 7 Home Basic or Premium allows for usefulness for years to come. The screen is 17″, but don’t be misled- it is only 17″ wide, not the traditional 17″ diagonal measurement seen in most laptops. It therefore has a squatter, wider profile when open. It is recommended thus to try this out in a store or display area before choosing it. Still, a strong choice.

Next is the HP G62x, an inexpensive standard laptop from Hewlett-Packard, an industry standard name. Only slightly more expensive than the Dell Inspiron 17R, this model boasts a 16:9 widescreen display, which is more standard and expected. HP is currently running a nice sale providing a few free upgrades with your purchase of a G62x, including nearly doubling the on-board RAM free of charge, making this a powerful deal.

The HP Pavillion dv6 is a very powerful media laptop, packed with an AMD Quad-core processor for intensive computer work. The added power gives this machine the ability to run many programs at once. It also has the option of including a DVD-burner/Blu-ray-reader with LightScribe technology, which can be very useful to a college student with many files to backup. The dv6 is more expensive, at $749, but the extra performance justifies the cost in this case.

The Apple MacBook – the quintessential college laptop – weighs in at number two on our list. Apple has a reputation for providing powerful computers which function flawlessly, often with more stability than traditional PC-based computers. However, Apple is also notorious for their high-priced products, which is precisely what knocks the MacBook out of contention for first on our list. At over one thousand clams, it may be out of the budget for many college-goers. There are discounts available for college students through the Apple Store, but this reviewer felt that $40 off of a $1,200 computer was lackluster at best. When choosing a Mac, however, keep in mind that the majority of computer infrastructures at most colleges are PC-based, so incompatibilities may become a problem later.

Top college laptops: Our grand champion college laptop is the HP dv7. The next model up from the above-discussed dv6, the dv7 is an even more powerful machine for a marginally higher price. The key feature of this laptop is its longevity. It is designed primarily as a “desktop replacement” – that is, it has all the power of a desktop on a mobile platform. While this is never entirely true, this machine does have the chops to perform well for years to come. Its powerful 64-bit processor, 6GB of RAM, 750GB hard disk drive, integrated ATi Radeon graphics, and more are perhaps overpowered for today’s applications. This means that as software becomes more computer-intensive over the next decade, the HP dv7 will still be slugging it out with the best of them. Added HP features such as ProtectSmart, Lojack, and TrueVision-webcam are more than enough to make this a unanimous choice for the best college laptop of December 2010.

In closing, the selection of a laptop for college purposes is an important task. Affirming a wise choice now will allow for years of use without the need of replacement or augmentation. This list is a good place to begin, but the true decision of what laptop to select lies with the student and his or her individual requirements, desires, and financial ability.

This post continues our Best College Laptops 2010 series.

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