Best College Laptops

Tips For Choosing The Best College Laptop

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So what exactly is the best laptop for college students? There’s no definite answer. The type of college students vary as much as the types of laptops out there. Raging from high end power laptops from Alienware to cheap netbooks from Asus, there’s a whole spectrum of laptops to choose from.

The first thing that needs to be decided is the size of the laptop. These are usually categorized into three groups: Netbook, Mainstream and Desktop Replacement. The Netbook is the lightest of all the three. It’ ssize varies from as small as a 4.8 inch screen to 10 inches (size is usually determined by the screen). The mainstream’s size usually lies around 10-15.6 inches. The Desktop Replacement is everything above 15.6, sometimes even reaching size of 20 inches! What’s important to note here is that as size increases, power and price increases as well.

The netbook is the barebones laptop category. Slim, lightweight, power efficient and cheap, these machines can do regular, everyday tasks such as surfing the internet, using word processors or watching videos. Models such as Asus EEE, Dell Inspirion Mini and HP Mini are the more common ones. These usually run from $250 to $700

The Mainstream is the most common laptop there is. Powerful enough to run some demanding applications such as Adobe Photoshop yet still light enough to be carried in your backpack. The Macbook series is the most popular college laptop in this category but its price might be too much for some. Compaq is the budget line of HP, and offers extremely good laptops at its price points. These cost around $450-$1200.

The Desktop replacement is the biggest, and most powerful in terms of sheer hardware, there is of the three categories. These are usually bulky, weighing more than five pounds and usually has a 16 inch wide screen .These laptops are usually for people who sometimes need mobility, such as video editors who do on-the-spot editing.

A subcategory of the Desktop Replacement is the Gaming Laptop, as a good number of them lie in this category, usually sporting the best hardware available to run all recent games at maximum graphical settings. These hardhitting laptops could set you back for a good $800 to a whooping $2500!

One you’ve picked from these categories, you might be presented with options to somewhat customize them. Features such as webcams and card readers are almost always present in laptops today. USB slots and the Wifi card are always provided as well. There are, of course, some things that still need to be decided upon. Usually, laptops are equipped with disk-based Hard Drives with storage spaces that run from 120 Gigabytes to a whooping 1 Terrabyte. A general rule is that if one is interested in media and games, one would usually get more space. The option of Solid state Drives (SSD) sometimes also presents itself. These drives are expensive, yet offers the fastest read-write of them all, meaning that you save time when trying to save work or launching applications. The Usual RAM provided averages at 3 Gigabytes. This is fine for most cases, but people who use intensive applications or games might want to invest a little bit more on this.

Another general rule is that more RAM will almost always make your computer faster. So if your laptop is experiencing slowdowns, it might not be a bad idea to purchase more RAM for it. The CPU is the core unit of the laptop. It determines how fast and powerful it is in running applications.

Netbooks are usually equipped with an Intel Atom CPU, as this is one of the most energy efficient CPUs for netbooks today. However, it will experience severe slowdown when running more intensive applications.

Mainstream laptops usually use an Intel Core 2 Duo, i3 or i5 or AMD Athlon or Turion, enough for most applicatons.

Desktop Replacements usually carry an Intel i7 for the most demanding of all applications, though these CPUs are pretty costly. GPUs, or Graphic Processing Units, are usually not needed by laptops as these are seen as powerdrains. Most laptops are equipped with a integrated video card that comes along with the motherboard, or is integrated in the CPU if it uses an Intel i series. However, gamers might want one for their laptops as these integrated video cards could only do so much. Both nVidia and ATI offer mobile versions of most of their GPUs, however these will sometimes never reach the same specifications as their desktop counterpart as these were designed to be as compact as possible.

This should have mostly covered the question “What exactly is the best laptop computer for college students?”. If you’re still unsure as to what to get, the best way to find out is to go to stores and try it out yourself! There’s nothing more convincing than a hands-on demo.

Black Friday And Holiday Shopping!

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The Holiday 2010 shopping season will be fast upon us, with the day after Thanksgiving (Black Friday) sales set to begin shortly. Computers, specifically computers for college students—those returning to school or perhaps starting for the first time after the winter break—will be among the hottest sellers this year. Choosing the best college laptop is not as tough as you might think. In this expert review, we will present the five best laptops for college and explain why one of them should be on your shopping list.

In terms of value, the top selling college laptops fall into two categories, ultra inexpensive netbooks, and deeply discounted notebooks.

Netbooks encompass small computers with screens generally under 11 inches like the Coby 10-inch Netbook PC. What is particularly unique about the Coby is that it is one of few netbooks still shipping new with Windows XP instead of Windows 7. One fantastic benefit of that distinction is that the Coby is about the lowest priced new stock netbook available. It can be had online for under $250, about $20 less than its close rival, Acer.

Acer’s 10.1″ Netbook PC with Intel Atom Processor and Windows 7 Home Starter is another super bargain, selling now for as little as $270. Your choice of which to buy depends to a great degree upon whether you are willing to part with Windows XP and move on to Windows 7.

Before discussing another popular netbook, it is important to know why this review considers netbooks a top choice for the best college laptop. It comes down to space. Many colleges were not built with computers in mind and ample desk space is often scarce.

That is a key reason why the Dell 10.1″ Inspiron Mini Netbook PC is also a fantastic deal. Coming in at just under $350, the larger battery in the Dell makes it superb. With nearly double the power of many netbooks, it is just the thing for when AC power is hard to find.

Before closing this review of the five best college laptops, we need to look at some larger models for those who need a 15-inch screen, the Toshiba 15.6-inch Satellite Laptop PC with AMD V140 Processor and the Toshiba Silver 15.6-inch Satellite Laptop PC with AMD Sempron Processor. The Silver sells for under $380, an outstanding price for a 15.6- inch laptop. The Silver is best suited to students who will have ample access to AC power, as the battery in this model is limited to about 3 hours or less. Compromising slightly on power capacity is one factor that allows Toshiba to offer the Silver at such a bargain price.

In the selection criteria for the five best college laptops, the three most important factors are cost, size, and power capacity. If smaller screens are fine for you, we recommend a netbook with the best battery you can afford. If you need something larger, both of the two Toshiba models receive top marks. Your ultimate decision comes down to battery life.