dell inspiron 640m $549
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?cs=04&kc=65020&oc=bnpcffa&x=0&y=0
http://configure.us.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?cs=04&kc=65020&oc=bnpcffa&x=0&y=0
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
PC Laptop buying recommendations? (No flames. Period.)
- Thread starter ravenvii
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I can't suggest any model, but here are a few thoughts.
1) I graduated in '06, so maybe if your school's IT department is quicker than mine, you will be ok with Vista. But, I imagine that if you have any problems, especially during exams, having something that they are comfortable with would be good. After my first year, they cut support for Macs that were using VPC to take exams. My third year, they rolled back their support such that you had two models of Dell to choose from if you wanted any support outside of our exam software. Anything else, and you were on your own. Point being - Vista may be dangerous if you are using it for exams.
2) The PC lappy that I used in law school for my exams was a Toshiba. Now, clearly a sample size of one is not enough to make a blanket, but I'm just chipping in a thought. It sucked. It was totally replaced once and has essentially been replaced a second time with all of the parts that have been replaced on this second one. I think the chassis, display and HD are the only originals left. There was so much solder on the MB (before the ended up replacing it), I think it may have doubled in weight.
Even if you do get a Toshiba running Vista - good luck and enjoy law school. I know I didn't.
1) I graduated in '06, so maybe if your school's IT department is quicker than mine, you will be ok with Vista. But, I imagine that if you have any problems, especially during exams, having something that they are comfortable with would be good. After my first year, they cut support for Macs that were using VPC to take exams. My third year, they rolled back their support such that you had two models of Dell to choose from if you wanted any support outside of our exam software. Anything else, and you were on your own. Point being - Vista may be dangerous if you are using it for exams.
2) The PC lappy that I used in law school for my exams was a Toshiba. Now, clearly a sample size of one is not enough to make a blanket, but I'm just chipping in a thought. It sucked. It was totally replaced once and has essentially been replaced a second time with all of the parts that have been replaced on this second one. I think the chassis, display and HD are the only originals left. There was so much solder on the MB (before the ended up replacing it), I think it may have doubled in weight.
Even if you do get a Toshiba running Vista - good luck and enjoy law school. I know I didn't.
Anyone who works in IT will readily tell you, however, that Dell's laptop line has been utter crap for the past couple of years -- they suffer from all kinds of weird component failures, from the monitor signal cable dying to the power button failing. In this case, you get what you pay for.
The GMA 950 runs all of Vista's eye candy just fine. I have been running Ultimate since it came out and there have been no issues whatsoever with Vista on my first gen MB.
You can always turn off the eye candy anyway as it really adds nothing to the functionality of Vista - it just looks nice (well...).
I too would not want to carry around or even own two laptops when one could do everything I needed. I bought mine as a refurb and saved a few hundred bucks. There are even places like PowerMax.com that do trade-ins and will credit your account after you make the purchase from them for the trade-in value. You will not get what you could get if you sold it privately, but it sounds pretty easy.
If you want to go with a cheap PC instead, take a look at Best Buy who has done away with mail-in rebates. I have seen laptops for $599 that have a Pentium Dual Core, 1GB RAM and 120GB HDs with a DVD-RW and Vista Premium. I took a look at their ad today and see a Gateway for $599 and an HP with a Turion 64x2, 1GB/120GB/DVD-RW/Premium and an upgraded video chipset (nVidia GO6150) for $699.
Either on meets your budget and your needs.
You can always turn off the eye candy anyway as it really adds nothing to the functionality of Vista - it just looks nice (well...).
I too would not want to carry around or even own two laptops when one could do everything I needed. I bought mine as a refurb and saved a few hundred bucks. There are even places like PowerMax.com that do trade-ins and will credit your account after you make the purchase from them for the trade-in value. You will not get what you could get if you sold it privately, but it sounds pretty easy.
If you want to go with a cheap PC instead, take a look at Best Buy who has done away with mail-in rebates. I have seen laptops for $599 that have a Pentium Dual Core, 1GB RAM and 120GB HDs with a DVD-RW and Vista Premium. I took a look at their ad today and see a Gateway for $599 and an HP with a Turion 64x2, 1GB/120GB/DVD-RW/Premium and an upgraded video chipset (nVidia GO6150) for $699.
Either on meets your budget and your needs.
before i switched over to apple i only owned dell's and i had a lot of the style of laptops. NEVER once did I have a problem with their machines. Just bc their pricing is so cheap doesn't mean the computers are cheap. Dell sells in massive bulk hence why they can sell their laptops cheaper. I get tired of hearing comments like this....when my powerbook had an overheat problem was that bc it wasn't expensive enough? No, things happen to machines even if they are apple's, dell's, hp's etc. Apple is not God when it comes to making computers......if they were they'd be in every business environment out there and they aren't. When you go into an office what brand do you most likely see 9 out of 10 times? Dell.
Just bc you're not a fan of dell machines doesn't mean other people can't be. Don't let the OP think that dell sucks just bc u don't like them.
id get the cheapest dell laptop, then either upgrade the ram to atleast a gig, or keep the 512 mb and downgrade to windows xp. i'm not quite sure why everyones asking him whats wrong with a macbook when its double the price of what he wants to spend? that probly sounds rude, but its not supposed to.
exactly man. the machine i posted is only $549 and it's got a ton of stuff on it. Just bc it's not an apple product people only say get a macbook it's the best choice. Gets to be annoying ya know.
I've always been a fan of Dell laptops as far as Windows machines go.
But I don't see why you can't use a mac. My friend just graduated law school and she used a PB without problems. I can ask how she accessed certain sites if you want..
But I don't see why you can't use a mac. My friend just graduated law school and she used a PB without problems. I can ask how she accessed certain sites if you want..
DO NOT GET VISTA -- DO NOT GET A MACBOOK
I just graduated from Michigan Law and as of last month they weren't supporting Vista and wouldn't support intel macs running xp through bootcamp (no idea why, probably cuz they are nuts.)
I used an IBM x40 for school, with an external cd burner/DVD player. As I kept all my goodies on my mac, I rarely needed the cd player except to install software. An ultraportable is a great choice b/c you will be carrying this thing around with you all the time, so sub 3 pounds is a wonderful thing. Lastly, I think IBM made the best laptops, even better than apple's (save for the whole windows thing). I can't speak for Lenovo's products as everyone I know who got a Thinkpad got them back when IBM was still making them.
I think an ultraportable Dell will probably serve you just fine as long as make sure to demand little of it. I've had to play computer jesus way too often with Dells that are being used for everything. Personally I don't trust Dell build quality, but I will leave such judgments to you.
And regarding people making it through school with macs, I have a good friend i convinced to get a powerbook b/c it would be her only computer, but every exam period I had to lend her my Thinkpad.
Best of luck
I just graduated from Michigan Law and as of last month they weren't supporting Vista and wouldn't support intel macs running xp through bootcamp (no idea why, probably cuz they are nuts.)
I used an IBM x40 for school, with an external cd burner/DVD player. As I kept all my goodies on my mac, I rarely needed the cd player except to install software. An ultraportable is a great choice b/c you will be carrying this thing around with you all the time, so sub 3 pounds is a wonderful thing. Lastly, I think IBM made the best laptops, even better than apple's (save for the whole windows thing). I can't speak for Lenovo's products as everyone I know who got a Thinkpad got them back when IBM was still making them.
I think an ultraportable Dell will probably serve you just fine as long as make sure to demand little of it. I've had to play computer jesus way too often with Dells that are being used for everything. Personally I don't trust Dell build quality, but I will leave such judgments to you.
And regarding people making it through school with macs, I have a good friend i convinced to get a powerbook b/c it would be her only computer, but every exam period I had to lend her my Thinkpad.
Best of luck
Not to hijack the thread, but my experience working with hundreds of computers at my school's support desk trumps your individual purchases, which can't number more than ten or so. And note that my recommendation for a rock-solid reliable Windows laptop was IBM, not Apple. Don't put words in my mouth.
Dell is used in most offices because the desktops are both cheap and pretty reliable, and the laptops come as part of the deal, so it makes sense to standardize on Dell across the board. Also, by the time most of the laptops have failed, the office is usually ready to begin a new upgrade cycle anyway.
As for the IBM v. Lenovo issue that a previous poster raised -- the Thinkpad designs are largely unchanged from the IBM days, so design-wise, they're very solid. I don't know much about Lenovo's quality control, though.
The new Latitudes are pieces of ****. It's the "recommended" computer for students at my school, but about 20 of the 40 people on my floor last year who owned one had problems with it and had to send it in to IT.
User Agent
I'm surprised no one has suggested spoofing the User Agent to show as IE in your browser of choice. Firefox has an extension called "User Agent Switcher" that makes it easy to do. Some websites will work fine if they think you are IE, others won't render properly. It's worth testing.
I'm surprised no one has suggested spoofing the User Agent to show as IE in your browser of choice. Firefox has an extension called "User Agent Switcher" that makes it easy to do. Some websites will work fine if they think you are IE, others won't render properly. It's worth testing.
That's unfortunate. Most of our consulting group here have Latitude D600's, nobody has really had any serious issues at all with them. Our more recent hires have been given HP's though and they're constantly having them sent to IT for repairs or parts replacements.
My entire school (approx 300 students) uses Dell Latitudes, and they are AWFUL. My class uses D600s. We discovered the batteries had been designed to fail a few months after the warranty expired (they would just stop working all of a sudden - battery life would be 3 hours one day, and nothing the next). Motherboards break constantly - buttons stop working, computers start randomly turning off, HD connections go bad, etc. The screen hinges are very fragile, as is the latch. The hard drives run so hot that they make it hard to use the laptop on your lap.
Worst of all is the buggy dell firmware. When we first got the computers, they couldn't be hibernated while the screen was set to its native resolution or the computer would never wake up. Even now, sleeping the computer can often result in problems when the computers wake. Wireless cards tend to be finicky as well, with poor software support.
Dells are great if you don't want to pay much and have free on-site service with free loaner laptops. Otherwise, I highly recommend going with IBMs. They are more solidly built and the IBM software is far better integrated. I have worked with both the D620s and the new Lenovos, and the Lenovos are far better. The D620 chassis feel like they are constructed from wet spaghetti.
The Sony's are a little pricier. I recommend them when people want something just short of the price of an Apple.
Everyone I know that has a Sony desktop or notebook hasn't had any problems whatsoever...
HP
Dell
Acer
all have cheap stuff, I got my Acer aspire 3680 for $399, 1.7G celeron/100G/512Mb/GMA950/14.4 widescreen/802.11g/DVD/CDR.