Re: OT: Laptop for College Bound Student?
On Wed, Jun 11, 2008 at 10:47:57AM -0500, p.daniels wrote:
> Wow, that's an awful lot of money. Do some shopping on newegg.com, I
> got my Lenovo Y510 for under $700. 2 Gb RAM, dual core Intel, card
> reader, great wireless, webcam, the whole nine yards, and may I add it
> works great with Debian. I've only had it for a few months, but I am
> unabashedly thrilled with my purchase, especially at the price (I think it
> was a sale, but it was only $100 off or so, that's still well under a
> thousand).
>
> My point is not that you should run out and buy one of these (although I
> do love it), but simply that a little shopping can save you a ton of money.
> My machine seems to be similarly spec'd to the ones you describe (yes,
> even came with friggin' Vista, although it never even got to boot it up),
> for a great deal less.
>
> As another poster asked, is Windows a _requirement_? With some
> schools it is.
If Windows isn't a requirement, you could also consider an off-lease
business Thinkpad. In Kingston, Ontario, at Computer-Depot (a buisness
class place not a clone of home-depot) last I saw they had thinkpads for
around $250. You'd need to determine what specs are required, in other
words, what apps he needs to run: does he _need_ 2 GB ram? If he just
needs to write notes and essays, browse the web but doesn't have to
interact with campus-specific software, then almost any functional
laptop that runs Etch would do. He doesn't even have to use OpenOffice
to write essays unless they have to be submitted in .doc format: he can
use Latex.
Basically it comes down to this: the decision on hardware is the last
one to make when money is tight. Most consumers just buy a new piece of
hardware and it will meet the requirements for a year or two: they stick
to the bleeding-edge. When money is tight, you define the interface
requirements (e.g. able to print out, or able to interface with the
campus software), determine the software to do that, then determine the
hardware required to run that software. Part of designating the
interface is the physical realities: which will survive life in a
back-pack better: Dell or Thinkpad?
Doug.
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