Why trying to figure out what CPU you have? You already told us

Depending on your major, you may have various hardware requirements. I'd expect artistic types, some engineers, etc to need a discrete graphics card to run certain programs well. Programs like Solidworks may run decently without one, but good > decent. Other programs may be more processor reliant. So tell me your major, and anything you know about this relating to it. And you may end up not using whatever laptop you get for these things at all, even if you need to do them: at my college, at least, computer labs were conveniently located, and I rarely needed to use my laptop for that sort of stuff. Nevertheless, now, for example, during the summer, I'm doing stuff at another college, and the computers given to me are so crappy that I'm very happy to have a powerful laptop of my own to use instead (Sticky mouse, public keyboard, ten-year-old-flickering-dark monitor, yeeeegh).

Battery life probably won't be that important. I thought it would be a big deal, but I ended up just carrying the cable around. It's much less of a bother to just keep it plugged in, as opposed to worrying about the battery life degenerating and trying to manipulate it and keep it optimal. I'd say that weight is important; at least it was for me. But, then, I live fifteen minutes away from my school, if you're right next door, it shouldn't be a big deal. Again, I don't know how it is for you. Even with a 3-pound laptop, near the end of last semester I ended up leaving it in my locker in lieu of carrying it back and forth (constantly hunching over textbooks hurt my back ). However, unless you really focus on weight, you're probably not going to get anything light. There are some mid-range that you can probably get to around 5 pounds, or you may choose to get a cheap Ultrabook, which would be closer to 3 pounds.

Oh, and large resolution = nice. And if you don't think you need a new GPU for your desktop, stop talking about your desktop. Focus on your lappy.

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jul 18 2012, 1:34 am by Centreri.

Engineering (electrical? don't have to decide yet) and music minor. I'm expected to do a lot of walking.

Why should the GPU determine if I need to stop thinking about my desktop? There are other things I'd like to change. I should also note that I've never assembled any aspect of a computer (apart from the faceplate coming off every now and then).

Won't need anything other than a simple netbook. Just need to be able to search online for any resources that you might ever want, pdfs and such. I'd go with priorities like this for a laptop: price; portability (in this order).

The size of netbooks kills me. That's why I said I wanted a low-end laptop.

Then just get a low-end laptop... I'm not sure what you're contemplating here. You could probably just get a lightweight $400-500 laptop and then just use your desktop. Like others have said, you're desktop is fine for now; only in the future may you want to upgrade it. I mean, you play games fine on it now, so upgrading now doesn't seem like a big deal. Besides, you're going to college. Even if you say you want to play games on your computer, the truth is, you probably won't even be gaming that much. I really can't even see myself gaming unless it's with a group of friends on like xbox or something.

Is this a good laptop? Seems like a good deal to me, if a bit heavy.

An alternative?



Edit:
This seems even better?
Oh that says refurbished. Nah.

More RAM smaller screen. I don't know how to find out what's bad about these computers.

Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Aug 2 2012, 4:48 am by TiKels.

Those are some big laptops. ;o I'm not very computer hardware-savvy, but I feel like the processor in that first one is going to suck dick. And for the third one, why get refurbished?

The Pentium B940-70 series is fine, those are Sandy Bridge chips.

Alright. Now I have a slightly better idea what I'm doing. Here are a few that seem to be my best deals.

HP 630 A7J87UT Notebook PC - Intel Core i3-380M 2.53GHz, 4GB DDR3, 500GB HDD, DVDRW, 15.6" Display, Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit

TOSHIBA Satellite C855D-S5237 Notebook AMD A-Series A6-4400M(2.70GHz) 15.6" 4GB Memory DDR3 1600 500GB HDD 5400rpm DVD Super Multi AMD Radeon HD 7520G

I don't know if i can get a tigerdirect warranty, which is the only reason why I wouldn't go with that one. These have got what seems to be pretty solid processors, 15.6 screen, 4GB memory. Do any of these parts look like they'd blow up?

I'm buying this computer today unless someone says its a bad idea. I'd prefer to get a bit more feedback.

looks fine. Reason being is that AMD makes crappy cpus but excellent gpus, so this will be much better for gaming than that other nehalem chip. You may find a use for extra ram later on, but at this point it will do fine. SC2 kills my ram, so I had to add an extra 4 GB.

I'm not sure on the price, but it should be fine. The only thing I dislike in that is the screen size, because laptops should be laptops, not desktop replacements.

Thanks for your input. Mirrors just about every thought I had about this. If I could afford to buy a new desktop and a laptop I would, but I can't. I also hate using really tiny screens.