ChitownRC

Yeah like everyone said don't go with compaq, my compaq laptop's Harddrive went out on me 2 months after I bought it. Same thing happened to my cousins compaq.

Mike, no hardware advice, but check with the school to see if they are hooked up Microsoft on a deal for software. I know our local school district is and we can buy MS products at 80% off. Good deal for students if you use Microsoft apps.

yours going to use it as college right? if so DO NOT GET windows 64, you will have alot of little issues with drivers, and not much support from BIll gates and CO.

i would look at the AMD 64 bit dual cores, they are great as they are dual cores plus 64, and with 64 you can do twice the processes in the same cycle as a 32bit can then you have dual core so basically it can process 4 times as much info as a P4 and twice as the intel Dual core can. plus they are very good on power cinsumtion, i get about 3 hours on a 9cell battery.

also make sure to get at least 1gig of RAM, you will need. make sure you also get the wireles adapter built in because PCI cards suck.

stay away from dell, the break the day after your warrenty ends. How much you wnat to spend is really the question.

you want a lop of the line get an alienware, even if your not into gamming, its a fanatastic platform for running multiple programs.

ACER is about the best budget laptop out, good quality, good support and a deceint amount of features.

if you are looking for a tough notebook then get the panasoncis toughbook, it really is tough, you can toss it around and it will still go, but they are expensive.

you should give us a price range so we can suggest a few for you

Mike, when we toured NW they said the dorms are not served by wireless, so you or your roomie will need a wireless router, too.

livin at home dave, probably.

Dell bought out alienware from what I heard. Not to concerned about price as long as i can get a capable machine that will last me. I have some relatives that are gonna pitch in so price doesnt really matter.

get alienware then.

i dont think dell bought pout alienware for the simple fact that they just spent hundreds of millions on there developemt of the XPS system to compete with alienware, if they did they just wasted a ton of moeny

whtever you do do not get windows vista basic, POS gett eh premium its not bad at all, well the MS phishing software gets damn annoying thou, but you will need atleast 1 gig ram to do anything above vista basic, so get as much as you can because Vista is a RAM hog because it makes programs alot faster by storing the open app in RAM instead of Virtual RAM.

just my 2 cents

I got the hook up on HP, Dell, and Acer.... Mike you can email me what you want and I can smash any pricing you see advertised.

I work directly with Tech Data, Ingram Micro, Dell, etc....

wow awesome dude, i will be in touch for sure

I think that Alienware being bought out by Dell is a bs rumor.

snakebite46 Wrote:I think that Alienware being bought out by Dell is a bs rumor.

i agree just for the simple fact that dell just recently came out with the XPS line (about a year ago) and if they recently bought out alienware they would not have wasted the money ont he XPS and jsut bought alienware and rebadged it the XPS line, but that didnt happen.

Czech-it-Out Graphics Wrote:livin at home dave, probably.

That's going to make painting/guarding the rock a lot tougher job. Can you do tribal on a boulder?

Ive got a sony viao and i really like it

They did buy out alienware. That's were they got most of the research for their xps line. Think of the xps like the economical version of alienware's stuff. Kinda like ford & lincoln or gm and cadillac, etc.

also gateways are awesome too. i got mine for graduation last year and it is fast as hell and still works great.

Seems like duo-core is the way to go now. I hear Vista needs that to run right otherwise its a major drain.

i think im gonna end up with alienware, seems like you dont need to add on as much of the "good" stuff when you customize it as well. I went through and set up an Xps with all the stuff I need and an alienware aurora with everything i thought id need and i ended up with the alienware being about 2k cheaper

Alienware did get bought by Dell. I have a dell with core 2 duo 2ghz, x1800 ati video card, 2 gig memory. Ive had 3 games going at once multiplayer online, and another one that was just single player, winamp on playing music, messenger open with im's, internet pages open and it never once lagged. Whoever said alienware is more expensive than dell is lying. My buddy bought a xps laptop a month before I got mine and spent like 3300 total. I only spent 2000 and my laptop outperforms his. Both our systems are identical minus his video card being nvidia and mine ati.

A side note mike, Dont go through alienware to upgrade your hard drive or memory. You can find them a lot cheaper on newegg and end up saving yourself literally hundreds of dollars depending on what you want. For example, I spend 180 bucks on newegg and got 2 gig of gaming memory for my laptop and through alienware it was over 300 to get 2 gig from them. Same for harddrive. To get like a 120 gig from alienware costs like 200 and newegg you can get the same thing for 90 bucks. I could always install the stuff for you if you needed somebody to do it. So just leave the memory and hd to what they give you.

When I was looking for a new laptop I looked at Sony Vaio's, Thinkpads, and a couple Toshiba's. I'd rather pay more and get something that is reliable because the Laptop is my only computer. Ended up picking up a ThinkPad Z60T and have no complaints. Actually my mom liked this Thinkpad so much she gave her 6 month old $1800 Dell laptop to my dad and picked up a new thinkpad as well... lol.

squirrel Wrote:Alienware!!!!!!!!

no, there now owned by Dell!

MY Stepmom has a Dell XPS gen 2 Laptop. They are alot smaller than mine, wieghs half as much, almost has the power of mine. Fast Processor, 2 gigs if ram. If you dont want to pay an arm and a leg, but want something somewhat versatile, opt for the dell laptop. Alienwares will cost you around 1500 at least, to around 3k for a capable laptop system.