Another son going to college, what laptop to buy thread

[MRM]

It is a life-changing event. Number one son is going to college at the end of this month (at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota). While mom and dad mourn the passage of their youth and wonder where is the toddler they used to walk around the block in the Little Red Wagon and what is the giant six-footer doing in Alex's room, Junior is wondering what computer he will be taking with him to school. Since his question seems to be more practical than mum and dad's I thought I would pose it to the Pelican Parts Braintrust: what is the best laptop for a young man just embarking on his college education?

He is attending a liberal arts school and is interested in a degree in economics in the College of Liberal Arts, rather than the College of Business. He will do some math. specifically calculus, and spreadsheets, but he'll mostly be taking notes and word processing. And gaming, but that's just a secondary benefit; he needs to computer to do schoolwork.

We're looking for something that will last his four (hopefully!) years without getting too clunky but isn't too cost-prohibitive. We would pay more to receive real value, so something in the $1,000 range isn't out of the question.

I know almost nothing of computers and my IT department assigns me my laptop, so any advice or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. My last desktop was purchased on Tigerdirect and then customized by my local computer wiz. It's lasted close to five years, so I'm not adverse to a little local customization if it makes sense.

I think we're looking for a Windows machine. While I like Apple, Windows remains the language of business and commerce.

What suggestions do you have?

[Flieger]

Some ('bout 5) of my mechanical engineering friends who also know a lot about computers use Mac Books but run Windows. They can actually run both Apple's GUI and Windows 7 at the same time. I like the looks of the Macs but I am not that good with computers so I just stick with my HP laptop, running Vista 64.

[red-beard]

Quad Core i5 or low end Quad Core i7. Office 365 is a deal at $79 for 4 years and includes all the regular Office options. Normally $99 per year. He needs to have an active .edu e-mail account.

I am partial to Thinkpads these days, but then I only buy notebooks with a "TrackPoint".

I would also suggest a regular disk drive as I've seen too many SSD drive failures recently. If you get a notebook with a SSD drive, definitely keep the think backed up.

Touch screen on a notebook seem wrong to me and adds cost.

[nostatic]

win8 is pretty abysmal.

Get a Mac, dual boot with win7. A lot of our guys run that way. I've got a brand new Lenovo tablet with keyboard/doc and it is a pretty poorly designed (and not cheap) piece of hardware. I find it almost unusable.

[porsche4life]

Yup... Get a Mac. I've used mine for 3+ years now and still love it. Nary a hiccup. I've got a dell with windoze 7 that my company supplies as well. It crashes at least once a week on me, thus confirming my hatred of windows computers.

[aigel]

An HP pavillion line of laptop will suffice. Can be had for around $400 or less. I have had mine for 3-4 years - lost count. All it needed was a keyboard - easy DIY replacement. Still on the original battery.

Get a computer with Win 7 installed. Wait for him to hit school, because he can very likely get all the software he needs as student versions for cheap, including the office package.

The main reason not to get a $1k laptop is to not burden the kid with the potential loss (theft, drops, liquids and forgetting it somwhere ...) At $400 it is a lot more bearable, and you can even buy a new one half way through.

JMHO.

G

[Moses]

Originally Posted by MRM

I think we're looking for a Windows machine. While I like Apple, Windows remains the language of business and commerce.

Not true. My best friend is a big player in the tech world. He sold his business and now does venture capital and sits on the boards of several fortune 500 companies. I asked him the same question about a graduation present for my son who just earned his BA in Economics. He said the boardrooms are filled with Macs these days.

I got my son a Macbook Air and he's been very happy with it.

[stomachmonkey]

Two ways to skin this.

Buy a cheap machine in the $250 range that will run the MS Office suite. You can afford a new one for each of the 4 years.

Buy a higher end machine and hope it does not get lost,stolen, beer poured on it etc....

I'm a Mac fanboy, no secret there. The benefit of the Mac is you get a great piece of hardware that can run whatever operating system you want/need.

I'd shop the Apple refurb store. Inventory changes constantly so if you see a deal grab it, if not check daily and what you need will eventually pop up.

You want a light weight box that is not physically large and has good battery life. Although not a fan of the flash storage the Mac Airs are nice portable boxes.

Refurbished 13.3-inch MacBook Air 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 - Apple Store (U.S.)

Refurbished 11.6-inch MacBook Air 1.8GHz dual-core Intel Core i7 - Apple Store (U.S.)

Pick up any brand 22 in external display and mouse/keyboard combo for back in the dorm room.

Forget about a laptop for gaming, it's not something they do well unless you go for an Alienware rig which besides being a great machine is expensive, heavy, cumbersome and eats battery life.

[aigel]

Macs definitely are status symbols. I see kids use them all proud at the coffee shop and they can't even type 10 WPM pecking away. A $300 laptop would have served them just as well. If your son buys it from his own money, it is a different story.

I never had any trouble being a popular kid without brand name stuff or the latest gizmo. Neither do my kids. AAMOF, it steers them away from some of the less desirable potential friends IMHO. At least here in CA, the amount of brand name stuff and gadgets kids have available is inversely proportional to the amount of parenting they receive.

G

[JD159]

Sold laptops for 3 years at Futureshop. Still in the same field. Am also a University student. Own a Macbook pro for school and an i7 desktop for fun, games, media etc.

Get a Macbook pro. It will do all the basic functions he will need and plenty more. The reliability, safety and quick turn around time for any hardware issues by Apple is the most important during school. No need to worry about a virus, spyware, software issues and hardware is pretty much taken care of.

The reason I purchased mine was the battery life. Critical during lecture. With hundreds of students, and only 2 outlets, you get the idea…

Make sure to get a Solid State Drive (SSD) for quick power on from sleep mode. Other laptop's don't work that well powering back on from a low power state. No need to turn it off and on between lectures.

PS. My hinge was making a clicking noise, brought it to apple, changed the entire screen/top shell in one day no hassle.

[Lothar]

Lenovo X-1 Carbon. It's kind of pricey, but less than a Macbook Air. Comes with a solid state drive and you can get a protection plan that will cover everything short of loss for 4 years. It's sturdy unlike all the plastic hinged crap out there.

[jcommin]

My son just got an Asus Quad Core i7 laptop - $650 complete Windows 8 and MS Office.
I'm a beliver in get the better as these things become obsolete within months.

He ruins it - he buys the next one. He is also paying for his first year of school. He took out a $14K loan to fund it. He fails - the monkey is on his back. He suceeds, his mom and I will fund the rest.

[Seahawk]

We bought my daughter a Mac when she started her junior year in HS. She is now a senior in college and still uses it. She doesn't want a new computer, paid to have a few upgrades to keep it fresh.

Same with my son...Mac his freshman year in HS and he is about to start his sophomore year in college. No issues at all and when we offered to have him give his Mom the old Mac and get him a new one he declined: "Works great".

For the company I own and run, I use a Mac Pro with all the Windows stuff I need for our government and commercial clients. I switched after having two Dells go sneakers up in four years.

I'm not a fan boy by any stretch, just sharing my experiences.

[Jim Richards]

Buy a Mac with MS Office and your son will be all set.

[89911]

My daughter is a junior in college and just finished up an 8 week internship at PWC. They just offered her a job and she just picked up a Surface. She has always been a Mac fan, and has been exposed to a Mac Pro that my son has and numerous Windows configurations in desktops and laptops at home. That being said, she worked with enough of her coworkers using the surface that she decided its ease of use and portability was the best option for her. Since buying it last week, she loves it. And its cheap ($350). At that price, you can take it to lectures and leave the laptop at the dorm. I've got 4 children, 3 of them that need laptops. My son has had a Mac Pro for over 2 years and he is now considering windows as his new one. Not sure why, but I thinks its more value for what you get. He is also immensely talented in computer science and will be majoring in this at college. In his spare time, he has done all my IT work at my office and has it running flawless where others have failed. He has dual operating systems on all of our computers at home if that matters. I think the division of Mac vs Windows laptops narrows with each year. He replaced the entire case of his Mac a few months ago to repair a nasty dent. One thing about those aluminum cases is as much as they are beautiful, they look terrible when a dent or scratch happens. His was in his backpack and he set it down apparently to hard (it was padded). The entire corner got dented and the screen couldn't even close. After completely gutting the Mac, It was impressive how well made they are. Even the inside brackets and supports are aluminum. Can't fault the quality, but you certainly pay for it.

[Head416]

I love the Lenovo X1 Carbon, but you'll have to double your budget. Get something light with good battery life. Definitely get an SSD - it will make your laptop dramatically faster. If you're worried about failure, back up your data (which we all should be doing anyway).

[berettafan]

I am convinced you buy a $350 laptop each year and be done with it.

[red-beard]

Originally Posted by Lothar

Lenovo X-1 Carbon. It's kind of pricey, but less than a Macbook Air. Comes with a solid state drive and you can get a protection plan that will cover everything short of loss for 4 years. It's sturdy unlike all the plastic hinged crap out there.

It's what I'm using. I wasn't suggesting it, because of the price. Great Laptop!

[speeder]

My experience has been that Macs are the Porsches of laptops and most of the big windows brands are more like Chrysler and GM. You get what you pay for, and in this case it is quality, durability and design, including user interface.

The Chrysler and GM laptops might work just fine, (as will the equivalent cars), but a little more upfront cost gets you a lot better hardware. My current Macbook has a ridiculous amount of travel miles and usage hours on it, has had water dumped on it, (replaced keyboard for $133 on ebay--works like new), and while I'd like a new one, it is running great. It's about 5 years old.

[stomachmonkey]

Originally Posted by 89911

......After completely gutting the Mac, It was impressive how well made they are. Even the inside brackets and supports are aluminum. Can't fault the quality, but you certainly pay for it.

Keep trying to tell people that but they don't want to listen.

Ask him to open up the Mac Pro tower for you.

The level of design, engineering and construction is quite impressive.

Check out the radical design for the new generation MacPro.

Keep scrolling the page down.

Apple - Mac Pro