[Laptop] Graduation Gift

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KryptidE

Veteran XV
So my lil bro is graduating high school this year and im looking to buy him a laptop for college. I am way behind the times as technology is concerned and im looking to TW to hopefully pick out the optimum gift or point me in the right direction. I would like to spend 1000$ or less. I am not looking for a system that will support gaming or spiffy media editing. Just a reliable speedy system. I am checking out dell and Toshiba; my last laptop was an HP and it was a bad relationship so I would prefer to steer clear of HP.

Some features that im looking for is:
80-100gb hd
DVD writable/playable drive
1 gb memory

other than that im not too sure what to expect. I appreciate any help gents.
 
is portability a concern? if he's gonna be bringing it to classes with him, he's not going to want to lug around a big laptop gaming rig (i know, it's oxymoronic, but people still think they can do that)...

if all you want to get him is a tiny laptop that he can bring to classes and use for AIM, word processing, internet stuff, and very basic gaming, that'll probably cost you about a grand...

either check out the little dells or the small vaios

Dell Home & Home Office Inspiron E1705

SonyStyle.com | FE Series
SonyStyle.com | C Series


edit: heh, i haven't looked at laptops in a while, but keeping it under a grand is gonna be tough. it's either gonna be huge and have almost decent specs, or small and completely stripped
 
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dell has quite a few laptops on sale for less than 1k right now. If you look out on markdownmonkey.com there are some deals out there that can knock off quite a bit, and if you go out on ebay.com, there are coupons that people got from dell for various reasons you can add to those, you literally could get a new beefy portable for around 300 bucks
 
KryptidE said:
So my lil bro is graduating high school this year and im looking to buy him a laptop for college. I am way behind the times as technology is concerned and im looking to TW to hopefully pick out the optimum gift or point me in the right direction. I would like to spend 1000$ or less. I am not looking for a system that will support gaming or spiffy media editing. Just a reliable speedy system. I am checking out dell and Toshiba; my last laptop was an HP and it was a bad relationship so I would prefer to steer clear of HP.

Some features that im looking for is:
80-100gb hd
DVD writable/playable drive
1 gb memory

other than that im not too sure what to expect. I appreciate any help gents.
Click to expand...

what major is he looking at? if it's something like engineering, get him a tablet pc or one of those laptops where the screen can swivel around and turn in to a tablet pc. he will be able to take and save notes on his pc easily w/ the stylus.
 
i bought a dell laptop 3 yrs ago with 800$ off coupon

it has 1gb ram, 256mb gforce go, still works pretty well.
 
here you go

configured as is will be fine for everything except gaming and such.

edit: specs
Intel® Pentium® dual-core T2080(1MB Cache/1.73GHz/533MHz FSB
15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display
Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic
1GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz, 2 Dimm
160GB 5400 RPM SATA Hard Drive
8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Intel® Graphics Media Accelerator 950
Dell Wireless 1390 802.11b/g Mini Card (54Mbps)
Integrated Audio
Media Direct 3.0

basically everything you need for what you described for 600 bucks.
 
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the only difference between the 4MB L2 cache and 2 MB L2 cache versions of the core2 is that intel manually goes in there and laser cuts the connections to half the cache. both chips have 4 MB of L2, but only one of them can access all of it

so gay
 
i think what im looking for is what are some specs i should look for in a laptop that he can bring to classes and use for AIM, word processing, internet stuff, and watching dvds.

edit: what are the super cool new processors, graphics cards (wont matter that much i know) etc...
 
KryptidE said:
i think what im looking for is what are some specs i should look for in a laptop that he can bring to classes and use for AIM, word processing, internet stuff, and watching dvds.
Click to expand...

get him one w/ a big hard drive but shitty gfx card. also you wont need more than 1 gig ram.
 
This is what I just got for my wife...I doubt you'll find a better deal:

Inspiron 6400 Dual Core
Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5300 (2MB Cache/1.73GHz/533MHz FSB), Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic $1,167.00 1 $1,167.00

Inspiron 6400 Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T5300 (2MB Cache/1.73GHz/533MHz FSB)
LCD Panel 15.4 inch Wide Screen XGA Display with TrueLife™(glossy)
Memory 2GB Shared Dual Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHZ, 2 DIMM
Video Card 256MB NVIDIA® GeForce® Go 7300 TurboCache*
Hard Drive 80GB 5400rpm SATA Hard Drive
Operating System (Office software not included) Genuine Windows Vista™ Home Basic
Network Card and Modem Integrated 10/100 Network Card and Modem
Adobe Software Adobe® Acrobat® Reader 7.0
Optical Drive 8X CD/DVD Burner (DVD+/-RW) with double-layer DVD+R write capability
Sound Options Integrated Audio
Wireless Networking Cards Intel PRO/Wireless 3945 Internal Wireless
Office Productivity Software (Pre-Installed) Microsoft Works 8. DOES NOT INCLUDE MS WORD
Anti-Virus/Security Suite (Pre-installed) No security subscription (McAfee 30-day trial)
Primary Battery 53 WHr 6-cell Lithium Ion Primary Battery
Warranty & Service 1 Yr Ltd Warranty, 1 Yr Mail-in Service, and 1 Yr Tech Support

Save $50 Instantly on Nvidia Graphic Cards! - $50.00
Save $349 on select Inspiron 6400 systems from Dell Small Business division! - $349.00
Subtotal: $768.00
Shipping and Handling: $19.99
Shipping Discount: -$19.99
Sales Tax: $38.40
Total: $806.40
Click to expand...

* edit *

Notable upgrades being the higher end wireless, 2 GB of ram, vid card...make sure you check off glossy on the monitor (it's free)
 
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id go for a tablet pc just b/c classes are starting to ban laptops. if you're taking notes in your own handwriting.. they're less likely to bug you. profs don't really like looking up to screens buried in laptops
 
I just came across this for $849.99..

is this price consistant with these specs?

Buy the Toshiba Satellite 15.4" Widescreen Notebook PC (A205-S4587) and other Notebook Computers at circuitcity.com

Processor brand Intel®
Processor type Core 2 Duo
Processor speed 1.7GHz
Bus Speed 533MHz
Level 2 cache 2MB

RAM 1GB
Memory Type (RAM) 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM (PC2-5300)
RAM expandable to: 4GB

Hard Drive Speed 5400RPM
Hard drive size 120GB
Burns DVDs Yes

Screen size 15.4"
Maximum screen resolution 1280 x 800
Video memory 256MB
Video Memory Type Partially Shared

USB 2.0 4
FireWire 1
Infrared port No
PC card No
Express Card Yes
S-video Out Yes
Media card slot Yes
VGA Yes
TV tuner No

Dial-up Modem Included
Ethernet Yes
Wireless 802.11a/b/g
Bluetooth No
Built-in Webcam No

Operating system Windows® Vista Home Premium
Warranty Parts 12 Months
Warranty Labor 12 Months
 
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