Advice on a new laptop for College (Sym, Ante, Tom...)

A friend of mine is looking for a laptop for college, and I'm trying to help her find something reasonably priced and useful.

She has been looking at the macbook pro, and I'm hoping to show her a better way than going to the white devil.

Aside from the crackbook pro, she also looked at the Asus vivobook, I don't know anything about it.

Her price range is about 1000$ preferred, max 1200$. A high amount of storage is gonna be necessary, as this will be her only computer. A decent amount of RAM will be preferable.

you guys have any recommendations?

Yo, what is she going to study?

Molecular biology.


yeah...I'm not kidding

well. Definitely not a macbook then.

Straight up not for that.

Does she do anything like gaming or similar? (just trying to get the best info for it)

she doesn't need to spend that much on a laptop unless she is gaming or wants an ultrabook.

Even if she is gaming she'd be better off not getting a laptop because you can't upgrade it and the thing will age pretty fast.

Duck wrote:she doesn't need to spend that much on a laptop unless she is gaming or wants an ultrabook.

Even if she is gaming she'd be better off not getting a laptop because you can't upgrade it and the thing will age pretty fast.

There are upgradable laptops

MacBooks are actually pretty good as far as laptops go (most laptops are shit anyway), however, since they are using mostly SSDs now, you won't have that much storage in comparison to an HDD laptop. Or if she needs an application not available on OS X. She could get an Air, but the storage is expensive unless she uses SD cards.

Anyway, you could take a look at this one or other from Sager.
http://www.sagernotebook.com/index.php?page=product_customed&model_name=NP6652

menacinglemon wrote:
There are upgradable laptops

An extra 4GB RAM isn't exactly my idea of "upgradeable", unless you know of one where you can actually upgrade the CPU and GPU (GPU upgrade of 1VRAM to 2 VRAM isn't really much of an upgrade either).

there are laptops which you can upgrade, but ones with upgradeable GPUs are more expensive. most laptops have the GPU soldered to the motherboard.

my laptop can have new RAM and a new CPU, but not a new GPU. if i do get another laptop to replace this (instead of a desktop) then i'll try and get one with a replaceable GPU.

I honestly dont know a load about laptops

Storm or Tom would probably be the best go to's for laptops.

Macbooks are actually quite powerful, but super expensive.

I know Asus makes good laptops.

I look into that particular model you posted in a bit

I know of one thats upgradeable...that is what I am thinking of getting (I am travelling to much

also thst toughbook http://panasonic.net/avc/pc/product/full.html#cf31

Pariah wrote:Molecular biology.


yeah...I'm not kidding

Did a bit of research on the subject and I could not find any info on the programs you might be using during the degree. I am going to go out on a limb and say that she will not need to use anything similar to CAD or other programs that require a powerful computer. Now if you will need to be using simulation like programs you are going to need to disregard this advice. Anyways on to the recommendations. Now with a budget of $1000 - $1200 I am just going to suggest that she gets an ultrabook. For college I am going to assume she wants a fairly portable laptop that will last her four years and has great battery life. The new Mackbook Air seems like your best choice. It is the top dog in terms of build quality and battery life, and will have more than enough power for standard computer work. The HD 5000 is also not that bad for gaming, you can play just about anything on it. If storage is a big issue you will need to pic up an external hard drive.

Let her get her mac. I highly doubt she cares anything about computer besides something that she needs to use and to "show-off" as status symbol. The only real choice that she has is between Macbook Air 11-inch 256gb or Macbook Pro 13-inch (bare minimum, no retina). Everything else either exceeds her budget or does not have hdd capacity.

I would say that it's better for her to get an Air, instead of a MacBook Pro. Newer hardware, and the 13" one has very good battery life, and is only about 1.3 kg. Or she could wait for Apple to release their new Pro models and see what they bring and get a 13" Pro if it's the better choice.

Molecular biology might sound intense but it's going to be more research, you're not going to need something powerful for it.

I believe my brother has either a B.S. or an M.S. in it, he's never had anything more than a normal laptop.

Yea get something cheap. Probably dont need the 1k budget.