Suggestions for a laptop for college

[Teca]

A laptop is required for my studies. I currently have a really large and heavy laptop that I use for gaming but its impractical for carrying around campus all day long.

Specs I'm looking for:
- light in weight
- screen must be nice (1080 at anything above 15 inch for example, I'm assuming things below 1080 won't look too bad at 15 and under)
- keyboard must be close to a regular sized keyboard
- under $1k, pretty sure this leaves Apple products out if it doesn't cool!
- Does not need a beast video card or processor as it will only be used to run educational and business applications

I'm hoping some of you can recommend some great laptops and save me some time. Ready? GO!

[chazus]

To be honest, without gaming needs, you can easily get away with a sub-$600 system that's still reliable.

[Teca]

To be honest, without gaming needs, you can easily get away with a sub-$600 system that's still reliable.

Yes I'm beginning to realize that now. Any recommendations?

[chazus]

I've always liked Dell Vostro's for non-gaming purposes. Well built. A lot of people rag on Dell because they 'break a lot' but that's pretty much a statstic that's taken when ignoring that Dell is one of largest laptop sellers. Lots of product means more failures, but not necessarily a higher ratio of failures.

Something like this will likely handle any student stuff. Define 'business applications' though.

I'll look up some other brands and prices shortly.

Or this

[Teca]

I've always liked Dell Vostro's for non-gaming purposes. Well built. A lot of people rag on Dell because they 'break a lot' but that's pretty much a statstic that's taken when ignoring that Dell is one of largest laptop sellers. Lots of product means more failures, but not necessarily a higher ratio of failures.

Something like this will likely handle any student stuff. Define 'business applications' though.

I'll look up some other brands and prices shortly.

Or this

By business applications I only mean things like Word processing, spread sheets, web browsing, email, etc.

That Vostro looks decent. Any idea at what screen size a keyboard would typically become noticeably smaller than that of a desktop keyboard? I'm not a fan of smaller keyboards.

[chazus]

That Dell Inspiron has a 13.3" and it says "Standard" keyboard.. I can't imagine a 12" having standard so 13" is probably the smallest you can go. I personally wouldnt want to go any smaller than that anyway, since you'll undoubtedly be using it for watching movies and stuff too.

[Teca]

That Dell Inspiron has a 13.3" and it says "Standard" keyboard.. I can't imagine a 12" having standard so 13" is probably the smallest you can go. I personally wouldnt want to go any smaller than that anyway, since you'll undoubtedly be using it for watching movies and stuff too.

Yeah that Inspiron looks perfect for my needs. I'll try to see if I can find anything better. Thanks a lot!

[chazus]

If it means anything, you CAN get a laptop with minor gaming capability for way under $1000, which will lead to an effectively more powerful system overall, as well as having that option of minor gaming, like checking the AH while you're on vacation, or playing minecraft or something.

I'm not a huge fan of Acer, however this seems like a fantastic deal for a laptop with a dedicated video card.

[Teca]

If it means anything, you CAN get a laptop with minor gaming capability for way under $1000, which will lead to an effectively more powerful system overall, as well as having that option of minor gaming, like checking the AH while you're on vacation, or playing minecraft or something.

I'm not a huge fan of Acer, however this seems like a fantastic deal for a laptop with a dedicated video card.

Its funny you mentioned that Acer laptop because I have the 17 inch version of it currently. It is alright I guess. But like I said it is way too heavy and bulky for carrying around campus. Also the 17 inch has a 650m GPU and I was expecting more out of it to be honest. The keyboard is also unresponsive at times if you're not a heavy typer like myself. You really need to hit the keys hard to get them to register sometimes.

[chazus]

Its funny you mentioned that Acer laptop because I have the 17 inch version of it currently. It is alright I guess. But like I said it is way too heavy and bulky for carrying around campus. Also the 17 inch has a 650m GPU and I was expecting more out of it to be honest. The keyboard is also unresponsive at times if you're not a heavy typer like myself. You really need to hit the keys hard to get them to register sometimes.

Well, 17" laptops are just.. huge. So yeah it'll be heavy. It's probably got a bigger processor in it too. But those sound like issues with that laptop, and not necessarily that setup.

[jholdaway]

This is one of the lightest 17+ laptops I've found on amazon. Not sure if it is light enough though. 6.2 lbs. Don't know much about the processor though. 3.2 GHz A-Series Quad-Core A10-4600M

http://www.amazon.com/Toshiba-Satell...8350112&sr=1-1

[Deleted]

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834230671
13" though but ultrabook and just within budget. (1080p resolution is hard on lightweight/mobile laptops)