Laptop Advice

[als814]

I'm looking for some advice for when I need to get a laptop next year for college. It is really early to be thinking about this since I won't be getting it until right before school starts next fall, but the more knowledgeable I can become the better.

This will be a working laptop that will function as just that, and I want it to hopefully last plenty of years. I will probably bring my desktop along to play games, so I won't have to worry about any sort of intense graphics, and I don't even to video editing or encoding, so that isn't important either. The only gaming requirement I have is that it is able to play Starcraft, but that will run on a pentium 90, so that isn't any sort of concern.

The main features I am looking for is long battery life, really easy portability, a bright screen, and a lot of ram. One of my friends suggested that the best value for ram in a laptop is to get the lowest amount they will ship me, and just replace that with like a gig off of newegg. I just tend to run a lot of programs at once, and I get impatient, plus ram is pretty cheap right now.

I was looking at a Sony FS790 model. It looked really light and super slim from the picture I saw. I know Sony has a habit of being overpriced, but I managed to get one configured with a Pentium M 1.73 GHz processor, the most powerful battery they had, and a DVD burner for $1319. This was cheaper than any toshiba I could configure with what I want, and I think my dad's Inspiron 6000 was more than that when he bought it last year. Do you guys think this thing will last? My uncle gave me his Fujitsu last year that is 8 years old, and I have been really happy with that except for how slow it is, and I would hopefully like to hold on to this for almost that long if it is still useful in any way.

[fcoral]

this is not intended to dampen your mood but i dont think you would get much replies on this right now because you won't be buying till next fall and more than likely there will be a lot more advance laptops out and still probably very nicely priced that you will still be able to afford and also your needs may change. So for right now i would say keep doing your research and when u r ready to purchase post your new requirements and we would all be more than willing to help. This is just my view for right now. Again i don't mean or intend to offend you.

[als814]

Thanks, I kind of figured it would be a little hard to get advice this far in advance. My needs probably won't be changing, so I'll probably end up getting something similar, just for either cheaper or slightly faster.

[fcoral]

like i said before you don't need it now so dont rush it i'm sure next fall when u finally get it and you look back at what you wanted this year you would see a big difference and would be happy that you waited. Also dell also has nice deals running from time to time so be patient and it would all work out.

[Thebranded]

just spend this time saving up more, and you'll get a sweeter deal later

[als814]

Ya, luckily my parents said they would pay for it since you practically need it for college.

[thefultonhow]

A word of advice for whenever you buy the laptop -- Dell often has coupons that can bring the cost of one of their laptops down considerably. The best ones I've seen are 40% off (there was one 45% off but you could only use it on certain configurations, and those configs were overpriced) and $750 off $1499. I used a $750 off $1499 for my mom's Inspiron 700m, and she ended up getting it (P-M 1.6, 512 MB RAM, 40 GB hard drive, combo drive, 4-year warranty with CompleteCare accidental damage protection) for $856. I have seen well-speced Inspiron 6000s with X300 dedicated graphics for $650 with some of the 40% off coupons.