2010 Laptop discussion

This ASUS laptop with 11.5 hrs of battery life looks pretty interesting too. I wonder how it compares to Thinkpad T410, Sony Z, etc. (sorry Macs are not for me....)

https://www.amazon.com/UL80Vt-A1-14-Inch ... B002Q8HK7K

My suggestion is no matter what you choose, don't buy until right before school starts. You don't want it out of date by the time school starts.

Is it strongly recommended to purchase the computer from the school? For example, CMU might only sell the IBM thinkpad -- this is not my favorite laptop, but I do not want to be at a disadvantage if everyone else has it...

From what I've seen so far, these "recommended" by the school computers, are just a little money on a side for the school or university store. Unless they offer you some pre-installed applications that you don't have already, at no additional charge, this is most likely going to be a rip off. Pretty much the same as buying new textbooks at list price from the bookstore on campus, when you can buy the same books on internet at 30-70% discount.

I think it depends on the product and on the university. I think in the CMU store, you can get some products at a heavy discount like Windows and even some Thinkpads. I'd do some research on the prices and pick the best between them. I don't think Thinkpads are necessary for some bschool courses, but Windows might especially for some Excel/VB heavy classes.

I heard at Duke softwares are free, for both mac and PC. Just need to bring you bare laptop.

It's not absolutely necessary to buy your laptop through the school, provided your laptop meets the hardware and software requirements of the school. You should be able to find out from the school's IT group what those requirements are, as well as any implications of buying your own machine on the level of support they will provide you.

i mentioned these 2 laptops in the larger thread, but i'll repeat them here. they have, IMO, the most desirable characteristics of a b-school machine (based on requirements that i've read in other threads posted by current students):

- long battery life
- portability (size/weight should be minimized)
- good benefit to cost ratio
- performance (this is lower on the priority list since you won't need high end computing to run excel and outlook, etc.)

asus UL30 A
acer AS 1810 T

both are in the ~$650 range + tax. both are ultra portable, but with a decent enough screen to be able to see things clearly. both have excellent battery lives. and finally, the price point is about half of what you'd pay for a similar macbook.

one downside is that the 64 bit versions of windows might have compatibility issues with drivers and such. if this is the case, then i'd say to get something similar, but that runs windows 7 32-bit instead. the other is that these don't have dvd drives built in. this didn't seem to be too big of an issue either, as if you really needed one you could buy a $70 external dvd drive; it didn't sound like a dvd drive was absolutely necessary for school, though

Hi shadow, do you have the right link to the larger thread? i got a lot of noise in the results when searching...

the-great-laptop-discussion-forum-61513.html

I would suggest not buying anything until 1-2 months before school starts. Laptops only get cheaper and better as time goes by (even a couple months).

I pretty much agree with shadowsjc, battery life and portability are probably more important than power for business school uses. A good keyboard is also very important for easy typing during class and meetings. I have an old 9" netbook, and it is very tricky to type quickly.

My current recommendations now would be:

Netbook: HP Mini 311 - it has hardware video acceleration, so HD YouTube will play smoothly. It is choppy for most current netbooks.

Netbook/main laptop: I second shadowsjc's recommendation of the Acer 1810T. I actually recommended the Acer 1410 (cheaper, slightly weaker sibling) for someone, and it has met all expectations.

If I were to choose my setup right now, I'd probably just get an Acer 1810T, with an external keyboard/mouse/monitor docking set at home.

My sister receieved a HP Elitebook from work and it looks like a great laptop. It's 14" so it gives you plenty of screen dimension with nice titanium/metal casing.

Has anyone had any of the HP laptops? I haven't had one in a while and i'm curious.

I had a full-size HP laptop for work before I went to school. It was decent, a little on the heavy side (which probably is less of an issue with the compact model) and had a couple reliability issues. Overall, it wasn't quite as solid as a ThinkPad or with nearly as nice a keyboard, but not nearly the same POS as a Dell.

Hey now, why is Dell a POS? I found the Dell XPS and Latitude series to be quite nice. I currently use a Latitude E6400 for work and it's much better than my 6 year old laptop at home :O

Just my opinion based on my experience and from talking to people at work who had Dell laptops. They were heavier, ran hotter, and had much more reliability issues (read: Blue Screen of Death) than any other laptops.

Admittedly, you don't know me, so your statement that you don't know those who did not have problems with their Sony laptops, may hold true But for the sake of the argument, I can be counted as one who have not had problems with my Sony laptop (yet?). I have had it only for 5 months though. I would still vouch for Sony. As for the price - you are right, but the same is true for Dell and some other better known brands apart from ASUS and Lenovo.