I need to purchase a new laptop for business school. Kellogg's website has a bunch of recommendations are far as memory, speed, etc. However, there isn't a recommendation as far as what brand to purchase but they did say that a lot of students have Lenovo. What do you guys think?

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Best Brand of Laptop for MBA

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gavinj1984

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14 Jun 2012, 10:22

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glores1970

gavinj1984

glores1970

All,
Is this an option - forgo the laptop completely. Instead buy any tablet and use Google documents for all your office needs.
I dont know how well Google's spreadsheet compares to Excel.

Is this option viable ? It will be more convenient to carry a tablet than a laptop, and other than finance heavy courses, it appears that Excel is not critical.

Another question - do business schools allow students to record lectures ? Audio ? Video ?

Personally, I wouldn't do it. Google Docs are okay for standard stuff, but if you need to get format or formula heavy, you're going to be out of luck. Also, I would much rather be overprepared than underprepared. A nice, fast laptop will definitely be able to handle whatever is thrown at me, but a tablet probably won't be able to.

Thanks for your reply, gavinj1984. I do see your point about being overprepared.

But seriously, what does an MBA course throw at you, other than Excel formulas, that cannot be done on any tablet in the market. For a finance class, one can use any laptop, even an older one. But for every other course, all you need is a word processor, presentation software, email and of course, a browser.

I wouldn't buy a new laptop unless it is absolutely needed.
I think compared to a tablet, a laptop is much clumsier to handle in a class. With a tablet, you could even record the lecture ! Do they allow that ?

I agree that a new laptop is not necessary if you already have one. The big problem that I can see with using a tablet as your primary computing device, Excel excluded, is that it is very limited. It's great for e-mails and browsing the web. For presentations or word processing, tablets are very limited. There just isn't the same capability. Also, I hate typing anything longer than a paragraph or so on a tablet. If you have to type even a five-hundred word essay, a tablet is not great. I have a feeling that if you decide to go with a tablet as a primary device that you will end up carrying around both a laptop and a tablet a lot of the time. If you're already carrying around a laptop, then the convenience of a tablet is greatly reduced.

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19 Jun 2012, 06:27

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went and looked at computers last weekend. fell in love w/ the asus zenbook. and then found out they are releasing a brand new one like right now. so probably going to get that. sort of hard to parse exactly what models are being offered (asus seems terribad at telling its customers things) but hoping for the config w/ new i7 and 128 ssd. my current laptop is an asus and has been running perfectly for 4 years so pleased to keep using them.

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19 Jun 2012, 14:41

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HP's are garbage, so are Dells (I really cannot emphasize this enough). Don't bother with Apple, they're over-priced fanboi computers- good for people who don't know how to use a pc. Lenova, Asus, Acer, Toshiba/Sony- in that order. Windows 8 is coming soon and you can get it for a good deal with purchase. Or you could always buy a used Thinkpad (t series) and run Ubuntu on it, if you'd like a bargain deal.

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24 Jun 2012, 18:30

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pacostacos

Apple's hardware quality is still miles ahead of any other manufacturer's. I think the software thing could be an issue, not sure, but it's absurd to say it's a "fanboi" computer. And not having to go out of your way to learn arcane ways to maintain your computer is the whole point of a Mac, letting you focus on more important things, like school/work.

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05 Jul 2012, 07:47

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I have been doing my diligence for a while and I am still on the fence about using my Mac this fall. I have not been convinced that even with Windows 7 and Microsoft Office for Windows that I will be ok with the heavy lifting in my finance classes as well as any programs that run off of Windows. I have always been PC user and only first purchased a Mac in 2010, but still use a PC at work.

If I do purchase a PC, i really dont want to spend more than $300 (looking at refurbished and Scratch and Dent models from Lenovo, Dell, etc). I would love to get some more folks thoughts on this who have been through at least one year of their MBA program.

Thank you!

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06 Jul 2012, 02:44

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I've been using a Dell Latitude E6500 for work and I've not had any troubles with it. My next laptop (when I get to B-School) will probably be a Lenovo Thinkpad. I was not too impressed with the new line of Latitudes; they don't feel as sturdy as the previous generation and they look more like consumer laptops now. The new Lenovo Thinkpad T530 is out in the U.S. The nice thing about the new T530 is the discrete Nvidia NVS 1GB graphics card. However the new model has switched over to an island style keyboard layout. I love the feel of classic Lenovo/Dell keyboard so I'm not sure if the new graphics card is a worthy tradeoff wrt losing the classic keyboard.

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07 Jul 2012, 09:22

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EmoryNole

Im doing the Lenovo X1 as well. With the student pricing, you can do a SSD and the whole shot is around $1,300 with MsftOffice installed. This computer is amazing. Powerful, thin, long battery life with SSD, durable, charges wicked fast and boot time is equally fast. It's the whole package if you're willing to spend the money.

Best computer available outside of Mac. I have heard that unless you are computer savvy, the Mac is discernibly different than PCs. Since Ctrl+Alt+Del is still my go-to solution to any and all problems, I prefer to be on the same page as professors instruction without having to rely on what little tech savvy I have.

How do you get that student pricing? Is this a special link at lenovo's website that all students get or is it specific for your school?

A x1 for $1300 w/ MS Office sounds like a good deal. (Although don't most schools give out MS Office for free or like $15 to mba students?)

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07 Jul 2012, 09:53

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On the Lenovo website you just go to Solutions For and scroll down to students. I am not sure if you the school matters, but I know the discount worked for Emory. You won't be able to get the X1 right now though because the X1 carbon is coming out in August. I ordered my X1 from the Lenovo outlet site (outlet.lenovo.com), 160SSD, Windows Prof64, whole nine yards for under $1,300 brand new. If you don't want to wait until August to order your laptop, thats a great price for a phenomenal computer. Emory's program begins in late July so I really didn't want to wait. Also, who knows how much the new X1 will cost or how long it will take to ship.

archimedes2014

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07 Jul 2012, 11:21

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EmoryNole

Also, who knows how much the new X1 will cost or how long it will take to ship.

Yeah the new x1 carbon looks incredible, but probably very pricey.

Thanks for explaining how to get the student discount.

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04 Aug 2012, 03:05

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read a ton of ultrabook reviews and am torn between the lenovo ideapads (U300/310) and the asus zenbook (ux31/prime)
the former seems like a more reliable brand and doesn't have any keyboard/trackpad issues.

asus resolution dwarfs lenovo, however, a number of reviews noted that the keyboard and trackpad are buggy.

thoughts on either of the two models?

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04 Aug 2012, 04:08

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It depends up on how you use your laptop.. I would suggest u acer.

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05 Aug 2012, 19:49

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asdasd123123

I was looking at these two models, as well. I'm probably going to go with the Zenbook because the Ideapad doesn't have an Ethernet port.

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05 Aug 2012, 22:00

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ls413 - Best to my knowledge the Zenbook doesn't have an ethernet port either.

I eventually went ahead with the Thinkpad X230 and couldn't be happier!

martin70

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09 Jul 2014, 23:29

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I have a Lenovo and am very satisfied with it. However the only reason I got it was because I was getting a good deal for it. All the best laptop brands like HP, Dell, Sony are equally good.

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12 Aug 2014, 09:38

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The Lenovo x-series is probably the best choice out, but if you want to be more price conscious, I would look at the Lenovo Thinkpad e-series. I think those are the small business laptops, not as thin as the x-series but easily good enough to get you through school. I got a brand new one for $700, while the x-series go for well over a thousand.

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12 Aug 2014, 09:52

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I used the Thinkpad at my first job, and it can definitely get the job done. I'd be happy with that, or possible one of those Dell Latitude laptops

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20 Oct 2014, 12:38

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Mine's Toshiba and works fine without any problem. Would recommend anyone who wants to get quality with a cheap price!

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PSA: Please do not buy a Dell laptop. I purchased the XPS 13 6 months ago and it has crashed 3 times already. Each time I had to reinstall the operating system, thereby deleting everything stored on my laptop - files, pictures -everything. I would have lost it all if I did not have cloud storage. Technicians could not help me retrieve backup files from the hard drive. To make matters worse, they asked me to pay more money above the basic warranty which I had already paid for to "fix" the issue, which they could not do successfully. The first time it happened I was told it was a one-off event. This is the third time this has happened. I've spent countless hours on the phone over several days, trying an inordinate number of steps to no avail. Dell refused to give me a refund, replacement or exchange despite my "premium" warranty. To add insult to injury, they claimed they would send someone over to fix it in 2-3 days. Being that technicians don't work on the weekend and they have no emergency response. Forewarned is forearmed.

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24 Feb 2018, 13:16

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Please do not buy a Dell computer. I purchased the XPS 13 6 months ago and it has crashed 3 times already. Each time I had to
reinstall the operating system, thereby deleting everything stored on my laptop - files, pictures -everything. I would have lost
it all if I did not have cloud storage. Technicians could not help me retrive backup files from the hard drive.
To make matters worse, they asked me to pay more money above the basic warranty which I had already paid for to "fix" the issue, which
they could not do successfully. The first time it happened I was told it was a one-off event. This is
the third time this has happened. I've spent countless hours on the phone over several days, trying an
inordinate number of steps to no avail. Dell refused to give me a refund, replacement or exchange despite my "premium"
warranty. To add insult to injury, they claimed they would send someone over to fix it in 2-3 days. Being
that technicians don't work on the weekend and they have no emergency response.

JTdaniel

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24 Feb 2018, 14:53

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I've had 6 Dell machines and have bought and set up countless others. Never have I had issues like you did. Does that mean I can make sweeping generalisations about a brand? Nope.

I'd recommend the Dell XPS 13 9360, it's simply the best ever laptop I've owned. Surface Pro is brilliant as well.

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