Calling All Computer Nerds

61 thoughts on Calling All Computer Nerds

1. I actually just had to research this for work. The recommendation I got the most was for the Sony Vaio SZ series; they seem to run about $2000. I got recommendations for the Sony ThinkPad series (specifically as durable if you’re taking it with you often) and they come in different sizes, so you might be able to find one that’s a good compromise between compact and not too tiny. They’re also a bit cheaper – it looks like from $700 to $1800 depending on which model you want.

   These aren’t things I’ve used myself, though; just things that were recommended to me.

2. You’re gonna be lugging it around NYC and campus and stuff, so I say the convenience factor definitely outweighs the little keyboard/teeny screen. Besides, once you start using it regularly, you’ll adapt.

   Loathe as I am to say it (because it’s not a very good magazine), browsing through something like PC Magazine, especially if you can get your hands on a we-rate-the-best-and-worst type of issue (which they only do about quarterly, so that should not be hard), would probably give you the best idea of what to get in your price range.

   Ha, wait–I’m being dumb. You don’t even need the hard copy:

   http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,1901707,00.asp

   Or, you could just wait for the internet’s Horde of Nerds to show up here and insist that you buy this machine and only this machine or else, gosh, they just can’t even look at you anymore.

   Finally, bargain buys can be found at Overstock.com or eBay. But your budget seems very reasonable for a new one, especially if it’s got to last you some time. Plus, I’m told Overstock has a nasty, punitive return policy, and as for eBay, well, you know, you takes your chances.

   Good luck!

3. And to second Reb, the last Sony VAIO I used was a gem, though that was several years ago.

4. *shrug*

   I’ve got an IBM R52 that cost around $2000. It’s lightweight for its size (I think it’s only six pounds) and it’s a sturdy little beast; I’ve dropped it once or twice and it still works as good as ever.

5. My notebook is an HP Pavillion and it’s been fine. I here loads of horror stories about Dell. But for ruggedness I recently read either a blog entry or comment (don’t have the link, sorry) about the Lenovo (IBMs) being good. As I remember the comment the guy’s company was asking the various vendors about drop tests etc. and Lenovo and one other were the only ones who didn’t draw back in horror at the thought of actually trying a drop test before purchase.

   Boy, I wish I had the details; just didn’t save a link and I couldn’t find it with a brief search just now.

6. At my former job, I used an IBM X series, which is small and lightweight. I think it weighed around 4 lbs. I had the thing for 3 years and used to travel to and from London with it one week out of every month for a year. It also used to make the daily work commute with me. If you fall a lot, I recommend getting a decently padded carrying case. The X series is small enough it will fit nicely into a largish purse, though. Like a good size hobo. You can get a padded cover for it and slip it into your backpack or whatever.

   I think they cost under $2,000. We certainly paid less, but we had a corporate discount.

   Too bad about the Mac thing, as I use a Powerbook at home, and it’s awesome.

7. I hate to be that guy, but if you’re using Examsoft, you can run it on a Mac with Boot Camp and Windows. See here: http://www.examsoft.com/faqs/faq.asp#4

   Otherwise, I’m 2 1/2 years through law school, and I’ve seen too many laptops (of all varieties) explode or otherwise die. My Powerbook, Dells, Compaqs, all dead in one way or another. Whatever you get, get the extended warranty.

   K

8. Ditto what Kevin Q just said. I was going to write the same exact thing. We use dells and macs for software and web development at culturekitchen central and, let me tell, the macs kick ass always but for some real complex algorithmic software art produced by the male unit of the household. mac screens render better and don’t kill your eyes like dell laptop screens.

9. I’ve been coveting this for months. It’s super small (just over 2 lbs with a 10 inch screen) but I travel alot and hate lugging heavy crap.

10. When I was in law school, we used bluebooks for exams. And walked to school uphill! Both ways!

    Actually, I’m reading all this with interest since I’m in the market for a new laptop.

    But we weren’t allowed to use laptops in exams. They were really hinky about security back then. My god, what if someone gets hold of the exam beforehand???? What then????

11. DO NOT BUY A DELL. Do. Not. No matter how low the prices look.

    I’ve had pretty good luck with IBM laptops.

12. Oh, and get offa my lawn.

13. Ditto on avoiding Dell. My laptop was, basically, the cheapest decent one I could find (it’s a Compaq Presario, cost not test the durability, but it’s survived getting tossed around in a book bag and falling a couple of feet (closed). It has a decently sized screen and keyboard, which to me is more important than compactness, and still weighs less than many of my math and physics texts (also important if I’m going to be dragging the thing around on my back).
    Despite what my major might suggest, I’m not sufficiently geeky to have any actual advice, so I’ll stop rambling now.

14. Um, just to be the non-computer person to weigh in (ha!) on the size issue, you should ask yourself (or your health care professionalTM) what would be more likely to give you a repetitive stress injury – carrying around a heavier laptop for however often you’d be carrying it around, or typing on a tiny keyboard for however much you type. For me, the tiny keyboard thing is a killer. (And I’m barely 27 years old, as of 2 weeks ago.) However, I could see how lugging the extra pound or two around could be worse. BEWARE of RSI. IT SUCKS. I know I sound like a crazy old lady who rings her hands about the danges of crossing the street or talking to boys or poking your eyes out, but as someone with shoulder problems from typing, I really would not wish such a thing on anyone.*

    *Well, maybe on a few people, but I really shouldn’t. It’s mean.

15. Crap. That was supposed to read
    “cost

16. less than $600. For yer average undergraduate needs it works great, if you’re a computer science major, anyway. I try to not test the durability…
    (Thus I reveal my complete lack of computer skills. Apparently using an angle bracket for “less than” is a no-no.)

17. I know I sound like a crazy old lady who rings her hands about the danges of crossing the street or talking to boys or poking your eyes out, but as someone with shoulder problems from typing, I really would not wish such a thing on anyone

    I just wrapped up three weeks of physical therapy (plus lots of prescription drugs) for a shoulder/neck injury caused by a combination of stress and too much computer work. So I hear ya. And good idea — I’ll check with my doctor to see if a compact computer or a large keyboard/screen is better.

18. Apparently using an angle bracket for “less than” is a no-no.

    Try typing the ampersand key, followed by “lt” (in lowercase like that), followed by a semicolon. It should look like:

    <

    but display as

    <

    Anyway, there’s a table for all that here. (Can’t swear to how current it all is; my nerdiness has limits set by my laziness.)

19. Jill, get a backpack for your laptop and wear it on both shoulders, no matter how goofy you think it looks. Trust me. I’ve endured 17 years of neck/shoulder/wrist injuries from typing and hauling books and heavy shit around.

20. I’ll second that person, and point out that a Mac is fine – you can run Virtual PC on an old one, or get BootCamp or Parallels for a new one. My software development company is all Mac on the client side now, and we just boot in to Windows when we need to test something. We’re much happier.

    If you want a PC, I strongly recommend ThinkPads, from the ‘business’ line. They are very sturdy, have quality LCDs (== less eyestrain), and the keyboards feel good, which lets you type faster. Don’t underrate those last two – 6 oz. of weight is worth quite a bit of tradeoff in actually using a device that you’re going to spend hours a day with.

    Viaos, in my experience, have been fragile. This may have changed in the last couple of years. Avoid Dell at all costs, until they get their act together – they’ve been building really shoddy machines for the last 5 or so years.

    Also, consider a machine from eBay. Much like cars, laptops lose a hefty percentage of value onces unwrapped, and for email, http, and writing papers, there’s no reason to need the latest. A $500 Thinkpad made two years ago is going to be fine, and when you want to switch to a different machine, you’ll be less apprehensive than if you spend 2K on a box that is not going to give a materially different user experience. If you want to ‘buy up’, get more RAM, not a faster CPU. (Note: if you’re into games, this doesn’t apply.)

21. Jill, get a backpack for your laptop and wear it on both shoulders, no matter how goofy you think it looks.

    Ditto that. The new trend around campus is some kind of slung-over-one-shoulder triangular backpack that I’m certain is going to cause some kind of injury to that poor overworked one shoulder.

    Oh, and I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary to buy those padded monstrosities, either. The only you padding you need is for the part that goes over your shoulders, and maybe the part that (may or may not) dig into your lower back. The laptop’ll do just fine without any sort of padding if you get something rugged enough.

22. I have just been trying to coach my friend in Belgium on his laptop purchase through Skype chats, so I’ll pass on some of the things we discussed. Your level of computer literacy does not sound any worse then most people, so here are some of the things I’ve been passing along for him to look for in his future computer.
    Overall, who’s name is on the computer makes less difference if you you make good choices about the components you make sure are present. That said, when buying a laptop I really recommend you save enough in the budget to get the top-level warranty. Yea, they cost at least a couple hundred, but if anything goes wrong when you are traveling, as laptops tend to do, you can call and get service. From experience be it a computer I worked on for friends or in the lab, whatever maker I ended up calling for support; the owners that paid for the good coverage had better responses or leverage to get things fixed. Most companies get great and bad reviews, so paying for the best service is about the best bet for getting that good service(that and making sure they know your name ends in Esq.).

    What do you put in the laptop itself? Well, I played with website configure page(web window shopping if you will) with my friend and $1700-2000 would get you the whole package that would be something to last 4-5yrs. A thing to remember is that the two hardest things to upgrade on laptop are the video controller and the screen of the laptop. So if you are going to upgrade things on the laptop, get the best resolution(not necessarily the largest screen) and the highest video card within your budget.

    Since you want this computer to last a while I would recommend looking into a computer that has for its central processor(CPU) AMD64 chips. Computers with these chips perform better in most benchmarks, and many tend to get better performance per dollar spent then a corresponding Intel chip. The speed of your CPU does not have to be the best. If you want to improve how fast things run, then money may be better spent on a memory(RAM) upgrade then a CPU upgrade.

    As far as hard drive(HD), you can get away with a the basic for a few reasons. The basic HD is usually 60 or 80Gb, which takes some effort to fill. Also if you have a DVD burner, then then each DVD holds at least 4Gb of data for storage. Finally should you need more space then an external HD is always an option an as time goes on the prices for say 100Gb or more are getting to be less and less.

    Most of the other stuff is taken care of in the basic package, like the wireless card and other bundles. It would seem NYU Law is in collusion with Microsoft. So you might look to get your software through your school, since there is probably a site license which would cut the costs there. Especially if you know a sympathetic faculty member willing to get a copy of needed software for you from IT. Let me also take a moment to point out you should not lose these or any disks you get with computer. Anybody who might work on your computer in the future would appreciate not having to run around the internet looking for a device driver or software if something goes wrong. It’s not fun.
    I hope I gave you some info that you can make use of in your purchase, since I have been getting a lot of great info from this site.

23. I’ll throw in my support for the IBM ThinkPad T-series. My T41 not only survived daily abuse travelling around in my backpack through four years of high school, it also lived through a tumble down a flight of stairs and getting more than a little damp while walking home through a veritable flood.

24. I wanna second (or third) the idea of getting a small MacBook, and running your test-taking software through Parallels. Macs can run Windows now too (though why, other than that one program, you would want to is beyond me).

    I’d really recommend going in to an Apple Store and just playing around with one.

25. I second (third, however many people have endorsed it) the thinkpads, though IBM no longer makes them, the business has been sold to levono (though I think they are still supposed to be about as good). Alternatively a sony or toshiba would both be good power laptops, and don’t rule out a macbook pro because you can run windows on it (when you need to run the law software at least, and mac os other times).

    But my first recommendation is still the (used to be IBM, now levono) thinkpad

26. If the keyboard really is a dealstopper for a laptop you’d otherwise like, take a look at separate keyboards. It’s possible to get USB-connected keyboards; I know someone who has one for his tablet PC. It’s also possible to get external mice/trackballs/trackpads. They’re not as convenient as using a built-in device, but you get more options and cheap flexibility.

    I’m one of the people who think that a high-quality computer bag is worth it. Six years ago I bought a nice backpack from Targus. It had more padding than most chairs without being too heavy or constrictive. I don’t know what would be a good modern manufacturer.

27. My $0.02: Never mind “tech” features. Mind health. Please don’t buy anything you haven’t tested beforehand.

    For example, Sony Vaios had these really shiny displays when I tested them that looked very sleek and gave a very nice black and all that, but I wouldn’t want to have to use one anywhere but in a really dark room because they’d turn into rear-view mirrors. This wouldn’t have been obvious to me from the ads.

    Make sure the display works for you. Make sure the keyboard works for you. If you’ve never owned a laptop and need to use it for more than a little while each day, make sure you can look *down* at the display for hours without getting severe back/shoulder pains (like I do), or you might end up buying an external keyboard or display or both (I have both), the latter of which of course only makes sense for home use. Speaking of external, there’s the mouse question. If you’re not prepared to bring a mouse, you’ll probably wish to figure out whether you prefer the touchpad or the joysticky thing; not all models have both.

    Lastly, for what it’s worth, I can’t support the above criticism of Dell machines (but I won’t recommend one either, given that my usage pattern is totally different from what you stated above); I have three machines here, one Latitude (the “businessy” line) that’s too new to show much wear and tear, one that’s been a few times around the globe and is still going strong, and an Inspiron (the less sturdy line) which I bought used and which served the previous owner a couple of years, served me a couple of years, and is now starting to get a little flaky and has been demoted to stereo (which admittedly only works so well as there is a noticeable hum when it’s not running on battery). So much for the anecdotal evidence. 🙂

    So AMHA, make sure you won’t be in pain using the machine; everything else is secondary. Good hunting!

28. I’m in love with my Dell Inspiron 6400. It can take a beating; I bang the poor thing into doors, stair rails, and sometimes sidewalks way more often than I should, and it is in good condition. I paid way less than $2000 for it, too, and has been perfect for school (I’m an undergrad).

    I’ll give my support to the folks suggesting a laptop backpack, but I’ll throw in a suggestion to get a padded laptop sleeve, as well.

29. I’m lusting after the Lenovo x60 myself. Good luck with whatever you wind up buying!

30. I’ll second Dr. Dyer’s comments on specs, across the board. The make and model matter much less than what the computer is capable of. One thing that I would suggest is that, rather than an extended warranty, you purchase a replacement plan through the store you visit. I’ve personally had good luck with these; they’re generally less expensive than a manufacturer’s warranty, and you have a physical place to drop off your malfunctioning device rather than a mailing address and a phone number. Also, face-to-face interactions make it harder for a company to fail to do what they’re obligated to do.

31. Laptop advice: Shop around on the company’s websites. You can sometimes get surprisingly good deals. Most of the actual differences in prices between similar products from different companies seems to come down to paying for the name. The real differences crop up with tech support in the occasions where people have problems. I know Dell has had a serious fall from grace in this area, but I don’t know much about other companies. I treat extended warranties as a gamble, a bet on something going wrong later. If you know someone that can fix laptops (that you can trust), I think it is on average cheaper to just go with a 1 yr, as that is the time when most problems are going to crop up. If you don’t have such a connection and need it to last, the extended warranty might very well be worth it.

    Carrier advice: Get a backpack with a waist strap. I have one of these, which works quite well for me. You might be able find something better for your purposes though.

32. I’d highly recommend anything that IBM Lenovo makes – I work in a high school and all of our students have Lenovo tablets as part of the laptop program–if it can withstand high school students I’d think they can withstand almost anything! They are also more lightweight than most laptops (the tablets are just 4 lbs, but my regular Thinkpad laptop is a little heavier)
    My husband has a Thinkpad and he’s in law school too–that thing has endured almost endless abuse as he hauls it around campus.

33. I know, I know, but I’m going to recommend the mac as well. Now that they’re running WindowsXP you can actually partition them w/ both Mac OS X and WindowsXP which would solve all the problems with the exam taking software. If you like macs it might be worth looking into.

    Good luck.

34. Not sure if this needs to be said but whatever you do, don’t buy a Gateway. Bad computers, worse customer service and yes I had a bad experience. Also, I’ll add my voice to those pimping the Thinkpad and the one Sony I ever used (borrowed while my Gateway was being fixed) I loved.

35. Are you in school now? If so, check out what kind of discounts you can get. Most universities and colleges have deals brokered with specific vendors to get decent discounts, sometimes 30% or more. That goes for software and operating systems, too. It will probably be a limited selection, but if the price is good enough, could be wroth it.

36. Don’t know if anyone has recommended it, cause I wanted to say it before I forgot. (read as skipped comments to comment).

    http://www.pricewatch.com this is the best sight to compare prices and utility in what your looking for in a computer/laptop.

    First you should have an idea what you need the machine to do and go from there. Alot of stores will try to sell you top of the line models that can do Model rendering and spreadsheet analysis among other things that you don’t really need. If your requirements need to surf web, and connect to school test sight you don’t really need that much. And it could save you a good amount of money by knowing which ones do what and how.

    What I am saying is, you should call around to your service departments for computers and ask them requirements for doing the things you want to do with your laptop. Take that and weigh it against the budget you have planned, and THEN go shopping.

    Dollars to doughnuts you could get a nice refurbished laptop for 500 bucks to do what you need it to.

    Just my 2cts.

    Loosely Twisted

37. No one’s mentioned it yet, so I will. ABS has quality notebooks for low prices. I haven’t used one personally (yet — I’m still saving up towards getting one), but some very geeky friends of mine highly recommend them. Good product, good customer support, and it’s not Dell, HP, or Lenovo. They’re also offering free upgrades to Windows Vista when the new OS ships for purchases of Windows XP systems.

    NewEgg is a pretty good place to comparison-shop for notebooks.

38. You’re getting some great advice. YES to the backpack. YES to NOT buying a Dell (their service sucks and their PCs are at best, ok).

    My recommendation (and my job is evaluating computer hardware for my company of 5000+ people) is to go with the Lenovo (formerly IBM) ThinkPad X60 Tablet. Yes, Tablet. You’ll be able to use it in class just like you might with a pad of paper and not have that screen creating a barrier between you and whomever is talking.

    I also can not recommend highly enough, the Microsoft program OneNote 2007. It is the best software Microsoft didn’t steal from someone else. There are all kinds of benefits to students in OneNote, including using the Pen, clipping stuff from web sites or other progams and bringing it into the program, sending who web pages into OneNote from IE 7 (not may favorite, but the link to OneNote is too good to ignore).

    The problem is that this is going to crack your $2000 limit if you get all the stuff you need (the X4 media slice is a good investment). But work through your school for academic discounts on both hardware and software.

39. Dells are no better/worse than any other laptop I have owned, but I would suggest them for a student mostly because of the warranty. When I started grad school, I paid the extra $150 or so for an extended warranty that covered all manufacturer’s defects plus any accidental damage that I would inflict on it (i.e. spilling beer and ramen on the keyboard). Totally worth it.

40. I won’t add more to the brand discussion — I have used pretty much every brand out there, either at work or for personl use, and don’t find a lot of difference in the quality or ruggedness of similarly priced models.

    My only reccomendation would be to buy as much RAM as you can afford/fit into the machine. That is probably the single best thing you can do to make sure that your machine will fast now and useful in a few years.

41. My two cents: my partner just completed her master’s degree last year. During her 3 years in online courses from UW she used 2 different Toshiba models. Both are work horses and dependable. The one major complaint is the touch pads can be a pain, but I understand that is an issue with virtually all laptops and it can be avoided using a wireless mouse.

    Now, she started with a 6 lb. Toshiba model with a 40GB hard drive and a CD burner. After lugging it on campus for a couple of years (backpack required), she felt it was too heavy for her and wanted to upgrade to a smaller model. The original ran about $1200, but today would run about $400.

    The smaller model has an 80GB hard drive. One way it saves it’s weight is by having A) a smaller battery and B) no CD/DVD burner or drive. This second point is a big issue as it means having to hook the computer up to a network to download software either to it or burn files from it. We ended up buying an external DVD burner for her to use for long term storage. We also got a couple of jump drives for quickly transferring files and programs around. The smaller model weighs in at under 3 pounds. That’s the trade off – half the weight, less convenience. The smaller model also ran about $2200. Consider these things when making a purchase.

    Now, the partner likes the smaller PC better in many ways. It fits her hands better and she likes the lighter weight. But she also doesn’t like the inconvenience of the external burners and drives. In retrospect, she generally thinks that she made an error by going ultralight weight. But both Toshiba products took the beating of school and margaritas and survived.

    As for Microsoft OneNote – good program. Google’s Notebook is also indispensable.

42. YOU CAN GET A MAC! You could actually get a MacBook if you so desired. The new MacBooks can run windows through a program called Parallels (www.parallels.com). I have a new MacBook and unfortunately there are still some app’s that don’t work on it. I installed that program and it works just like a windows machine, if I need it.

    The beauty of a mac: No blue screen of death; no virus issues; easy updates. And very, very light.

43. My laptop is a huge Sony Vaio, which I love with all my heart for the big 16.5 in screen and the big keyboard (and the incredible specs on it when I bought it 4 years ago)…but it might as well be a desktop for the pain it is to bring anywhere. Might I suggest, as a solution to the comfy vs. convenient problem, a docking station/port replicator? You can plug a full-size keyboard, mouse and monitor into it, leave it on your desk, and then just (gently) drop the laptop into it when you’re home. Then you can have small convenientness when you’re out, but not have to always be stuck with small crampedness in exchange. Even with my big screen and keyboard, the port replicator I have is wonderful simply for not having to plug and unplug everything when I move the laptop, and for being able to do something neat with the cables and leave them that way.

44. De-lurking to say that I have a Toshiba Satellite (Model: A105-S4284 if you want to check it out on the Best Buy website) and I LOVE it. I previously had a Gateway desktop which lasted about 4-5 years and it was pretty good too, but I haven’t had any experience with their laptops.

    As for Dell, my boyfriend has one and he does not like it that much. I work in an industry that hears many, MANY horror stories about them (including some recent ones about specific laptops catching on fire, if I recall correctly), so although I do not hate them with the fire of a thousand suns as so many people do, I would be pretty cautious about buying a Dell.

45. 1) The backpack recommendation from everyone above is a GOOD recommendation. As is the “more RAM” recommendation.

    2) I also recommend using a docking station connected to a real ergonomic keyboard and large monitor, for use at home when you are doing assignments, etc. Just because you own a laptop doesn’t mean you ALWAYS have to use the tiny screen and tiny keyboards, and if you do a fair amount of work at home, a docking station might be very useful for you. It was for me.

    3) Consider your mode of transport: If you walk or bicycle or take the train, the extra weight will be quite a burden as time passes. If you drive and can park near school, then it might not be that big of a deal.

    4) I’ve had good and bad experiences with Dell. They aren’t sturdy, but their service is usually quick (at least here in Austin). I had a dell D600 for two years and banged it up a fair bit, and now, two years later, I am still using it just fine (but Dell have had to replace motherboard once, display once, keyboard once, the hard disk once, etc. That said, I wouldn’t recommend a Dell. Ruggedness isn’t their forte. But, as someone above mentioned, most of the brands aren’t that different from each other, within the same price range. If I had to buy one now, I would probably by a Lenovo thinkpad, or a Toshiba. (Unless I wanted to splurge on a Mac)

    5) Find out if your school as “service agreements” with any notebook manufacturers. The only reason I got the dell was because my school had a partnership with them, which meant that there was a “swat shop” downstairs where I could take my dell in case of ANY problems, and they would loan be a different laptop while they fixed it for free. Some schools do have programs like that, so investigating that might be handy.

46. I just want to second everyone who said NO DELLS.

    I am in law school myself and had a Dell and it caught on fire in November. Yes, Caught on fire. The battery pack that was being used caught on fire (one to two inch flames) and had NOT been recalled. (I remember, because I had checked during the initial recall and the secondary additional recall, and I had to return my spare battery during the second round, but not my main battery at either time.)

    Their service sucks and it took me on the phone with them for hours at a time to get my new computer within any reasonable time frame. Whenever I called back to check in, which I was told to do, kept getting told longer estimates (up to 3 weeks), until finally it arrived the day after they told me it would be up to 3 weeks from that date. None of their departments talk to each other and have any communication, and none of the service reps have any idea what is going on.

47. I have a Mac, albeit an older one – an ibook, but I absolutely love it. As an English grad student, I lug it everywhere, and it’s fairly light and meets all my requirements. I do understand, though, wanting to have the capabilities to run your programs on it, and as I understand it, even though you can run Windows on the MacBook pro, it’s not just automatic. I could be completely wrong, though.

    However, I do have to say – shiny screen and all – I lust after the Sony Vaios. I’ve never considered myself a computer chick, but the size and beauty and workability on it – wow. Plus, I’m not petite, but even the lightest laptop gets heavy after a while, and the Vaios is just about the lightest, brightest I’ve come across.

48. I have had Dells, and had only great customer service and good functioning from them. I had a Compaq, which broke approximately every four seconds, and which they kept losing my warranty info about, even within a day.

    Go to a Best Buy or whatever and fiddle with the computers until you find one you like. As much as it’s probably possible to run the software for exams on a Mac, unless you have a friend who is doing it already and will help you set it up, it seems like a lot of effort and a lot of risk.

    Also, definitely do the computer in a sleeve in a backpack thing.

49. Buy a mac and install Windows on it, your software will work.

50. I’ll be the ten zillionth commenter on here to support Macs. Apple is using Intel CPUs in their systems now, the same microprocessors that Dell, Sony, HP, etc., put into their computers. You should be able to run Windows, and any Windows-compatible programs, without a problem. Apple tends to make quality products that don’t broke down, either… So, if you still decide against a Mac, please, for the love of god, don’t get a Dell or HP machine unless you want a laptop that frustrates you so much that you’ll chuck it out the nearest window.

51. I always advise people looking for a Windows-compatible laptop “that has to be a laptop,” that is, one which will actually be transported regularly, to look for a remaindered Panasonic Toughbook. Specifically you want the fully ruggedized Toughbook models 19/34/17 or 30/28. They are extremely well-built, with metal cases and shock-mounted screens and hard drives, designed to MIL-specs to handle being dropped on the floor, having drinks spilled on them, exposure to heat and cold, etc. Incidentally, they also have screens which are bright enough that you can actually read them in sunlight. Brand new Toughbooks are quite expensive (though if you can afford it, it’s worth the money) but you can often find last year’s model being dumped by resellers at fire-sale prices. That’s how I got mine.

    Within the first month of owning it I left it out on the hood of my truck when I was working on a job site. As I finished the job it started to rain, but I didn’t want to knock off and drive all the way back the next day for the last fifteen minutes worth of work, so I kept on staking. By the time I got the last stake in, rain was pouring down. As I walked to the truck I was upset to realize that I had left my new computer exposed. But when I picked it up off the hood, I touched the keyboard and the screen lit right up. The keyboard is slightly sunk in the top of the case; I turned the computer over, poured the rain water out of the keyboard well, and put it in the front seat of the truck. No problem!

52. Just to say, I have an IBM Tablet PC from my university, and it makes me happy for its usefulness, though, at times it’s slow because of the software Seton Hall makes us put on it. IBMs are resilient, though, from my experience with them. They’re also expensive, though, which is made up for by the tech support, for the most part.

53. (1) Another vote for the RAM: Have at least a gigabyte, if not more; it does wonders for performance. If you see a machine that doesn’t come with that much RAM but you otherwise like it, you can always add more RAM later. A GB of laptop memory should run you around $100.

    (2) Keep in mind that you can hook up a full-size keyboard, monitor, and/or mouse and use it that way (when you’re home, of course). You can even have both screens running, and have, say, a document on one screen and a web page on the other. I find this saves me time if I’m working with several windows at once, because I don’t have to juggle windows around as much. If this sounds useful to you, get a high-resolution LCD screen; you should be able to find a 19″ LCD monitor with a resolution of at least 1280×1024 or 1440×900 for under $200, if you look around a bit.
    I see now that another commenter mentioned a docking station. You don’t need one. It’s merely a convenience so you can pop the laptop into the docking station instead of hooking up the keyboard/monitor/mouse every time (you just leave those hooked up to the docking station.) I advise against one unless it’s particularly cheap, simply ’cause it’s not all that hard to plug in a few cables every time; also, some docking stations keep you from doing the two-monitor setup I suggested. You can always change your mind and get one later.

    (3) I just got a Mac, and it’s lovely. Unlike Windows, you don’t constantly want to spork it in the eye.
    There are two ways to run Windows on a Mac (for your exam software):
    (a) use Apple’s Boot Camp. You install Windows, and at boot time you pick which OS to use. The disadvantage is you have to restart to switch to Windows, and then restart again to switch to OS X.
    (b) Use Parallels. That’s another $70 to buy Parallels, but it lets you run Windows *inside* OS X. It also makes it much easier to share files between OS X and Windows. They don’t read each other’s filesystems, so with Boot Camp you’d have to jump through more hoops to read Windows files when you’re in OS X and vice versa.
    Either way, you need to go out and get Windows separately.

    (4) If you don’t want to get a Mac, I’ll second the people who said Lenovo Thinkpad and Toshiba Satellite. They seem to be the toughest aside from the more expensive hardened ones (like the Panasonic Toughbook).

    (5) Get an extended warranty! This is critical if you’ll be rough-housing this machine. It’s relatively easy to find a friend who can fix a desktop machine for you, given the parts, but laptops? Not so much. For a Mac, you can get extended warranty service from Apple. If you get a non-Mac, check out Circuit City. I’ve been happy with Circuit City’s extended warranty service on my Toshiba Satellite, which I’ve put through some serious abuse. (I imagine the manufacturer would also have extended warranty service.)

    (6) For random parts (more RAM, another monitor, etc) check out newegg.com. I’ve bought a lot of stuff from them; they have excellent service and excellent prices.

    (7) For the love of Bob, do not get Windows Vista.

54. I work as a computer tech, and my company partners with Dell. We also have all dells at home. So I’m gonna put my oar in on it:

    Dell phone tech support is awful, but their in-person support is fucking fantastic. Before I went into tech and learned how to do it myself, I had someone come to my house and redo my hardware. For free. They shipped me two new monitors (naturally I had to send the dead ones back, but still), the last of which was better than the one I started with. My partner loves his Inspiron B120, and the Inspirons we use at work (1100s, maybe?) are great..

    Now, the downs: DO NOT buy a used Dell laptop if they don’t still sell new ones of that model on the site unless it’s quite old. That will pretty much avoid the bad battery issueand some of the other nasties. Also, avoid any of the Inspiron models with 3-digit model numbers that start with 6 or 7. Especially the 700m – it’s evil.

    My company is considering not working with dell anymore because their corporate accounts people are total dickholes, but aside from that horrible 700m (and even that one, we got running properly with some babying), our dells are pretty good critters. And their Poweredge servers are sweet, not that you need to care 🙂

    I wouldn’t say Dell is better than the other ones people suggested, but I’d say don’t necessarily reject them out of hand if you see a good deal.

55. Dell is capable of customer service if you’re a big company throwing money at them. If you’re a consumer, less so.

    They’re also notorious for changing their components to be proprietary, so that instead of being able to go buy interchangeable PC parts, you have to shell out for special (expensive) DELL parts. Oh, and they did this for several years without admitting they did so.

    Plus Michael Dell is a big ol’ friend of the GOP.

    get a backpack for your laptop and wear it on both shoulders

    Better, a rolling laptop case so you don’t have to carry it at all. I’m a fan of Tutto, but they’re pricey.

56. I’d be “that guy”, but it’s been done. So all I have to say is: go small, if that appeals to you at all – getting an external monitor and keyboard can be very cheap. $20 for the keyboard and mouse. CRT monitors are really cheap, and even free if you don’t mind looking around on craigslist or whatever; even a flat panel monitor shouldn’t be *too* expensive, comparatively.

57. Dell Computers.

    So little and so much to say.

    Typical American business: money first, people last.

    Gosh, haven’t we first this before?

58. I got a 13″ MacBook with an academic discount, and even with the upgraded HD and RAM I got it for about $1300 and ended up with a free iPod nano out of the deal. They also have extremely good deals on factory refurbs, and you can get the AppleCare 3-year warranty on refurbs or academic discounts as well.

    I’ll also echo the wonders of Parallels… I have engineering software there just isn’t a good Mac equivalent for (and I can usually get the Windows versions for free from my professors). So I have all the plusses of a Mac and all the compatibility of vertically integrated software for Windows whenever I need it.

    The laptop is about 5lbs, and I carry it in my backpack everyday to and from campus. Easy peasy.

59. Just get a Sony VIAO and stop agonizing over the decision.

60. I’ll personally vouch for the IBM T60. Good price and works great with examsoft–none of those lame 99% freezes, if you know what I mean.

61. I would reccomend getting something that can get a free vista upgrade. And this is a good time to look, things are going on sale because Vista is going to be the newest thing. It’s like a Windows XP, or 2000 or whatever.

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