School Laptop

[Gator!]

hey guys,

well im in sort of a predicament a good one i guess but none the less im going to have about 1000-1200$ to burn on a laptop for school....i have been mulling it over the past month on which to get and i have settled on the MSI GT627 http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152095....i was going to go with the gateway p7805u but i wanted something that had more portability so i chose the msi...

but i hear that Core i5 laptops will be hitting the market in Q4 2009 which is october? and well this will be my freshman year of college and i guess i could spend a few months with out a laptop but should i just get the msi in august or september or risk it and wait till the core i5's come out; do you guys think 1000-1200 would be enough for an i5 laptop that would preform similiar or better to the MSI?

help me out with the decision!

[ILikeCosmosS]

probably the entry level i5 chip will be in that range and since it is a quad it probably will be expensive but i would wait just in case

[Gator!]

no, the core i5 cpu's for the mobile market will also come in dual core flavors.....so i thought...

[shoota]

My 2 cents.. That lappy is pretty darn good for the dollar. I would be suprised if you could find an i5 laptop that performed on par for the same money.

[shoota]

My 2 cents.. That lappy is pretty darn good for the dollar. I would be suprised if you could find an i5 laptop that performed on par for the same money.

[Gator!]

Yeah but do you know how much they will run?

[shoota]

nope.

[Freak]

I wouldn't wait... Usually there is more of a price jump than a performance jump between laptop generations. Also you don't want any surprises once you're already away from home and at a new school.

[GeorgeStorm]

I wouldnt wait
I mean, as we know nothing of how the laptops are going to perform, and how much they will cost
You dont want to risk it, and find out you have to buy the laptop you were going to originally, since you will have been without one for a month or 2,

[xlazyx]

getting high end laptops are a no-no if they arent big cause the oem's put all this hot hardware inside and it overheats like no tommorow

i know from experiance -_- stupid alienware

[ACE76]

Do you have to get a gaming laptop?...always seemed opposite of what a "college" laptop should be...if you decide to drop the videocard you could basically get an awesome laptop for less than $1000...probably like $500-$600 and use the rest of the money on a good LCD monitor for when your at home....Best Buy sells the new Dell Studio XPS 13 inch laptop with a 2.4ghz Core 2 Duo, 4gb DDR3and a WD Black 320gb HD for like $899 which uses a Nvidia graphics chip but not one that will game very well. It does, however perform very well and has a lighted keyboard....I bought one and swapped the HD for a SSD and with Win7 this laptop seems insanely fast.

[Martijn]

Let me give you my POV:

I'm currently studying CS at Delft university of technology and I can safely say that having a gaming laptop is USELESS. Nearly everyone here uses either a netbook or a standard notebook. The few people with gamer laptops that I know of all use the university computers and take their laptops to uni rarely, since they're way too big and impractical.

You've chosen a 15.4" model which is fine, but you don't want anything bigger. I myself am using a HP 8510W business notebook. It has a T9300 (2.5Ghz), 4GB and a quadro FX570 which basically is a 8600GT. My LCD also has a resolution of 1920x1200. Whenever I play a game (quite often actually) the FX570 suits me just fine. It runs every game fine if you accept lower settings. Anything with a 9600GT or a 4670 will be just fine right now. Trust me, you'll want to have more battery life when in college. At first I was sceptical about the specs of this laptop(I also wanted a gaming laptop), but I have come to see that it is utterly useless. Portability and battery life during lectures is way more important than a few extra FPS during the relatively few moments you'll be gaming.

I also bought the spare 12-cell battery that I can lock underneath my laptop. It is quite nice having a decent laptop and still being able to do 6-9 hours on a battery load with wifi on and the screen on maximum, rather than having to run from socket to socket all the time ;)

[perkam]

Get this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152108

Save your money and get a spare 9 or 12 cell battery and you're done.

The Core i5 laptops will be 2C/4T so they will be expensive.

Perkam

[Martijn]

Get this: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152108

Save your money and get a spare 9 or 12 cell battery and you're done.

The Core i5 laptops will be 2C/4T so they will be expensive.

Perkam

Seconded :up:

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

at least wait until 2-3 weeks before school starts to buy the computer. no point in getting it now.

[Gator!]

yeah well i plan on doing that anyway....but the thing is i have found out i will have money to burn i have college paid for already and will be recieving 5350$ on a pell grant...as well as another 3 grand for scholorships....so i was thinking of getting this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834152099&Tpk=MSI%20GT627-218us it has a 9 cell and i will probably buy another 9 cell to carry with me.....but where could i get a 12 cell battery?

[Gator!]

or should i just go with that msi you listed? i mean i can get the GT627 laptop for about 1 grand i estimated with microsoft cashback...and what about windows 7?