now that I can see the hard drive of my current laptop during operation I think that's a sign for me to at last look for a new one. the old XPS M1210 served me well but it's leaning toward retirement, particularly with several heat-induced hard drive issues which cause my computer to take like 10 minutes to boot. I'm a student but also a computer power-user so I have had a tough time finding a laptop that looks like it will fit my needs. here are some pointers:
Durable. this thing has to take a beating. it goes with me to school every day, through 7 classes bouncing around in my bag.
Easy to transport. note that this does not necessarily mean light; but I am not looking to be carrying around a bundle of bricks. my shoulder gets sore enough with a 4.5 pound laptop, BUT I will not have as many books next year so the weight can go up. this probably means 14 in. screen size maximum, but if there's a 15 incher that's really good I won't pass it up just because of the screen. anything up to 6 pounds should be alright.
Reasonably powerful. the majority of the power should be processor/RAM focused. discrete graphics are nice but I don't need them, if it's got them great, I can play portal on my laptop woohoo. that's all I would play on it anyway.but it's got to be able to easily handle photoshop. quad core muscle unnecessary, but I don't want to sit and wait and wait and wait for filters to go. an average dual core should be fine.
aside from that, open ended. I will probably be installing windows 7 with fedora as a dual boot; if not I will be installing fedora as a primary. no macs please, personal preference blah blah. as far as price, $850 is a solid range to aim for but $1000 tops; note however that I am looking to get a lot of bang for my buck, so if that means heading to the upper end of that range I'd be willing, so long as the price/performance ratio is better.
bonus if you can find one with good speakers
Durable. this thing has to take a beating. it goes with me to school every day, through 7 classes bouncing around in my bag.
Easy to transport. note that this does not necessarily mean light; but I am not looking to be carrying around a bundle of bricks. my shoulder gets sore enough with a 4.5 pound laptop, BUT I will not have as many books next year so the weight can go up. this probably means 14 in. screen size maximum, but if there's a 15 incher that's really good I won't pass it up just because of the screen. anything up to 6 pounds should be alright.
Reasonably powerful. the majority of the power should be processor/RAM focused. discrete graphics are nice but I don't need them, if it's got them great, I can play portal on my laptop woohoo. that's all I would play on it anyway.but it's got to be able to easily handle photoshop. quad core muscle unnecessary, but I don't want to sit and wait and wait and wait for filters to go. an average dual core should be fine.
aside from that, open ended. I will probably be installing windows 7 with fedora as a dual boot; if not I will be installing fedora as a primary. no macs please, personal preference blah blah. as far as price, $850 is a solid range to aim for but $1000 tops; note however that I am looking to get a lot of bang for my buck, so if that means heading to the upper end of that range I'd be willing, so long as the price/performance ratio is better.
bonus if you can find one with good speakers
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