Off to college, laptop recommendation

My daughter is heading to college in the Fall and we're in the market for a laptop. We're looking for first-hand recommendations (based on your experience please, I can scan NewEgg / TigerDirect, and read reviews, I'm looking for someone here to tell me how they like theirs or which brands to avoid). I bought my son's MacBook from the University 3 years ago, paid almost 2grand, bought the extended warranty and the whole package. I'm not happy. He started having problems after the warranty and I replaced the battery already. I felt taken and paid a premium (because it was a Mac and was from the University PC Bookstore). I thought I'd take my chances with buying from a retailer I'm familiar with.

Univ. of MO, Columbia (MIZZOU) recommends:
minimum (good for 1 or 2 years):
XP & MS Office 2003
p4 3.0 GHz, 1G Ram, 80G HDD, 802.11 b/g, CD-RW

recommended (good for 3-4 years)
Vista & MS Office 2007
Core 2 Duo, 2+G Ram, 160+G HDD, 802.11 a/g, DVD-RW

Software (I think the Univ is providing this, but I'm checking):
Symantec AntiVirus Client, Cisco VPN, Power Archiver, Secure CRT/Secure FX, Spybot Search & Destroy, EndNote, Print Anywhere

Originally, I was considering a Netbook, but have now ruled that out.
I'd prefer to avoid Vista and go to Windows-7, is that even an option by August? (or would they offer an upgrade?)
What's a good Brand? HP, Dell, IBM, Gateway, Acer, MSI? (I use an IBM T61 at work and a Dell at home (about 3 years old) and have had good luck with them so far.

This one is TigerDirect's Top Seller:
HP Compaq Presario CQ60-249US Notebook PC - Intel Pentium Dual Core T3400 2.16GHz , 4GB, 250GB, DVDRW, 15.6" LCD, Vista Home Premium 64

And this one also looks like a very good deal:
HP Pavilion dv7-1243cl Refurb Notebook PC - AMD Turion X2 RM-72 2.1GHz, 4GB DDR2, 320GB, DVDRW, 17" WXGA+, Vista Home Premium 64-bit, Bronze

If set on Windows 7,
At last check,
Windows 7 to be released to manufacturers in July.

I generally stick with business models from HP.
Definitely not the consumer models.

IMHO, if you need reliability: IBM/Lenovo. (Get one with a fingerprint reader).

Windows 7 will hit retail shelves and start showing up on new PCs on October 22.

If I may.. I repair laptops all day long. I can tell you several to avoid for starters.

Acer.. number one no go piece of junk. If you want the worst quality components and a disposable laptop, you want an Acer. Otherwise, avoid them. Same goes for MSI. Gateway is owned by Acer. They're better but I don't give it long before Acer destroys them too. Emachines is also owned by Acer, but they're garbage.

Sony - overpriced, underspeced, horrible to get parts for them. Pretty, yes, but that's only a virtue when you're hanging them on the wall.

Lenovo - A cheap, chinese OEM that's destroying what's left of the IBM brand. With Lenovo battling it out with Acer, they've focused on cutting all the corners. Their most infamous fubar is soldering wires on the motherboard when they forget the trace in the design.

HP/Compaq's AMD based products are typically disasters. They underperform and are typically rather unreliable. HP adapters and powerjacks and the powerjack modules) are prone to failure. Previously they've had major problems with their motherboards, in particular the nVIDIA chipsets (as has Dell and Mac with the nVIDIA).

Toshiba Satellites are great if you don't mind having them in the shop all the time. Toshiba laptop drives are the worst laptop drives out there, as bad as the Hitachi drives in Lenovos.

There isn't an AMD based laptop out there that can compete with Intel's Centrino. They're cheaper, yes, but they run hot, slower and far less efficient than Centrinos.

For decent laptops I've found these:

Dell Studio
Toshiba Tecra
Asus
Fujitsu
HP Pavillion with the Intels.

Can't beat a Dell from my experience. See if you can get it with most of the bloatware missing, or uninstall it. If you're comfortable with installing an operating system, install Windows 7 RC and buy the final product in October. Otherwise, get XP and upgrade later. (Unless your daughter already uses Vista, it's not worth the learning curve for the next two months.)

Avoid Spybot, it's not as good as it used to be and slows things down too much. Symantec? Are they kidding? Get a REAL A/V....Avast, Avira, etc. I became intimately familiar with FGCU's intranet weaknesses every time my daughter brought her computer home on semester break. "Protected" by Norton, of course. They couldn't/wouldn't keep it updated fast enough to keep up with the students' torrent downloads, P2P file swaps and what-have-you. Don't expect Mizzou to be any more sanitary. You'll find the students know more about that intranet and the servers than the staff do.

Get as much CPU and the biggest hard drive for the money you want to spend. Don't sweat the RAM, you can usually get that from Newegg for less than the mfr will charge and when you do install as much as you can.

Edit: One other thing, partition the hard drive so that file storage for term papers and important stuff is separate from the OS. You can change the default location for Documents to go to the storage partition. I read that tip here years ago, in time for it to have saved my little girl's schoolwork twice when her OS was infected beyond recovery and I had to reinstall it.

MPTech--If you buy a laptop with Vista, starting this weekend you should be able to get a free update to Win7 when it comes out. Does Mizzou specify the version of Vista? I do not know how that correlates to the Win7 update version.

Lots of good info / feedback! As usual, now I'm overloaded with data and need to sort through it this weekend.

SirKenin: good info on what to avoid, this helps (I was already leary of Acer & MSI, you just confirmed it). I ways felt Sony was overpriced, but pretty good none-the-less.

Welshjim: MIZZOU recommends Vista (no version specified), but they say XP will work too. Windows 7 was just my thought, but since I'm sending it off with her and can't support her, I'll probably stick with Vista (seems like that's what comes with most of them).

I asked her what she thought about the HP Presario in my original link, and she asked if the 7lbs was too heavy (she should have seen my first work laptop 15 years ago, had to be 12 - 15lbs!)

I also saw this one:
Gateway T-1424u Laptop Computer - AMD Athlon 64 TK-57 1.9GHz, 3GB DDR2, 320GB HDD, DVDRW, 14.1" WXGA, Vista Home Premium (and only 5.5lbs)
I had very good luck with my first Gateway, but that was 10+ years ago. But, the Customer Reviews all seem to be Excellent!
She told me she likes her friend's new MacBook, but I can't say I'm impressed with my son's (3 years old) and he told me last weekend he wants a PC. (he's doing a Summer Intership, and the company gave him a new laptop (Lenovo x61) and he likes it much better than the Mac. He's had Desktop PCs for years and just prefers them over the Mac.

MPTech--It is a free upgrade to Win7 when it comes out in the fourth quarter. You have nothing to lose and all to gain by waiting to buy until the upgrade is part of the deal.

I agree with SirKenin completely ! and that too as per my experience with a few laptops.

I had a Compaq laptop (bought for $ 1100) long back which had AMD 64 on nVidia mainboard. And the board stopped working in the "13"th month as if it was timed with a timebomb. Repairs would have been $ 600 that time so its still lying around :( Someday, I will toss it out of window if I could.

Although I am fanatic about AMD systems for desktops because I feel they have better video onboard chipsets, I would like to buy intel systems for laps.

As of now, theres no choice but to get vista installed on the machines, correct me if wrong.

The most important fact for me is ----- buy Asus because of its warranty. One year accidental warranty + 2 years full warranty. Which other manufacturer provides two year warranty ? My nephew bought ASUS and he is v happy about it.

My daughter attended the Freshmen orientation at MIZZOU (University of Missouri, Columbia) and talked to the guy in the bookstore / PC / tech department. He recommended a Dell Inspiron 14 and she seems to like it (although fashion / style is more of a priority to her, but I'm looking at the bits & tech side).
Looks like there are 3 basic models:
Inspiron 14 (2gb, 160gb HDD)- $449
Inspiron 14 / 3GB Memory! Upgraded Wireless Card! (3gb, 250gb HDD)- - $599
Inspiron 14 / Core 2 Duo Technology! 320GB Hard Drive (4gb, 320gb HDD)- - $749

Del Inspiron 14


I'm leaning to the middle of the road here, with 3gb & 250gb. This should keep her satisfied for her (hopefully) 4 years of college.

comments / suggestions?

Vista: D.I.Y. 4 GB memory.

I don't mind the Inspiron, really, but there's a secret to buying a Dell.. They overcharge for ALL their upgrades. That's how they make their money, upsells and finance charges. Their upsell tactics are brilliant (and, incidentally, have gotten them sued).

The way to win with a Dell purchase is to buy the least Dell possible. Buy the least RAM and upgrade it yourself. Shinma is right on with 4GB and Vista, although 3GB will suffice. Don't buy any additional upgrades from them. Nothing. Get them all from Newegg.

Well, after reading the reviews and looking at every website my daughter could find, I ordered a PINK Dell Inspiron 14 last night (with a built-in web-cam, so I can see her smiling face as she spends all of my money in college!)

I think she'll be happy and it looks like a good product as a reasonable price. right around $600. (I wish my PCs were that fast!)