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