USN students -which laptop is suitable for usn network ?

[hope_611]

I read all the discussion about laptop on the furum. But for USN school which one is suitable for the school network ? or which one is good from your experience ?
thanks .

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[JTD1972]

I read all the discussion about laptop on the furum. But for USN school which one is suitable for the school network ? or which one is good from your experience ?
thanks .

In all honesty, the best computer for USN is probably the cheapest one you can buy. I bought what they recommended and now I'm left with a middle of the road Dell. It's a good laptop, but it's overkill for school and not enough hard drive for my own personal use (ie. music, pictures, etc.). Basically all you use your computer for at USN is to download Word documents, PowerPoint documents, and check email. You really don't even need a laptop. If you have internet access at your house and a desktop, you can download all your lectures and print them at home. This is what I do now anyway, because there's only two printers at school and it takes forever to get your lecture notes. Also there have been rumors going around that the school will start charging you for the amount of paper you use. If I could do it over I'd either get a real good desktop (and a ghetto laptop) or get a laptop with 120 gigs of hard drive (or higher if possible) and a DVD burner because I have a Digital video camcorder and I'd like to upload my movies and burn them to DVDs. Right now I have a $1600 laptop that can’t burn my home movies (only has 30 gigs and no DVD burner). Basically I have a $1600 word processor.

 

[hope_611]

JTD1972, Thank you for the info.

 

[LVPharm]

Any laptop with wireless internet, a decent cd burner, and a large hard drive will do. I believe the school still has a license for Microsoft Office, so you probably don't need to purchase this for yourself, just install it from the server when you get to school. If you intend to bring the laptop around with you, I'd go with smaller, lighter variants. If not, it'll just be a big paperweight and you'll eventually just leave it at home.

Believe it or not, you may eventually need a laptop (or you'll wish you had one). I've been to two rotation sites that did not have desktops/laptops readily available for my presentations, and didn't even have an lcd projector. I had everyone gathered around the table looking at my powerpoint slides as I presented. I suppose I could have scrounged up a computer from another department and/or borrowed a friend's laptop, but it would have been a hassle.

 

[ZpackSux]

You can get a Dell. Dell has 2 lines, Inspiron and Latitude. Inspiron tends to be larger and bulkier..for home use. The Latitude line (slightly more expensive) tends to be the Laptop of choice for the business world(lighter).

I have both..and they both work well. Both are equipped with DVD burner, Centrino(for longer battery life compared to Pentium 4) 512 RAM, 80GB hard drive.... built-in wireless card.

I paid $1300 for the Inspiron (larger and better to watch movies on) and $1600 for the Latitude. Just a month ago, I helped a friend buy Inspiron 6000 with Centrino, 80GB Hardrive, Wireless card, for $1000. No DVD burner but DVD player.

Can't go wrong with Dell.

 

[ZpackSux]

You can get a Dell. Dell has 2 lines, Inspiron and Latitude. Inspiron tends to be larger and bulkier..for home use. The Latitude line (slightly more expensive) tends to be the Laptop of choice for the business world(lighter).

I have both..and they both work well. Both are equipped with DVD burner, Centrino(for longer battery life compared to Pentium 4) 512 RAM, 80GB hard drive.... built-in wireless card.

I paid $1300 for the Inspiron (larger and better to watch movies on) and $1600 for the Latitude. Just a month ago, I helped a friend buy Inspiron 6000 with Centrino, 80GB Hardrive, Wireless card, for $1000. No DVD burner but DVD player.

Can't go wrong with Dell.

 

[JTD1972]

Believe it or not, you may eventually need a laptop (or you'll wish you had one).

Sorry LVPharm, forgot about 3rd year rotations. I'm just kind of mad I spent so much money for a laptop I only brought to school for the first week of class. I figured I'd be using it everyday for lecture. I never knew it would become my own personal computer.

The Latitude line (slightly more expensive) tends to be the Laptop of choice for the business world(lighter).

I also have a Dell Latitude D505. Like I said earlier, it's a great laptop, but I wish I knew when I bought it that I’d be using it 98% of the time as my personal computer. For a few hundred dollars more I could have upgraded to a DVD burner, larger hard drive, more RAM, etc, but instead I went with the school's recommendation. Now it would cost too much to do these upgrades. I guess it's better to either go all out or super cheap. The school's recommendations for a computer are overkill for what you actually use the computer for.

 

[LVPharm]

Sorry LVPharm, forgot about 3rd year rotations. I'm just kind of mad I spent so much money for a laptop I only brought to school for the first week of class. I figured I'd be using it everyday for lecture. I never knew it would become my own personal computer.

I also have a Dell Latitude D505. Like I said earlier, it's a great laptop, but I wish I knew when I bought it that I’d be using it 98% of the time as my personal computer. For a few hundred dollars more I could have upgraded to a DVD burner, larger hard drive, more RAM, etc, but instead I went with the school's recommendation. Now it would cost too much to do these upgrades. I guess it's better to either go all out or super cheap. The school's recommendations for a computer are overkill for what you actually use the computer for.

That's the problem with laptops. If you would ever conceivably decide to use it later as your primary computer, you better get it loaded with what you need...aftermarket components are tough and expensive to find. Dell seems to have a fair amount of stuff available on eBay, but if you get a no-name or more obscure laptop (like a Fujitsu), good luck getting that needed component for an upgrade. RAM can always be gotten for a fair price from www.crucial.com , and hard drives can be gotten elsewhere if you have the specs for your notebook (the right size). Video cards tend to be proprietary, or worse...the graphics processor is not a card at all, and is integrated onto your motherboard. That's part of the reason a laptop sucks for gaming.

Otherwise, if all you need it for is a bit of web surfing, checking email, grabbing lecture materials off the server and printing them, and making powerpoint presentations, you don't need to go for a higher end, "desktop replacement" notebook. Get a lighter weight Centrino, and your back can thank me later Get a good optical drive (minimum CD-R/CD-RW, but a DVD burner is great for compiling gigs of data). Get a larger hard drive (> 60 gigs), and a minimum of 512 MB of RAM.

 

[SomeGuy]

The video card is ALWAYS integrated into the mainboard of a laptop.

Most laptops are only made by a few companies. Most companies don't even make their own laptops. Most laptops are equally upgradeable, name brand or not. By buying a name brand, you're paying for the support, not the quality (except for maybe IBMs).

You can either go for a heavy, powerful, big screen, low battery life "desktop replacement system", or a light, weak, somewhat smaller screen, long battery life expensive "notebook" system.

You can always later on add more RAM, usually put in a faster processor, put in a bigger hard drive and upgrade the CD/DVD drive.

Dell sometimes has cheap $750 laptops, but they usually sell out in only a few hours.

Get a laptop with 802.11a/b/g support, 60gb+ hard drive, large screen & 512mb RAM, in my opinion, but your needs may vary.

Also, keep in mind that your school probably has an educational deal with a manufacturer for name brand laptops at a discount and tons of software makers have much cheaper "academic versions", so buy software on-campus, not from the laptop maker.

The most expensive thing to upgrade is the hard drive (everyone wants more, and you have to replace your old one). The cheapest is RAM (Since you are adding, not replacing and the slot is user-accessible). Luckily, external USB/Firewire hard drives are rather cheap, so just rotating through your music/video content is very possible.

Don't break the LCD, they can be _very_ expensive to replace (I'm currently selling a used one from a broken laptop for US$230+).

 

[LVPharm]

The video card is ALWAYS integrated into the mainboard of a laptop.

My Inspiron 8200 from a few years ago had video that was not integrated into the motherboard...it was on it's own little daughterboard or card, and was therefore upgradeable. I was able to replace it with a better card (from Nvidia to ATI) taken from a system pull on eBay. It was proprietary, and the only other place to get it was from Dell's spare parts department. But for most systems (like those built to the Centrino specs), video is integrated...soldered onto the motherboard.

But that's not really all that important to the OP of this thread


As far as USN's network is concerned, most of the access points that are located in proximity to the classrooms are 802.11b. There may be a few 802.11g access points elsewhere in the building. If you run across a laptop that has 802.11 a/b/g and won't set you back too much $$, then go for it, otherwise 802.11 b/g will suffice at USN. I'd take a standard screen size (15") rather than the larger widescreen LCD's found today. The desks at USN are much too small to accomodate the larger display...those notebooks tend to have wider keyboards too...takes up too much real estate, and adds too much weight.

 

[hope_611]

THANK YOU YOU ALL FOR THE INFO. I appreciate .
I have been waiting for the coupon on Dell web site.